Pretty sorry statistics if you’re a VT fan. I would love to hear the committee’s rationale on why VCU and USC were picked ahead of VT this year. If you know their reasoning, please let me know. I didn’t see the ESPN bracketology show, but I heard that Jay Bilas really was upset that we didn’t get picked. And Vitale also, especially since he told Seth on national TV that VT was in.

Niemo- excellent summary. I suggest you send it to ESPN today. I think point 6 is very important. VT complains too much during games; whetehr it is malcolm looking at the ref every time he gets bumped, or Jeff’s rep with flagrants, or Seth whining during the game. I think it does play a role. As much as we who come to this site love our Hokies, the rest of the country does not. We are not a consistent top 25 program in hoops who can get away with any nonsense. Win, and win often, and you can complain some.
Anyway, I hope this team plays the next few games with an enormous chip on their shoulders. I fear they may just punt. Students, fill the cassel. Good luck, guys!

I agree with your last point Niemo, and I’ve been preaching it all day today.

I still love my Hokies and I understand we got hurt with injuries and had no depth this season, but no one is going to have a pity party for us and we don’t want it.

Take care of business on the court and let’s finally show the selection committee that we deserved to be in the NCAA. Missing out on it sucks, but saying that we deserve a spot in the tourney, then going to the NIT and not making the finals looks real bad (’08, ’09, ’10).

I want the departing seniors to really shine in these NIT games, win it all, and show the committee that VT Basketball is the real deal. LET’S GO HOKIES!!!

I’m with Lee… what’s done is done, and you can’t undo it. Fair or not (and it certainly was not), VT has to play in the NIT. The only way you convince the Selection Committee that is made a very poor choice is to win the NIT.

I agree with Lee. This is those seniors last chance to REALLY leave a legacy. Hanging an NIT Championship banner in the Cassell would be pretty sweet. I still remember the ’95 NIT Championship team with great fondness. I hope the guys go out and play angry and give it all they have.

There’s a very slim margin of error for playing the in-state schools like odu, vcu, george mason, richmond, etc. When we’re recruiting in VA, we get to use the fact that us and uva are the only power conference schools in the state, and that’s a great draw. If we start playing those schools more regularly, one of two things happen. Either we dominate them and we get first look at any VA recruit, or we drop a few and we get a bunch of wannabes chanting that the CAA is the only conference in Virginia. Getting John Richardson from ODU has given us such a boost in VA recruiting, (helped a ton in getting DFS if I recall), so I don’t see Seth rushing to get half the CAA for our OOC schedule to make a statement. If we keep scheduling more average (okst, unlv, psu) and a few above average (purdue) power conference teams, and amp up our ACC performance, we’ll be fine. But yes, usc upstate, uncg, longwood, and campbell have to go regardless.

DEATH TO THE BUBBLE–
Somewhere in a dark room in NCAA Selection Comittee Headquarters is where they keep the bubble. It sleeps undisturbed for 8 months out of the year. Then in December, sportswriters come to visit it. They watch it closely, for they can see basketball teams with flashing RPI’s come and go along its surface. In December it is still sleepy and doesn’t show much. They feed it with thousands x thousands of words of speculation. It grows brighter. Fewer teams skitter across its surface in January. They watch it ever more closely and consult the Doctors of Bracketology to predict which teams will rise above it and which will get stuck in it. By late January they are poking it and commenting on if it is firm or soft or weak. By late February it has turned dark and nasty, and the teams that are still stuck to fight madly to climb off it. The Doctors of Bracketology prescribe winning against top 50 teams, preferably at their house, and preferably only when they are fully healthy. By the first weekend in March the bubble is black and menacing, about to eat the hearts of the teams that are stuck. In deparation the good doctors recommend conference tournament wins. They say that two usually works, but 3 is better, and 4 always works ! And then on the fateful first Sunday in March, the NCAA Selection Committee kicks all the sportswriters and BrD’s out of the room. They look down on the poor teams that are stuck on the bubble and begin to chant…. “eeny meeny miny mo…..”

As I watched the Doctors of Bracketology on ESPN on Sunday, I was left with the impression that their outrage was really coming from the fact that the selection comittee had made a farce of their noble science. The current method of picking the tournament would almost be tolerable if they actually let Joe Lunardi set the bracket. Then at least we know that politics was not involved and would get a full explantion of how the decsion was made. All the sportswriters were against the expansion to 96 teams, because without the drama of the bubble to talk about we would spend a lot less time reading about basketball. I vote for a 96 team tourney, picked & seeded purely by some math (RPI,kenpom,whatever). If you are #97, too bad, no hoopla. Cancel all the conference tourneys to make time (they would be pointless, sorry Greensboro). Set the field and start playing. Worried about the quality of the tournament – just dont watch the first week. More basketball, no soap opera.

Wow. Great article (“The Great Snub – Episode 4″). I had just calmed down enough to read some articles on VT but now I’m just totally t’d off once again. WTF is wrong with those people (aka ‘the committee’)!

I guess we suck it up, add another big chip to the shoulder and beat the snott out of the NIT field.

GO HOKIES!!!

What about this angle:

We were never officially welcomed to the ACC by it’s original 9 member institutions. The closest we came to being welcomed was when Littlepage, Warner, Casteen all toasted glasses of Cristal and said cha-ching.

This is particularly true of basketball. In football, they grudgingly accept that they need us, at least now they do that all the traditional, “blue-blood” football schools like Miami, FSU, Clemson continuously underachieve.

But if you recall, we were welcomed to the ACC at Cameron by Duke Edsall, John Swofford, and the collective vitriol of the bitter members who felt we were beneath them. If you recall, Seth got ejected, we lost by about 25 (game wasn’t even that close), and were mocked on national TV on a Sunday night FoxSports broadcast.

If you recall, the Dockery game…we all lament this game for obvious reasons. But does anyone recall how they manipulated the clock to get them extra time? The scorekeeper conveniently messed up. We haven’t gotten a single break until Friday night. And that was because tape don’t lie. And only because it was against another basketball outsider: FSU. They aren’t considered true blue members on the basketball side either.

But do you think we have anyone from the ACC fighting our publicity battle? Swofford? Silent…this guy Wellman from Wake? undoubtedly cut some kind of deal for Duke/UNC in terms of where they get to play. His agenda wasn’t us, that’s for sure.

Not sure when, if ever, we’ll truly be considered part of this conference. But it won’t be soon. They’ll enjoy our BCS bowl profits, and our football brand. But they’ll never back our play when political pressure can be otherwise utilized to help out the old-school member institutions.

DEATH TO THE BUBBLE — Alternate Ending

The selection committee looks at the bubble, and their first move is to pick the 4 best teams off of it, and consign them to being #1 seeds in the NIT. Don’t forget that the NCAA owns the NIT now, and wants drama there too for the sake of TV Ratings. Take away the top 4 seeds in the NIT and there is not much left.