Garbage In, Garbage Out

If the NCAA cares about having a credible "spokesman" to answer for the inevitable NCAA "snubs" on Selection Sunday, then I would say they need to seriously upgrade from Gene Smith's performance.

Not only did he specifically NOT answer any of the key questions, but he offered pure gibberish, sprinkled with things that were factually incorrect ("there were a lot of good teams this year" = wrong!).

Here's a transcript of Smith's sit down with ESPN's George Smith. I've helpfully boldfaced some of the more ridiculous things he said.

GEORGE SMITH: UAB and VCU. How did the committee make the case for those two teams?

GENE SMITH: Yeah, when you look at them, and again I know people are tired of hearing it, but we uh, always look at how ya did, and wheredya play, and those things. And when you pull up their resume, and you compare them against everyone else, and look at how well a job they did in the regular season. They deserved to be in.

And keep in mind, there’s 10 committee members, and we all have different criteria, you know there’s 15 quantifiable pieces of criteria that we look at. We get information from the regional coaches advisory committee, and, then we all watch teams throughout the year, and get feedback from that perspective.

So, when you compared them against everyone else across the country, we just felt they were, er, earned the right to be in the field.

GEORGE SMITH: Colorado is a team that is not in, 6 wins against top-50 teams, a big win against Texas, what more could Colorado have done?

GENE SMITH: Well, you know, they they had a great year. Obviously, they’re a good basketball team. You know, three great wins against Kansas State who are in the field and uh, but, when you look again, from the beginning of their schedule to the end, and look at their non-conference from the beginning, that included their conference schedule, and compare ‘em against everyone else, uh, they just didn’t get enough votes to get in.

And that’s the hard part, when you only have 37 at large slots that you control and most people think we have 68, but you only have 37 slots, and this year, there are a lot of good teams out there, moreso than previous years for me.

GEORGE SMITH: The field expanded to 68, and in theoretically, maybe, that was going to make things easier, but I heard you say earlier it made it harder. Why?

GENE SMITH: Yeah yeah, uh, we picked up three more at large teams, obviously, and I just think it’s this particular year. I think coaches across the country have done a great job. And and, then you have teams that are senior dominated, with a lot of role players that have developed over the years, and and they’re very good teams and so, we had a lot more teams – in my view – uh, that really had a decent case to be an at large team, and so, we just didn’t have enough slots.