The woes of a mid-major

Western Kentucky fights uphill battle to improve schedule

Western Kentucky coach Dennis Felton remembers receiving a dispirited call this spring from one of his assistants, Pete Herman, who happened to be phoning in from a racetrack in upstate New York. "I just ran into Rick Pitino," Herman told his boss. "He said to me, 'I'm glad I saw you because I wanted to let you guys know we're not playing that game.'" Pitino was referring to a scheduled matchup against the Hilltoppers that Louisville contractually was obligated to play. Though Felton was disappointed in Pitino's news, he did not call the Louisville coach to press the matter further. "I've never spoken to Coach Pitino in my life," Felton says. "Since that was how he chose to tell us he didn't want to play, I just assumed he didn't have any interest in talking with me."

Such frustrations are a fact of life for mid-major schools, especially those that have been as successful as Felton's Hilltoppers have. Last week 7-foot-1 center Chris Marcus announced that he was withdrawing his name from the NBA draft and would return to school this fall (Marcus has been suffering from a stress fracture in his left ankle which kept him from working out for scouts). With Marcus back in the lineup, Western Kentucky could well start the year as a preseason top-10 team. But this roster boost also makes WKU an even more unattractive opponent for the so-called high-major schools. And that means it is even more likely that the Hilltoppers will once again get screwed by the NCAA men's basketball committee when it selects and seeds the tournament field next March. "The committee made it very clear this year that they're always going to cater to the big six BCS conferences," Felton says. "How can you compare our 27 games to someone else's when 18 of theirs were at home and 12 of ours were at home?"

It is indeed mind-boggling that the RPI formula, which so obviously is driving the tournament selection process, does not take into account where a game is played. Last year Western Kentucky entered the NCAA tournament with a 26-3 record and an RPI ranking of 28, yet the committee still seeded the Hilltoppers ninth. (They lost to Stanford in the first round.) Likewise, Gonzaga, despite an RPI of 21, got a No. 6 seed, while worthy squads like Bowling Green and Butler were left out of the field entirely. With schools now scrambling to fill out their schedules, this is the time of year mid-majors feel a squeeze rivaled only by the pinch of Selection Sunday.

In the case of Pitino and Louisville, their efforts to give Western Kentucky the shaft have been particularly brazen. Under former coach Denny Crum, Louisville signed a contract that already was tilted in the Cardinals' favor. The first game was played at Louisville's Freedom Hall in December 2000 (Western won 68-55); the second game was supposed to have taken place last season on a neutral floor in Nashville, Tenn. After Pitino decided to "take his scheduling in another direction" (translation: away from good teams), Western agreed to postpone the game for one year. Felton claims that, as part of that agreement, the Cardinals said they would play on Western's home court, Diddle Arena, though the addendum that was drawn up indicated the game would still be played in Nashville.

Pitino then decided he wanted no part of that agreement, either, electing last October to pay the $25,000 exit fee required by the contract. Felton, however, points out that the clause was there in case an unusual circumstance prevented a team from playing the game. The only unusual circumstance in this case was that the Hilltoppers were a damn good team. By electing to pay the $25,000, Louisville was essentially playing a one-year guarantee game, which is insulting considering the going rate for a guarantee game is upwards of $75,000. "We'd never play anyone for $25,000," Felton says. "If they could just cancel like that, then no contract in the country is worth the paper it's written on."

As it turns out, the game will be played, but only because a Kentucky state senator last month submitted a requirement as part of a budget bill that Louisville fulfill its end of the contract. That proposal was scuttled by the state's House of Representatives, but it generated enough negative p.r. that Louisville reversed its position and agreed to play the game. Amazingly enough -- really, what are the chances? -- the Cardinals' schedule is already booked for this coming season, so Pitino has put Felton off for one more year. Marcus, a likely lottery pick, will have used up his eligibility by then.

As hard as it is for Felton to book quality nonconference road games, it's flat-out impossible to get the big boys to take on the Hilltoppers in Diddle. Western will open next season in Tucson against Arizona, the probable preseason No. 1, in a one-year guarantee game arrangement. The Hilltoppers will be in the formidable field at the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii during Christmas week, but Felton's efforts to get a quality road game on the west coast in the days beforehand went for naught. "We talked to everybody in the Pac-10, everybody in California. We can't even get somebody to buy us out there," he says. What's left for Western's nonconference home slate? Austin Peay, St. Francis, Virginia Commonwealth and Division II Kentucky State. I'm sure that will impress the committee next March.

To restore some fairness to this process, Felton argues that the NCAA should legislate scheduling to bring the home-away scale back into balance. "That way, the Louisvilles of the world can't just buy a 16- to 18-game home schedule every year," he says. That is not bloody likely, however, especially considering how much revenue the Louisvilles generate from all those home games. So the mid-majors will continue to take their lumps, which is too bad considering the huge advantages the BCS conferences already have in terms of money and TV exposure. As long as those schools also have the selection committee in their hip pockets, then the likes of Western Kentucky will never be able to compete with the elites on anything resembling a level playing field.

Sports Illustrated staff writer Seth Davis covers college basketball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.

 

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