In true NCAA fashion you penalize how you look down the stretch a.k.a. the “eye test” but you ignore the last few games of the conference tournament. You also say it’s due to an injury of a key player yet you ignore a lineup change in the conference tourney that finally adjusts for the loss.
Yes we looked awful in our 2-7 stretch in the 7 losses, but it’s not like Pike wasn’t making changes trying to adjust for Mag game in game out.
The simple fact is the committee is too lazy to work hard the last week and have to adjust based on what is an additional 2-4 games of conference tournaments. So rather than put in the time they ignore them so they can schmooze and party and celebrate their “hard work”.
The “eye test” if you include the conference tournament shows without a doubt we are a not only a tourney team but back to our early season form with Simpson at the 1.
The NCAA continues to shows the inability to be anything other than a total joke of an organization with the inability to do anything the right way that cares nothing about anything other than $.
You are correct totally but a correction we were 2-6 after Mag injury not 2-7.
The Committee chair citing the team didn’t look the same post Mag injury was something we can get some agreement with but then Pike makes the switch to start Derek and he totally energized the team and we get our swagger back. We didn’t beat a lousy team in Michigan but a true bubble team that was really thought to be playing better down the stretch and won by double digits and we must have broke a record holding them to 1 fg in the first 19 minutes of the second half.
Then we are leading Purdue , something few teams have done all year and it is a 1 point game at the half and we go toe to toe with a team the Committee seeded #1. It was obvious to anyone that watched that Rutgers got its swagger and tenacity back and was dangerous and could win 2 games in the NCAA’s . As Matt Painter said “ Rutgers is clearly an NCAA team “.
So the Committee started their meeting on Wednesday and decided not to watch Thursday or Friday’s games in the tourney. They literally have 1 job to do and they stopped doing it .
Even more curious , they cited our stumble post Mag and I think they meant not only the Minnesota loss but losing 3 home games in a row to Nebraska , Michigan and Northwestern , and looking offensively non functional against Michigan and Northwestern . Rutgers losing 3 home games at the RAC let alone 1 was a signal that things were not right with the team , so it wasn’t only the Minnesota loss . Their laziness in not finding out what happened in a road game at Minnesota where we dominated the game by 7-14 points and up 10 with 1:15 left and a miracle had to happen for the loss on a buzzer beater is more failure on the job.
Even more curious was the 2 wins were road wins at Wisconsin where we played without Caleb and Mag , against a team that was definitely on the bubble and desperate for the win, and we pulled it out , Then at Penn State where we pulled out the comeback , the 2nd time we beat them , the first one in dominate fashion , and another team that was desperate for the win because they were also on the bubble ( Then proceeded to win 5 straight games and take Purdue to the wire and ended with a 10 seed)
Their criteria the Committee used to value or they previously made clear that they really wanted to see was road wins. How about 2 road wins against desperate bubble teams that had stellar home records all year . Again ignored or just lazy sloppy work and a failure at their jobs.
Finally to ignore total body of work , another talking point of the Committee every year and apply it to us differently than Vanderbilt who had won 10/12 in the SEC , one of the hottest High Major Conference teams in the Country , is baffling and inconsistent.
At the end of the day , their stated criteria was not followed and they failed miserably at their job. They snubbed Rutgers the worst , Vandy as well and Clemson. They didn’t compare resumes of the 3 teams they left out compared to teams they put in and conveniently ignored 20-30 point losses as not being a bad loss because it happened in conference . Again , illogical , lazy , hypocritical and a failure on their part.
