March Madness: NCAA basketball committee chair says Rutgers basketball is part of the reason why Seton Hall didn’t make the NCAA Tournament

Rutgers basketball played a major spoiler in Seton Hall’s season, it turns out.

Rutgers basketball played a major role in ruining Seton Hall’s NCAA Tournament resume. So says Charles McClelland in explaining why Seton Hall won’t be in March Madness this year despite a pretty solid season.

McClelland, who serves as the chair of the Division I basketball committee, believes that Seton Hall’s loss in December to Rutgers held back the Big East program from being an NCAA Tournament team.

Seton Hall took a record of 20-12 (13-7 Big East) into ‘Selection Sunday.’ They were fourth in the conference. The Big East only had three representatives selected for this year’s NCAA Tournament, a major shock given the strength at the top of the conference.

And given their Quad 1 and Quad 2 record, Seton Hall has a very convincing argument to be in the NCAA Tournament. Instead, they will play in the NIT.

In mid-December, Rutgers played arguably their most complete game of the season up to that point in a 70-63 win at Seton Hall. In that game, Rutgers was without influential guard Jeremiah Williams and yet still managed to beat a strong Seton Hall team.

Williams scored 12.2 points per game and shot 44.4 percent from the floor this past season for Rutgers.

McClelland cites that loss as part of the committee’s reasoning in leaving Seton Hall out of the NCAA Tournament this year:

 

The committee drew heavy criticism for not including Indiana State, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh and St. John’s among other programs. The criticism for Seton Hall’s exclusion was also noticeable but not as loud as with some of the aforementioned programs.

Their Net Ranking (67) likely played a role in this lack of criticism.

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McClelland is a neat part of history. The commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, McClelland is the first to ever hold his role as chair of the basketball committee “and to be from a historically Black college, university or league.”