Mountain West coaches not pleased with polls

[Bravesfan]

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/73559/mwc-coaches-not-pleased-with-polls

I can't say I blame them, but I do have a problem with our "friend" Larry Eustachy and this gem from him:

Colorado State coach Larry Eustachy actually went all the way in on the Missouri Valley, vis a vis Creighton and Wichita State.

“In this polling,” Eustachy said, “and this has nothing to do with us, but in this polling, maybe you can explain this to me … How do you explain Wichita State’s amount of points in the media polling, and the coaches polling? And Creighton’s?”

“Do teams all of a sudden, once they’re in, they’re in?” Eustachy asked. “And everybody just kind of punches their ticket … or does what a team does week to week mean anything?”

Larry, why do WSU and CU get so many points in the polling? Because the are good and they beat people, that's why! Plus they are the class of the Valley while your teams are beating each other up. That said though, I can understand why he's a little miffed that more MWC teams aren't ranked. He has the right gripe, but the wrong argument.

Steve Alford on the other hand is completely correct with this statement:

“I’m amazed with the rankings,” Alford said. “Just looking at the rankings and we only have one team ranked. To be the third best league in the country (based on the latest RPI rankings) and only have one ranked team is bothersome, it really is.”

“Unfortunately when we do what other leagues are doing -- beat up on each other -- we seem to be penalized more,” Alford said, adding he thinks there are four teams in the MWC that are deserved of being ranked.

He is absolutely 100% right! Because we all know that the Big Ten will have more teams ranked in the top 25 at the end of the season than the MWC even after the Big Ten teams beat each other up as well. And one of the biggest reasons for that aside from the obligatory BCS bias is that the Big Ten teams (and most BCS teams for that matter) are given a head start in the rankings at the beginning of the year in terms of how high they are ranked versus most non-BCS teams. This is why I always have been for no polls of any kind until January at the earliest. This eliminates this bias that does skew public perception of how good these teams really are. And while I do agree with many of the national pundits that the polls are relatively meaningless to the selection committee in terms of which teams make the NCAA Tournament, I do believe that from a psychological standpoint, seedings are affected a lot more based on the polls than people are led to believe. That's why I think Alford has a legitimate gripe here.

[Da Coach]

Why are Eustachy and Alford griping? Is there some kind of weekly prize for getting ranked? Are they missing out on some bonus money?

[Bravesfan]

Why are Eustachy and Alford griping? Is there some kind of weekly prize for getting ranked? Are they missing out on some bonus money?

As I said above, I do agree with most pundits than the rankings are overrated, especially when it comes to the actual teams chosen for the tournament. And I know they are not very accurate either. However, I don't think Eustachy and Alford should have any worries about the number of bids the MWC will receive. But, I can't believe that the NCAA Tournament committee doesn't take them into consideration when it comes to seeding purposes, even though they aren't supposed to. And I know most Valley fans are happy when one or two of our teams our ranked if for nothing more than the national exposure it gives them.

[TheAsianSensation]

The MWC will be fine when they get 6 bids into the tournament.

Polls are irrelevant to what matters in the game, at least. But the voters can't go beyond a quota of mid majors, and VCU/CU/WSU/Butler/Gonzaga have filled it already

[tornado]

Eustacy has lucked out and done fairly well for a guy with a realatively weak resume over the past decade.....whose only real success ever in the post-season was back 13-14 years ago at Iowa State..
Since then he had two bad years at Iowa State and sent them into a tailspin before he was canned - that continues pretty much 'til today that Fred Hoiberg is trying to reverse...

Then at Southern Miss - he never won a conference title and only finished higher than 4th one time...and played horribly weak non-conference opponents..
..but he still went to the NCAA only once and got beat in his first and only game there.

[Bravesfan]

The MWC will be fine when they get 6 bids into the tournament.

Polls are irrelevant to what matters in the game, at least. But the voters can't go beyond a quota of mid majors, and VCU/CU/WSU/Butler/Gonzaga have filled it already

Yeah, I have noticed that the pollsters will never put more than 20 to 25% mid-major teams in the polls, though the quota has creeped up slightly in recent years. I'd say about 5 years ago you were lucky to get 3 non-BCS teams into any weekly poll. Now I sometimes see 6 or 7 occasionally. I think even the BCS coaches are now admitting that there is some pretty darn good basketball being played outside the "Big 6" conferences.

To compare to 2006, the Valley also had 6 top 50 teams that year, where 4 made it into the tournament. And as this season with the MWC, the Valley had trouble getting teams into the rankings because they were beating each other up as well, to the point where no one was ranked going into the NCAA Tournament. But we did fine, though I don't think anyone in the Valley was seeded higher than 7 if I recall correctly. I do think the polls do influence seeding, even though it's not supposed to be one of their criteria. You can bet if Creighton, Gonzaga and Butler remain ranked in the top 15, they will all earn 5 seeds or higher, while aside from New Mexico, none of the other MWC teams will earn a top 5 seed.