Opinion: Oklahoma should have stayed home
Travis Willmann, Assistant Editor
Picture courtesy of pixabay.com
The views and opinions expressed in this editorial are solely those of the original author(s). These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of The Vision website or North Greenville University.
Many teams’ last chance to prove who they are to the basketball world comes on selection Sunday. The one day out of the year that teams that have worked all year to get into the NCAA Tournament they hold their breath. However, many teams know that they do not deserve to get into the tournament, but still hold out hope. This was the case for Oklahoma.
Oklahoma had lost its last 10 out of 15 games and lost to their rivals, Oklahoma State, twice. However, Oklahoma State had beaten now No. 1 seed Kansas twice and put together an impressive resume to get into the tournament. However, they did not and Oklahoma did.
This is a publicity stunt by the NCAA. The only reason Oklahoma got into the tournament was because of their star guard, Trae Young. According to ESPN.com, Young averages 27.4 points a game and 8.7 assists per game.
There was no question that people wanted to watch this star guard perform in the NCAA tournament and possibly lead his team to the final four, but that ended in the first round against Rhode Island University.
If Young could have taken his team to the Final Four, then the NCAA would have had better ratings and more excitement surrounding the tournament than if they would have let Oklahoma State into the tournament.
According to ESPN, Oklahoma State beat six top 25 teams and had a tougher schedule then Oklahoma. Also, down the stretch of the regular season, Oklahoma State played better then Oklahoma, winning 7 of its last 15 games.
This is a disgrace to everything the NCAA stands for; and Oklahoma State has the right to be upset.
How can a team that loses 10 of their last 15 games get into the tournament? Apparently, they just need a star guard that will get ratings. To make it worse, Oklahoma lost in the first round of the tournament to a team that is not from one of the five power conferences.
Many prominent sports announcers have come out in favor of Oklahoma State, including Jay Bilas, Dick Vital and many other coaches.
At the end of the day, Oklahoma State had the better resume, they had the better team and they deserved to be in the NCAA tournament. They know it, the NCAA knows it and Oklahoma knows it.
It is not fair that a team gets into the tournament just because of a single player that might change the ratings for one or two games, without having the resume to get in.
However, the tournament moves on.
