#12 seed? JMU screw-jobbed by NCAA Tournament committee

JMU was ranked a couple of different times in the 2014-2015 season, finished 29-3, played seven games against major-conference opponents, finished the regular season ranked in the Top 30 of the RPI, and … nothing.

The Dukes were rewarded for scheduling tough and winning games with a #12 seed.

Madison lost a neutral-court game to a #1 seed, Maryland, in November, five days after blowing out a #10 seed, Pitt (19-11, RPI 46) by 16 in Harrisonburg.

One other nice win came on the road in December, at MAC champ Ohio, 69-62.

(Ohio similarly got shafted, with a 27-4 record and 39 RPI translating into a #14 seed.)

Coach Kenny Brooks scheduled preseason #23 UCLA for the season opener, won by the Dukes in OT. Turns out the Bruins were on their way to a sub-.500 season, as was another traditional power, Vanderbilt of the SEC, which defeated JMU by four in Nashville in December.

JMU also beat Houston of the American Athletic Conference (the conference home of overall #1 seed UConn) and Richmond and Davidson of the A-10.

Then the Dukes ran through the CAA with a 20-1 record (including the CAA Tournament). And it’s not like the CAA is chopped liver, with Drexel at 78 in the RPI, Hofstra at 97, Elon at 108.

(All four of those CAA teams, including JMU, are ranked ahead of UVA and four other ACC teams in the RPI.)

You look at this and quickly realize that had JMU been knocked off in the CAA Tournament, what would have been unthinkable going in, that Madison would be left on the outside looking in without a trophy, was very much the reality.

Honestly, though, you almost don’t know who to feel worse for in this situation. JMU wasn’t the only one that got screwed with this hatchet job by the committee. The #5 seed that the Dukes will face in the Greensboro Regional, Ohio State, has to wonder what it did wrong.

The Buckeyes are #25 in this week’s RPI; JMU is #26.

The answer, of course, is that both JMU and Ohio State, as well as George Washington, Princeton, Dayton, Florida Gulf Coast, among others, all got screwed by the tournament committee, which sent out a helluva message with the seeds for Madison and the other mid-majors.

The message: no matter what you do to boost your schedule, play tough teams on neutral sites, on the road, maybe even lure them to your place every so often, whatever, we don’t care.

This game isn’t for you.

– Column by Chris Graham