Arizona Belongs

Folks should have seen this coming.

Ever since the NCAA Basketball Tournament field was announced, everybody's been complaining that the Arizona Wildcats didn't deserve a spot.

Arizona finished 19-13 on the season. They managed only a 9-9 record in the Pac-10, good enough for a 5th place tie with USC. They lost four of the last five in the regular season, then got bounced 68-56 by Arizona State in the first round of the Pac-10 tourney.

How did they get in?

First of all, the Pac-10 is a pretty good conference, after all. As I mentioned earlier, 6 teams made the field for the Big Dance.

Arizona's "strength of schedule" ranking was 34th in the country. They beat San Diego State, a team many thought should have made the tournament instead of the Wildcats, 69-56. They beat then-#4 Gonzaga, a #4 seed in the tourney, 69-64. They beat Kansas, a #3 seed in the tourney, 84-67. They beat then-#23 Washington, a #4 seed, 106-97.

USC made the field as a #10 seed. UofA owns an 83-76 win over the Trojans. UCLA, a #6 seed, was ranked #11 on Valentines' Day, when Arizona beat them, 84-72.

Wins over five teams that made it to the Big Dance, plus a win over the team (San Diego State) that was being considered for that final spot that went to UofA. I'm sure the tournament committee considered all that when they decided to let UofA in for the (ahem) 25th consecutive year, as a #12 seed.

Then, on top of all the noise Arizona players had to listen to about being selected for the Big Dance, a couple of Utah players (Utah, a #5 seed, was Arizona's first-round opponent in the NCAA Tournament) had to play the "foot-in-mouth" game. Check this out, from Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan's article, "Arizona takes a beating before hitting court":

“I was surprised,” said Luke Nevill, Utah’s 7-foot-2 center. “There were a few more teams that were better than Arizona, strength of schedule- and record-wise. So … yeah. I mean, San Diego State.”

The team Utah beat 52-50 in the Mountain West Conference tournament final.

“There’s no reason San Diego State shouldn’t be in this tournament,” Utah guard Lawrence Borha said. “They got snubbed.”

By Arizona?

“Well,” Borha said, “they were the last ones in, right?”

Hey, now that I'm a resident of Albuquerque, home of the New Mexico Lobos, I want to see the Mountain West teams do well. But I lived in Arizona for almost 25 years. And I've never been a fan of any team from the state of Utah, except when they're busting up somebody from a BCS conference in football.

So, it brings me great joy to report this score from the first round of this year's NCAA Basketball Tournament:

Arizona 84, Utah 71.

Ha. Ha.