CLEVELAND–Mid-American Conference Commissioner John A. Steinbrecher is expecting success Miami (Ohio) There are benefits this season on Sunday and in the future.
Despite the loss to the Redhawks, Steinbrecher is confident his conference will have two teams meet in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 27 years umass in 87-83 MAC Tournament Quarterfinals on Thursday after going 31-0 in the regular season.
“I believe Miami is in the tournament,” Steinbrecher said Friday before the start of the conference semifinals. “I spoke with the committee chair and committee liaisons yesterday and just gave some information. They’re not going to tell me for sure, but I think they’re involved. They’ve done what they need to do to get to the tournament. I think history has shown that until we’re shown otherwise.”
The MAC has received multiple bids five times since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The last time this happened was in 1999 when kent state Won the conference tournament to earn its first NCAA trip, while Miami received an at-large berth after winning the regular season title.
Miami made the committee look good by making it to the Sweet 16.
The RedHawks were the fifth team this century to go undefeated in the regular season, but the second team to go undefeated in their conference tournament.
Miami’s opponents have pointed to its low strength of schedule – ranked 344th out of 365 Division I teams, according to the NCAA Evaluation Tool – as a reason it should not be in the field of 68 teams. However, Steinbrecher and many of his mid-major brethren point out that Tier 1 teams do not want to schedule Tier 2 and 3 schools.
The RedHawks did not face Tier 1 teams and had a 2–0 record against Tier 2 teams.
“We’ve allowed metrics to become the story as opposed to wins and losses. Well, metrics don’t really work well when you have individual schools going off their schedules, and that’s what’s happening,” Steinbrecher said. “We have a lot of schools that have trouble getting quality games, so people are reluctant to play them.
“For schools that are traditionally Tier 1, the metrics are to get them to continue playing other Tier 1s or to continue playing Tier 4s and then beat the living daylights out of them. That’s their secret sauce. Anywhere in that Tier 2 or Tier 3, they’re running away from it.”
Was the last team to go undefeated in the regular season and not make the NCAA Tournament Alcorn State In 1978-79. This was because the Southwestern Athletic Conference was in transition to Division I and did not have an automatic bid. At that time there were only 40 teams in the tournament field.
second seed Akron (28-5) will face the fourth seed toledo (19-14) in Saturday night’s championship game. The Zips – who had one conference loss in the regular season – are trying to become the first school to win three consecutive MAC tournaments since it began in 1980.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
