‘Busters’ It's a concept, ESPN officials say, that was just too good to pass up. But there are concerns that the inaugural "Bracket Buster Saturday" on Feb. 22 will be more of a bust for mid-major basketball teams on the bubble.
taking a gamble
But ESPN and others were swayed
by the upside of these televised bids
for exposure and respectBy Cindy Luis
cluis@starbulletin.com"I don't think it's a roll of the dice," Illinois State coach Bruce Weber said during yesterday's national media teleconference. "But it is a gamble we're taking to get the exposure, especially if you're having a great season and you lose this game. Hopefully, the selection committee will see this as a positive, that we are scheduling outside the conference, win or lose."
ESPN thinks it's come up with a big winner, pitting 18 teams from so-called mid-major conferences in nationally and regionally televised games. Headlined by the Tulsa-at-Gonzaga contest, five of the games will be televised nationally on ESPN or ESPN2, with the remaining four to be picked up regionally.
Although officials said they won't make up the pairings for the other games until Feb. 3, Hawaii coach Riley Wallace said he has been told he'll be playing at UC Santa Barbara. According to ESPN, Hawaii is one of the designated visiting teams, the others being Western Athletic Conference rivals Fresno State and Tulsa, Ball State, Bowling Green, Detroit, Illinois State, Northern Iowa and Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Louisiana Tech is the only WAC team scheduled to host a game. Other designated home teams are Creighton, Illinois-Chicago, Kent State, Marshall, Southern Illinois, Western Kentucky and UC Santa Barbara.
This season's event involves four teams from the WAC, Missouri Valley and Mid-American, three from the Horizon League and one each from the Sun Belt, Big West and West Coast conferences. Invitations had been extended to Butler of the Horizon and Pepperdine of the WCC, but scheduling conflicts precluded the two schools from participating.
"We at ESPN think the quality of play in these conferences is tremendous, but they haven't gotten the exposure of what people call the 'Big Six,' " said Burke Magnus, ESPN's director of college basketball programming. "We believe that this will drive up interest and viewership in these teams and conferences. Viewers should be looking forward to this day in February.
"We're pleased that we could finally put a bow on this idea, do something really ground-breaking in the world of college basketball scheduling. We have the flexibility to create matchups which should generate additional interest in these conferences and programs leading up to the NCAA Tournament. This will give these teams one more time to shine before they go into postseason play."
"Bracket Busters" refers to underdog teams that pull upsets in the NCAA Tournament, thus busting up popular office pools and tournament bracket contests. The 18 teams in the field have a combined three Elite Eight appearances in the past four years and six Sweet 16 appearances.
"I think it's a great idea and we're pleased to be in it," said Weber. "To get the exposure late in the year on ESPN is gold. Last year, we had success early, beat Iowa State and Indiana, but once we got into conference (play), they forgot about us. Then we win two NCAA games and people are surprised. We weren't surprised, we were pretty good all along.
"Now, when people fill out their brackets, they'll think about these teams because they'll see us in this event."
WAC Commissioner Karl Benson, in his second year on the selection committee, said that there will be games where teams will be sent out of their time zones to make it more of a national event. ESPN has committed to the concept for at least another year and it is expected to expand and possibly turn into a two-weekend event.
"When I was first approached, we evaluated it and decided that it would give further exposure to the conference," said Benson. "We believe that the games will benefit the WAC teams. Unfortunately, the mid-major label has been placed on the WAC and some of these other conferences. It's an unfair label and doesn't fairly represent the quality of basketball that is played in our leagues.
"I hope these types of game will be of interest to the general basketball public and it should get the attention of the (selection) committee."
"I believe in the slogan, 'Every Game Counts,' " said Doug Elgin, Missouri Valley commissioner and outgoing member of the selection committee. "This creates strong competition and creates a second opportunity for the committee to get another look at these teams.
"There is such a difficulty in scheduling the so-called power teams. It's virtually impossible to get them to come into one of our buildings because it's tough to win on the road. It's why you don't see these 'power' teams go on the road much once conference play has started. The best part of this is that we're playing quality teams on a regional or national stage."
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