Tough Schedule Helps Georgia
For all those schools who load up their schedules with lightweight opponents to create imposing won-loss records, the NCAA tournament selection committee had a message Sunday.
Play tough teams and there will be a reward in March.
As evidence, the committee can point to Georgia, which got an at-large bid despite its 16-14 record.
The Bulldogs' difficult season included a first-round knockout by LSU in the Southeastern Conference tournament that seemed likely to doom their NCAA tournament chances.
Instead of being discarded by the committee, however, Georgia was embraced.
The eighth-seeded Bulldogs open on Thursday against No. 9 Missouri in Greensboro, N.C. In other pairings in that section, No. 1 Duke plays No. 16 Monmouth, No. 5 Ohio State faces No. 12 Utah State and No. 4 UCLA plays No. 13 Hofstra.
In the other East regional in Uniondale, N.Y., it's No. 2 Kentucky vs. No. 15 Holy Cross; No. 7 Iowa vs. No. 10 Creighton; No. 3 Boston College vs. No. 14 Southern Utah and No. 6 Southern California vs. No. 11 Oklahoma State.
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Georgia's selection tied two NCAA tournament records. Only four other at-large picks have lost as many as 14 games - Villanova in 1990 and 1991, Kansas State in 1990 and LSU in 1987. Ten others have won as few as 16 games and still were invited, most recently Texas in 1997.
As the selection committee gathered, chairman Mike Tranghese said the Bulldogs were topic No. 1.
"When we looked at Georgia they were 16-14 and 9-7 in the No. 1 conference in the country," Tranghese said. "They played the toughest non-conference schedule in the country, and we just thought it would be unfair not to take that into account."
When they weren't busy in the Southeastern Conference, the Bulldogs beat North Carolina State, Villanova and Utah, each a high profile program. There also were some impressive SEC wins.
"e beat Tennessee twice, we won at Florida, at Mississippi at Vanderbilt," coach Jim Harrick said. "Those were quality wins. We beat five teams in the top 25."
They didn't pack their schedule with soft teams, either, playing No. 1 Stanford, Minnesota, California, Fresno State and Wake Forest out of conference. The losses were quality losses even if it didn't seem that way at the time.
"When you lose some games, sometimes you lose emotion," Harrick said. "We were up and down a bit. It's been a roller coaster."
Never were they lower, though, than when they lost in the first round of the SEC tournament. They felt as if they might be losing their grip on that slippery NCAA berth.
"It was in doubt," Harrick said. "It was the first time in my career I've been on the bubble. There were a lot of concerns about this. I had to sit there and think, 'My gosh, it might not happen."'
But it did, although being a No. 8 seed is not the easiest spot. Win the first game and the reward is a date with the No. 1 team in the bracket, in this case, Duke.
Harrick, who joins Eddie Sutton of Oklahoma State and Lefty Driesell of Georgia State as the only coaches to take four different schools to the tournament, has been in that position before. He was not complaining.
"This year," he said, "I'll take anything I can get."
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