Monday, February 25, 2008

Help for Davidson

Does Davidson deserve an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament?

That question will be moot if the Wildcats win the Southern Conference tournament, but it could become a hot topic if Davidson loses in the tournament championship game.

The NCAA picks 34 at-large teams for the tournament, but Davidson might need some help to get in. Here are three outside things that will help the Wildcats' candidacy.

1. Top seeds doing what they are supposed to. Any Cinderella team that wins its conference tournament is likely bad news for Davidson, especially if the top seed is considered a strong candidate for the NCAA tournament. That is especially true among lower-profile conferences. So Wildcat fans should pull for teams such as Drake and Butler to win out in their conference.

2. Big conference bumbling. Remember when the Atlantic 10 was looking at five bids? That's likely not happening now. Mediocre play throughout the major conferences has muddied the candidate field, and that's good news for Davidson. It might be harder for the committee to take a floundering team such as Maryland or Texas A&M, while Davidson would have only one loss since Christmas.

3. Bubble teams bursting. Maryland and Texas A&M are a couple teams Davidson fans should cheer against, but others include: Ohio State, Miami, Villanova, Syracuse, and St. Joseph's. The more those teams lose, the better Davidson looks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only way I see Davidson getting an at-large bid is if they win out but lose narrowly in the finals to Georgia Southern while Curry is puking his guts out back in his hotel room. Otherwise, they'll have to win outright or be looking at the NIT.

Anonymous said...

Have they won against any big name schools?

Anonymous said...

They've beaten every big name school that had the guts to play them this year at Belk Arena. Oh wait, Wake and Clemson and the rest of the "big name" cowards are afraid to play at Davidson any more.