By Michael Hollingshead
Oh, to be snubbed.
Minutes before Utah State found out they wouldn''t be dancing, CBS aired a shot of the Aggie players sitting nervously in front of their television.
'Will Utah State make it in?' Greg Gumbel asked rhetorically as the shot went to commercial.
Then the rug was pulled out from under them.
What a dirty trick.
Apparently winning 25 games and pulling out a 17-1 conference record isn''t good enough for a mid-major to get an at-large bid these days. A win over a quality BYU team, a top-25 ranking for six weeks and a 17-game winning streak in the middle of the regular season just didn''t cut it.
It''s insulting, really.
Aggie coach Stew Morrill has every right to be upset with the committee when teams like Washington (19-11), Air Force (22-6) and UTEP (24-7) earned at-large births.
'Whining is not going to accomplish a whole lot,' Morrill said after the announcement on Sunday. 'It really sends a message to mid-majors out there.'
Sorry Stew, but you''re not alone.
USU, who registered an RPI of 43, was one of only two teams in the top-47 RPI teams that didn''t make the cut. LSU (18-10), the other big loser, has an RPI of 38, but will be chilling in the NIT this month instead of running the NCAA floors.
Georgia, Notre Dame and Oklahoma, who rounded out the final 50 spots in the RPI, also missed out. With so many conference favorites losing their conference tournaments, at-large spots were dropping like flies, and somebody had to pay.
BYU fans are lucky it was Utah State on the unfortunate end of things and not the Cougars.
BYU did not win the Mountain West conference, they did not win the MWC tournament, they only had a 21-8 overall record and they lost to Utah State earlier in the season.
As possible seeds filled up on Sunday, I have to admit I thought the Cougars were going to get snubbed too.
Seeing how there were only so many places BYU could fall because of their no-Sunday-play policy, it wasn''t looking good. I watched Air Force grab the 11-seed in Denver and then I saw Alabama and Southern Illinois fill the 8 and 9 spots in Seattle.
The spots were filling fast.
Then I watched Syracuse''s name pop up on the screen as the No. 5 in Denver and I knew it was the last chance. The stress was over when Gumbel read out BYU and a No. 12-seed was awarded.
And just as I let out a sigh of relief, thousands of stalwart Aggie fans bit off the remainder of their nails. It wasn''t to be for the up-start boys from up north.
The saddest thing about Utah State''s snub is that they did very little to prove to the committee that they didn''t deserve a spot - unlike all the other teams whose bubbles burst over the weekend.
LSU lost early in the SEC tournament, Florida State dropped in the first round of the ACC tourney and Colorado made an early exit from the Big-12 showdown.
Georgia, Oklahoma and Notre Dame not only lost too early in their respective conference tournaments, but each registered at least 10 losses with schedule strengths that weren''t tough enough.
But Utah State? They only dropped three games all year -- one to MWC Tournament Champion Utah -- and they won their regular season conference outright. Their only fault was their disastrous semifinal loss to Cal-State Northridge in the Big West tourney.
CS-Northridge''s RPI was only 186, and it turned out to be just too much to forgive for the selection committee.
So the Aggies will go to the NIT and Morrill will have to wait until 2005 for another chance to dance.
As for the Cougars, they can thank their lucky stars. Or their RPI.