We're good, my reaction (over-reaction?) was in reference to an unknown commentator to Nate Silver's blog that Greg quoted. Greg knows that I like to break down numbers; but even he probably didn't know how much I react to sloppy (or intentionally misleading) statistical comments.
In thinking about filling out the tournament - if all things were equal, I would go with a team from a mid-major or small conference over the .500 team from the major conference. I'm not sure we had that this year - Marquette was one of the last at-large bids and VCU-USC had play-in bids to the tournament for an 11 seed and Marquette and VCU are in the Sweet 16 so the Tournament Selection Committee looks to have made the right call there.
There was a local team, that finished second in its league, Harvard, that probably deserved at least a little consideration. It not only beat Boston College and Colorado as I mentioned in an earlier post, it beat BU which was in the tournament as the winner of the America East tournament and George Washington, the #5 team in the A-10. It lost to Michigan (an 8 seed) by 3 points at Michigan.
The thing that I would change is the conferences that normally only can expect to send one or two teams should consider sending their regular season champion. Vermont was the regular season champion in the America East but BU goes to the NCAA's by virtue of winning the tournament (in BU's defense, it beat UVM twice and finished just one game behind). Kent State was 12-4, the best record in the MAC, but Akron at 9-7 goes to the NCAA's. Instead of 16-2 Texas Southern, we get 11-7 Alabama State. Arkansas-Little Rock was 7-9, Florida Atlantic was 13-3. It is the conference's choice, the Ivy League does not have a tournament and it sends its regular season champion and occasionally needs a playoff if there are 2 or 3 teams tied at the end of the season.
