Columnist Steve Carp: Tourney selection not as easy as RPI

Steve Carp's college basketball column appears Fridays. Reach him at 259-4087 or [email protected].

Allow C.M. Newton to clear up a few misconceptions regarding the selection process for the NCAA Tournament. Given that the Kentucky athletic director has been the chairman of the men's basketball selection committee for the past six years, Newton's not about to lead you astray.

First, he would like everyone to quit taking the Ratings Percentage Index lists that are posted on the Internet as gospel. He doesn't look at the ratings for any more than his own amusement.

Second, it helps to be playing well at the end of the year. But if you struggled early, it won't necessarily be held against you.

And if you've done well away from home, that's a big plus. So is winning your conference regular season title, although conference affiliation won't help you a whole lot in the end.

Finally, history doesn't play a part in the selection process. Ultimately, it's going to come down to whether your team is good enough to compete in the field of 64.

"What I tell coaches is, 'Don't leave it up to the committee. Win your conference tournament,' " Newton said.

The 30 automatic bids come into play when the committee has to sit down and seed the 64-team field. That has enough controversy on its own. But it's the at-large berths that everyone is worried about, especially in conferences such as the Big Ten, the Big East and the Pac-10, where expanded multiple bids are anticipated.

There has been talk the Big Ten will get as many as eight teams in. Newton said when it comes time to at-large bids, conference affiliation gets thrown out the window. The Midwestern Collegiate, which got three teams in last year, has just as good a shot as the ACC or the Big 12.

"If 10 come from one conference, so be it, although I might add that's unlikely to happen," Newton said.

"When I go to vote on marginal teams, I put my coaching hat on and say, 'Who would I not want to play?' And then I rank them accordingly," Newton said. "The other thing I look at is how tough are they on the road? Since this is a tournament played at neutral sites, you're going to be playing away from home. So to me, how you play on the road counts."

As for the RPI, Newton warned that the list the committee gets is not the same that everyone can view on the Internet. And while he admitted the RPI is a valuable tool, it is not the ultimate factor in deciding who's in and who's out.

"What the RPI does is it lets us compare the teams statistically," he said. "We don't have a cutoff line where if you're at a certain number you're in and a certain number you're out.

"We won't get the RPI until the Monday of the week we start the selection process," he said. "Those are the only numbers that matter to us."

That would be good news to a team like New Mexico, which is 20-6 overall, ranked No. 23 in the nation but owns an RPI of 106. However, history has shown that no team rated higher than 69 has ever been given an at-large berth.

Newton said the toughest job these days is the seeding and bracketing. He gets tons of complaints from fans wanting to know why their team gets shipped out to a different region even though it has a comparable seed to another team in their own area.

"The ideal thing would be to keep each team in their natural geographic area so their fans don't have to travel far," he said. "But because this is a national tournament and we have to balance the brackets, you can't do that.

"The key thing we've got to do is get those teams seeded properly and bracketed properly. And I've got to tell you, it's getting more difficult to seed them when they all look alike."

Just because you've been to the Big Dance before doesn't do a lot for you when it comes to be judged for this year's tournament.

"Unfortunately, there's not a lot of sentiment on picking the field," he said. "Arizona won it two years ago, but they don't have the same team they did then, so you judge them on what they've done this year.

"We don't base our selections on the past. We're concentrating on what's going on right now."

Newton didn't want to talk about specific conferences or individual teams at this point because there's still two weeks remaining in the regular season and conference tournament play looms on the horizon.

"It's too early to speculate on that," Newton said. "There's a lot of basketball left to be played before we sit down to do our jobs."

The committee made a video that was distributed to coaches explaining the complicated process. Newton called it a step in the right direction in an attempt to educate. He knows there still will be confusion and frustration come Selection Sunday on March 7, but he's glad the effort's being made to dispel the myths and rumors.

"Ultimately, we want to choose the best 64 teams," he said. "That's always the goal."

* AROUND THE WAC: UNLV isn't the only team playing shorthanded these days. Wyoming will be without starting power forward LeDarion Jones for its crucial Mountain Division contest with Colorado State Saturday in Laramie. Jones has a sprained left knee. Both teams are 5-6 and the loser could be in danger of missing next month's conference tournament.

San Jose State got some good news as Ben Sanders returned to practice Tuesday after missing the last two weeks with a broken arm. How much the former UNLV guard will be able to play is up in the air. The Spartans are battling to secure a spot among the top six in the Pacific Division and have a big game against BYU Saturday in San Jose. Sanders, the team's leading scorer at 14 a game, would be a big help if he were available.

And while Utah has all but locked up the Pacific title, the battle for second is heating up. UTEP faces New Mexico Saturday in a showdown at The Pit. The second-place Miners are 8-3 with the Lobos right behind at 7-4, along with Fresno State, which beat BYU Thursday.

"It's a game we've gotta have," UNM coach Dave Bliss said. "You don't want to have to come to Vegas early and play an extra game (in the WAC tournament)."

* THE FRAUD FIVE: This week's theme is 'M' as in misguided, misplaced and mistaken, though not misunderstood. Here are five M's that have melted in your hand as well as your mouth:

1. Minnesota (15-8) -- This is the only poll Gophers should be in.

2. Memphis (12-12) -- And they were a preseason top-25 team?

3. Miami, Ohio (19-5) -- RedHawks couldn't handle success.

4. Massachusetts (11-14) -- Even NIT seems out of reach.

5. Missouri (18-6) -- Antlers have someone else to boo -- their own.

* HOOP DU JOUR: In the hot Big Ten, no one is hotter than Ohio State. The Buckeyes are making a strong push for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament after downing Indiana Wednesday at Assembly Hall, 69-67. At 20-6, OSU is looking like a potential No. 2 seed somewhere, or more likely, a solid No. 3. Michigan State still is the top dog in the Big Ten, but Jim O'Brien has done a heck of a coaching job in Columbus. He deserves some national Coach of the Year consideration along with Auburn's Cliff Ellis, Wisconsin's Dick Bennett as well as Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and Utah's Rick Majerus. ... That win over Stanford last week may have been enough for Southern California to secure an NIT bid. Had the Trojans been able to knock off UCLA Wednesday, they would have locked up an NIT spot. At 12-11 overall, Henry Bibby has to make sure his team has a winning record to ge t the call from Jack Powers in New York. ... Everyone is calling the College of Charleston fraudulent, even though John Kresse's team is 24-2, undefeated i

n the Southern Conference, ranked 18th in the nation and owns wins over North Carolina, UMass, Delaware and George Mason. But come tournament time, nobody will want to play the Cougars. Don't look for them to be a 14 or 15 seed on Selection Sunday. They'll be more like an 8 or a 9.

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