Stop this ‘Snub Day’ nonsense and just expand NCAA field

This week in college basketball, Selection Sunday became Snub Day '24.

The committee made some bizarre choices with the men's tournament field, but fortunately there's an easy fix: Expand.

Sure, there's a “don't mess with our tournament” faction roaming Twitter. But there's also too much parity in college hoops these days to keep the number at 68. And really, what's the downside? If the “First Four” becomes the “Opening 10 Pack,” how does that negatively affect anybody?

There are several annoying aspects to the selection process. But basically, deeper dives into the NCAA-approved NET rankings lead to more confusion. For example, why is the Mountain West considered a strong enough league to get six bids?

Good question. Utah State lost to Bradley, Nevada lost to Drake (by 19), Boise State lost to Virginia Tech, San Diego State lost to Grand Canyon. The best wins were Colorado State and UNLV both beating Creighton.

In head-to-head games, the ACC went 8-3 against the Big 12. So why did the Big 12 get eight bids and the ACC five? Clemson coach Brad Brownell was onto something when he complained about some leagues gaming the rankings by running up the score against bad teams. Check Texas Tech's schedule and results for a good example.

Let's zero in on a few specific issues:

∙ Why do games in November mean more than those in February or March?

Pittsburgh finished the season 12-4, including three road wins over NCAA Tournament teams. Michigan State finished 2-5, losing to a pair of non-tourney teams at home. So why did MSU make the tourney and Pitt did not? A better nonconference schedule, of course.

The same argument can be made for Dayton. The Flyers did some nice work in November, but if they're good enough to be a No. 7 seed, shouldn't they have done better than third place in the Atlantic-10? Why weren't co-champs Loyola and Richmond considered for at-large bids?

The NCAA committee deserves some credit for encouraging teams to play tough schedules, but strength of schedule is out of a team's hands in some ways. Schools like Indiana State can have a hard time landing high-level opponents, while others may schedule teams that don't meet preseason expectations.

The suspicion here is the NCAA just wants an easy way out to explain controversial choices. But when championship week delivered so much chaos, Michigan State with its mediocre Big Ten performance should have been the first one cut.

∙ The data used to rank teams is proven to be flawed.

In the previous three years, the Big Ten got nine, nine and eight bids to the tournament. Out of those 26 bids, just four teams reached the Sweet Sixteen.

That 15.4% Sweet Sixteen success rate is easily the worst of the five major conferences. The Big East has fared the best at 46.7% on just 15 bids, followed by the ACC at 35.3%. It makes zero sense that the Big East, easily the best conference over the past three years, would get just three bids to this year's event. Seton Hall and St. John's have reason to gripe.

The NCAA Tournament tipped off in Dayton on Tuesday, and quite often those teams that seemingly didn't deserve a bid win games. Dayton, MSU or Nevada could easily go on a run.

But Indiana State and St. John's could have made a push too. In an era when teams like Florida Atlantic and Loyola are making the Final Four, it only makes sense to expand the field.

Twitter: @McGrawDHSports