Florida Atlantic will be in the Final Four. The Owls beat Kansas State in the Elite Eight on Saturday to make a very improbable journey to college basketball’s ultimate weekend. However, don’t confuse improbability with flukishness. This was unlikely, but it wasn’t a fluke. This is a really good team in a college basketball season which lacked a dominant heavyweight team such as 2012 Kentucky or 2009 North Carolina. From parity emerged an FAU team capable of making a deep run.
We have to point out that Florida Atlantic’s schedule doesn’t look very impressive — not before the NCAA Tournament. The Owls had one notable nonconference win against Florida, and this season, the Gators weren’t very good. They were an NIT team which did not come particularly close to making the NCAA Tournament. The Gators were not on the NCAA Tournament bubble in the last two weeks of the regular season. They were eliminated from NCAA Tournament at-large consideration before the end of February.
The reality surrounding teams such as FAU — in leagues with the low national profile of Conference USA — is that high majors won’t voluntarily play them. Not consistently, at any rate, and not often enough to make a difference. Coaches, when they schedule games, are looking for paycheck games against cupcakes or a few high-profile games against other high-major programs. It’s really hard for a team such as FAU to get inside the door and play NCAA Tournament-level teams from the Power Five conferences.
Put this reality up against another reality: The Big Ten has been horrible in recent NCAA Tournaments. The Big Ten has put 26 teams in the last three NCAA Tournaments and placed just four of those 26 teams in the Sweet 16, only one in the Elite Eight. The Big Ten gets so many chances to win NCAA Tournament games and has won very few games over the past three years.
Hmmm.
The little guys get few chances and are operating at a disadvantage, and yet — in FAU’s case — still break through and win.
The big guys get lots of chances and are operating at an advantage, and yet lose quite consistently in March.
There needs to be a way to take Power Five teams — including USC — which lose early in the NCAA Tournament and put them up against the FAUs and Oral Robertses and Murray States of the college basketball world.
Maybe create an eight- or 16-team group event each November or December in which eight Power Five losers from the first round of the previous season’s NCAA Tournament have to play a top-two finisher from a mid-major league.
This would be a made-for-TV collection of games which makes ESPN and Fox some money. It would also create games the coaches (schools) don’t schedule. It would be a lottery system with eight teams being drawn to play eight opponents. This way, we are guaranteed to get games in which the little guy gets a chance to beat the big guy. The big guy gets a chance for a quality win against the little guy, without having to commit to a specific opponent in a specific scheduling (and financial) arrangement.
Maybe this idea isn’t perfect, but it’s the kind of concept which needs to make its way into major college basketball.
FAU versus USC on a neutral court in December? Sign me up. Sign the Owls up, too. They would like it.
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