NCAA Bracket 2011: Virginia Tech and Colorado, Win Games or Shut Up!

The day after the Selection Show annually is the year where people all over the country argue why one mediocre team should have made the NCAA Tournament over another mediocre team. Mediocrity never gets this much praise and defense from fans all over the country on any day except for today.

Virginia Tech and Colorado were this year's biggest snubs to be left out of the NCAA Tournament. Teams like UAB, USC, VCU and Clemson made the tournament instead.

First of all, before explaining why Virginia Tech and Colorado didn't deserve to get in, it first must be realized that no matter how big you expand the tournament, people will always find something to complain about. The tournament was expanded to 68 this year, and people still complain. People want to expand the tournament to 128.

Are you serious?

If that happens, then we'll be complaining about why a fifth ranked team in the lowly Missouri Valley conference did not get into the tournament.

Give me a break!

According to Colin Cowherd, host of The Herd on ESPN Radio, there are several factors which determine whether a team is deserving of making the tournament. Among these are regular season play, conference championship play, and schedule.

This morning on The Herd, Cowherd brought up several strong points on why Virginia Tech and Colorado were snubbed. He believed strength of schedule were a huge factor. Virginia Tech and Colorado had weaker out-of-conference games.

The Hokies played against some solid out-of-conference opponents but couldn't beat any of them. It's true that they beat Duke, but they beat them at home. Pretty much everyone has a substantially better home record than road record. When you get a college kid uncomfortable by having them play in a rowdy road arena, that's when it matters.

Everyone wins at home! It's the road records that matter. The Hokies were a 6-6 road team. That's not good. That's .500. They only played 12 road games. They had a very easy home schedule, and they beat up on some bad teams.

Colorado also had some really bad opponents scheduled early in the season against non-conference teams. They played against San Francisco, Idaho State, Alcorn State, Harvard (who they got crushed by), Citadel, Longwood, TX Pan American, MD Eastern Shore, Cal State Bakersfield and a team that doesn't even have their own Yahoo! page, Western New Mexico.

Their 4-9 road record doesn't help either. Unlike UAB and USC, Colorado did not schedule against tough non-conference opponents, and because of that, they suffered in the end.

VCU actually went 8-7 on the road. They were an above-.500 road team, which is a huge plus for a bubble team. They were also able to defeat UCLA, which is an added plus. As mentioned before, even though Virginia Tech scheduled against some good teams they were not able to beat them; VCU did.

UAB went out and scheduled against really tough opponents. They also won their conference, albeit a weak one. But still they were the conference regular season champions. They had a 9-5 road record, mostly padded by their weak conference. But it's still impressive to win on the road. UAB played at Duke, at Arkansas, and at Georgia. These are tough games for a mid-major conference to play against yet they fared pretty well. They beat Arkansas and barely lost to Georgia.

Same goes for USC. USC played against Texas and won. They lost by two on the road to Kansas. They also beat Tennessee on the road. They finished the season by winning three of their last four road games. They also played 15 road games. That's a few more than other teams. More road games means a more difficult schedule. USC deserves a shot in the tournament because of this.

As for the Clemson Tigers, they may have had a 3-8 road record, but a lot of their road losses came early in the season. They improved toward the end of the season, and they finished their season by beating Virginia Tech, which propelled them into the tournament.

Besides, all of these teams are mediocre anyway. None of them have a real shot to win the whole thing. If you want to be considered in the tournament, then win games! As Buzz Williams head coach of Marquette said, he doesn't like seeing these coaches act like politicians.

If you want consideration, then schedule against tough opponents, recruit good players and win your games. If not, then shut your mouth. With the field expanded to 68, the teams that do deserve it are in. In other words, if you weren't good enough to get in if the field was at 65, you definitely are not good enough to get in with it being at 68.