Selection Sunday

Today is one of my favorite days of the year: Selection Sunday. This is the day when the teams are selected to be in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament. And from my perspective, this was a great year! Kentucky is the #1 seed in the east region. Richmond made the tournament as an at-large selection as the #7 seed in the South regional. Several of my least favorite teams - North Carolina, UCLA, Arizona, Indiana, and UConn - didn't make the tournament. And 8 teams from outside the "big 6" conferences received at-large bids, which is twice as many as last year.

I also think the selection committee did a good job. The last teams to receive an invitation to the tournament appear to have been Utah State, UTEP, and Minnesota as 12, 12, and 11 seeds (with Florida, Missouri, and Georgia Tech as 10 seeds), and I think all of these were good selections. Among the best teams not to make the tournament were Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, Illinois, and Rhode Island. Some would say that these teams were "snubs" - that they should have gotten a bid over one of the other teams that did get in. It's tough to say, but Jerry Palm of collegerpi.com called the field as it is, and I usually think he is pretty spot on.

As I was watching the coverage, I listened to an interview with Virginia Tech's head coach Seth Greenberg. He was obviously upset that his team didn't make the tournament and probably even a little bit angry. He made a strong case for why his team should have been included (mainly going 10-6 and finishing tied for third in a good ACC conference and a pretty good non-conference win over Seton Hall). At the end of the interview, he was asked that if his team deserved to be in, then that means another team didn't - which team did he think Virginia Tech should have gotten in over? I was really impressed with his answer. Rather than naming a team (and he probably had 2 or 3 in his mind), he said that he wouldn't answer that question because he didn't want to take away from what other teams had accomplished and the excitement they were experiencing.

What a great answer! Most of us, myself probably included, would have been more than happy to name a team and say, "We deserved to be selected instead of them." His response was much more dignified. Now, most of us aren't ever in that exact position, but we probably are sometimes in similar circumstances where we might be tempted to put someone else down when we are at a low point. I will try to learn from Coach Greenberg's response and be gracious even when I am at my lowest.