You are right, Vitale got owned. I understand St. Mary's won 26 games, but 'Zona played and won against some powerhouses out of conference, and you can't tell me St. Mary's goes 9-9 in the Pac-10. Gonzaga went through the "little man's" plight a few years back, and had to work up to getting neutral site games by playing road games against the big boys. Dicky V, don't cry for me! (or the Gaels!)

Vitale was dead on with the 2 for 1 home game issue. The little guy's are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to that especially to just get a BCS team to come for a home game.

Haha, the best part is this fight started about 30 seconds into the broadcast of the show. Digger didn't take his Midol that day and so was a little irritable.
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Bilas was dead wrong about one thing and as a fan of a solid MAC program, I know this all too well. It is not easy just to schedule difficult. How many big programs were chomping at the bit to have a loaded St. Mary's team come to their gym this season? You can't just pick and choose your schedule like Jay makes it seem. And you can forget about getting any home games from these power conference schools.

Bilas is an elitist asshole. Arizona didn't even belong in the NIT.

I love that Vitale was stumping for the midmajors, and then when ESPN revealed his bracket he had all 1 and 2 seeds making the elite eight with all the 1 seeds making the final four.

CHALK!

Gottlieb, as usual, made the best point. St. Mary's tried to play a tough schedule. They went to Oregon, SIU, Kent St, SDSU, Pacific... schools that have had recent success, but most stunk this year. They played mostly road games in non-conference.

St. Mary's did just about as much as they could do scheduling wise, and it wasn't enough for an at-large bid. While I think Arizona is a better team, this sets a bad precedent.

I don't buy the "little guys can't play big guys" argument. If you have to go 2 for 1, then do it. You do what you HAVE to do to make your name. You want to get more teams to schedule you? Beat them on their home court.

It is so difficult to project how teams will be when you schedule them for future games. St. Mary's was burned by this. However, there IS a playoff and we have a true national champion, so while some BCS conference teams may get preferential treatment, the best team will win. We don't vote. Once again, college football looks like the most jacked-up thing ever.

also "Let's be realistic, Dick" is a great line. Now if Digger would just eschew his color-coordinated highlighters.

I still remember a few years back when Billy Packer was chewing out Virginia AD Craig Littlepage(a good guy). He kept asking, "How in the world can you put George Mason in the tourney?" How did that work out for you Billy?

After thinking about it for a while I agree with Vitale's and GMoney's argument because there is no way Arizona would want to play SMC twice in their home court in consecutive years. The risks far outweighs the reward. If Arizona wins then, as the legendary Derrick Coleman would say, "whoopdi damned doo". If they lose, the committee hammers them, even though SMC may just be better. A good example is Providence who went 10-8 in the Big East but one of their loses was to Northeastern which wound up winning the CAA regular season, but you can best be assured it was brought up during the selection meeting.

By the way, Digger Phelps kept saying that Arizona has far more talent. Really??? Their great talent went 19-13 an lost five of their last six. I call that mediocre. Also, Boeheim and Knight are correct the tourney should go to 128.

I was agreeing with Vitale until Digger chimed in. He changed my mind about it. Now we do not know for sure who was the last one in or the first one out according to the committee, but let's say it was Arizona vs. St. Mary's, I think that at this point in the season, I would take Arizona as the better team and the team more dangerous in the tourney. 2-months ago, I would say St. Mary's but Digger was right, St. Mary's is not the same team with Patty Mills injured and I saw that WCC Championship game and that was not an NCAA Tournament team on that court.

Corbin, the problem is that power conference teams don't offer 2 for 1's anymore. They have no desire to play away from home.

Take my alma mater, Miami University for example. Over the course of our 30 game season, we played ELEVEN home games. We played @ Pitt, @ UCLA, @ WV, @ Xavier, @ Dayton, and a grand total of 17 teams playing in postseason. The point is that any mid-major with a decent reputation is never going to get a big boy to come into their gym.

People keep talking about how St. Mary's was 19-2 when Patty Mills played. In the 21 games that Patty Mills played, St. Mary's played only ONE team that got into the NCAA tournament. That was the 20+ point victory Gonzaga had over them in the WCC finals. Meanwhile, Arizona has 4 wins over the AP Top 15, and 6 wins overall against the RPI top 25. It's not even close.

@ mandb97: Arizona and St. Mary's actually had about a four year long series that wrapped up not long ago. That goes to show a couple of things: For one, St. Mary's can get teams to play them. Two, Arizona is willing to play them. Three, Arizona beat them every time. That's why the series stopped.

Arizona has played mid-majors on the road. They've traveled to UNLV twice, Utah once, and Houston twice all within the last three or four years or so.

One final point: basketball schedules, unlike football schedules, are wrapped up the summer before the season starts. They don't have it all done five year ahead of time. They know pretty well who's going to be good and who isn't.

Why does no one question Wisconsin's legitimacy?