European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 16, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday. March 18, 1967 the stars and stripes. Page 23 commentary let computers pick earns Crum urges Denny chum i hunks there ought to be a belter Way to pick he Field Tor the Mcaa basketball tournament. And. Burned by the selection committee that left his defending Champion Louisville cardinals Home Crum offers two suggestions a computer or a Ball room sited meeting room. Let the software do it he said. Feed Ever score who you played where you played them and come up with 64 teams that Way. Or if you want to stay with automatic bids to conference champions then Lei the computer pick the 35 Al Large failing that Crum thinks every conference in the country ought to have a representative on the Selec Tion committee to prevent the suggestion that special interests interfere. Right now it s picked subjectively by nine peo ple with nine special interests. It does t give every body a fair shot. Human biases prejudice politics and friendships can be involved even if it s committee should t be in that position t know they work hard with honorable Good intentions. But it should t be thai Way not with so much Money involved. We need to re Eval uate the whole process and change the rules. My intention is to see that we get it Here s one of cram s proposed revisions every four years they ought to evaluate How individual conferences have done. If your conference never won a tournament Gars you ought to lose any Chance for at Large spots. Why let somebody i whose conference is not nearly As Good As another one Louisville s metro athletic conference has produced final four teams in five of the last six years with two National champions. When Memphis stale a school on probation and ineligible for the tournament beat Louisville by 23 Points for the Mac title it left cram s Tram with an 18-14 record and put the selection committee on the spot. The conference made a bad decision letting Memphis play in the tournament Crum said. But Money wags the Tail not principle Memphis bring about five or six thousand people to the tournament at $40 to $60 a head and it All goes to the conference office. The conference made a bad decision and the Mcaa committee made another bad it was a close Call said Dick Schultz the Selec Tion committee chairman. We give every team care Ful consideration. There is a value to strength of schedule and that was to Louisville s credit. The most damaging thing was according to our numbers and records they had a lot of big Louisville lost decisively on the Road to Syracuse Purdue Urcla and Washington and at Home to Kentucky beaten by 34 Points for the worst defeat in the Crum Era. Those one sided losses and the last game wipe out by Memphis slate outweighed the cardinals 18-14 finish in the minds of the selection committee. It s not a perfect process said Schultz athletic director at Virginia. An group of nine individuals will have the same 35 to 57 team. Five or six people will be All Over the Ballpark after that using the same information. Integrity is there. People Are not Al Lowed to give information on their own learns or their own conferences. The process is As objective As it can that seemed to be directed at Crum s Sugges Tion that the presence on the selection committee of Jim Delany commissioner of the Ohio Valley con Ference helped the orcs Middle Tennessee stale win a bid perhaps at Louisville s expense i sympathize with Denny Schuliz anybody can come up with a foolproof system we d be Happy to look at it. I Don t think any of us feel the process is set in Concrete. We try to refine it every year does Schultz like the computer idea if you agree on what information to feed into it and the values to place on the various information nobody would argue. The service Denny quotes plugs in differential scores. The Mcaa computer does not. If somebody come up with b formula that every body would be Happy with and one that is fair no body would argue he said. To say let s come up with a formula is easy. To do it is difficult Al Mcguire who look mar noetic to he inca title in 1977, said the Only formula you need is How you pick the last five teams not the first 59.1 Don t know what it is. But if a team does t go for political reasons that s teams now Are required to accept Mcaa bids that Rule was put in largely because of Mcguire who refused to accept a political relocation of his team in the 1970 tournament and would not move from the Midwest Region to allow notre Dame to stay there we were belter than notre Dame Mcguir said. We belonged in our own area. They wanted to Send me to Texas someplace. I said Are you kid Ding ill pass next i hear from he Marquelle president office. He assistant says 1 think we should go to the Mcaa i told him father i Don t hear confession and you Don t coach this team Twenty minutes later the priest called Back and said you re right in those Days the Mcaa and nit were like two elephants. You be got 19 be careful when you re Between them. The Only thing that gets Hurt is the grass and 1 was the Marquite chose the nit and Mcguire marched proudly into Madison Square Garden leading a showcase learn one of the lop three in the Nason into his Hometown tournament. We Fly in and our first game is against Massachusetts Mcguire said. I think hey they re a cup cake a palsy you know Napoleon said god is on the Side of the Large Marquette s battalions were struggling that night though before finally winning 62-55. The game is 17 minutes in and we can t Snake them the coach said. It s 23-22 or something and they be got one kid holding us off. I turned to then assistant coach Hank raymonds and said who is that Guy " and that s How Al Mcguire first met Julius Erv ing. Mcaa from Page 21 with a 113-82 first round Victory Over Penn North Carolina 31-3, outscored Mich Igan 32-10 to take a 23-Pqint Lead during the first half and Michigan never got Scon Hicks As Lime ran out. Rivers finished with 24 Points. We be lost games this Way now we win one this Way notre Dame coach Digger Phelps said. Thu led 49-42 before notre Dame rallied gelling two three pointers from Hicks the second of which lied the score at $3 with 3 02 to play. Notre Dame is 24-7, the same record tide fans see red Over blackout Birmingham Ala a As Alabama battled new Orleans in the Mcaa Southeast regional on saturday night local television stations heard from scores of callers upset because the Fame was blacked out Lynda can Well a producer at a big to the lbs affiliate in Birmingham said the station received a million Calls from people who complained that the game was not being shown a t almost quit answering the phone she said. " the game was blacked out in Birmingham because ii was t sold out 24 hours in some 1,800 tickets remained to be sold Friday. An office worker at the Bir Mingham Jefferson county civic Center said the last of 17,000 tickets for the game were purchased about two hours before Tipoff. Closer than six Points the rest of the Way. Gary Grant had 24 Points for the wolverines who ended their season 20-12. Michigan opened the second half with a 15-4 run to close within 64-58, Bui North Carolina made a run of its own outscoring the wolverines 22-9 to Lead 86-67 with 9 40 left. Norl danu58,tcu57 David River free throw wild tour seconds left Brake a 57-s7 tic and advanced Noire Dame into the Witt i finals of Floc Mcaa Eail regional thursday. Rivers missed the strand of a two free throws. Larry Richard grabbed the rebound for Tettas Christian but his pass was intercepted by notre Dame s at which thu finished its season. Southeast regional at Birmingham Ala Providence 90, Austin any 87 of Ernie Lewis scored 26 Points and Billy Donovan had 25 la Lead Providence Ove Austin Peay in overtime. Providence 23-d, tied the score 82-82 on a jumper by Donovan that ended a run of 17-7 Over the final six i nulls and erased a 75-65 deficit. Lawrence Mitchell who had 27 Points for Austin Peay made one of two free throws 22 seconds into overtime an Providence scored the next six Points four by Donovan. Alabama 101, new Orleans 76 Bama s Terry Coner drives around Uno s a be Corchiani As the tide romped saturday Derrick Mckay had 26 Points and Mark Gottfried finished with 20 As Ala Bama solved new Orleans normally Tough defense to earn its third straight trip to the round of 16. New Orleans saw a 10-Gamc winning Streak end in its first rip to the Mcaa playoffs allowing 14 More Points to Ala Bama than it had to any team this sea son. The Crimson tide shot 73 percent from the held and led 58-39 Al halftime. Ronnie Grandison scored 18 for new Orleans Alabama enters ii regional semifinals with 3,28-4 record while new Orleans ended its season at 26-4
