–Jay Bilas, of ESPN, on March 13, after VCU made the NCAA tournament over teams like Virginia Tech, Boston College and St. Mary's
"I mean, give me a break! … It makes no logic whatsoever! … Look at Colorado's resume, look at UAB and look at VCU, it'd be a mismatch, man. It would be like a beauty contest with Roseanne Barr walking in versus Scarlett Johansson. No shot. None whatsoever."
–Dick Vitale, of ESPN, reacting to VCU's inclusion in the tournament
In the 24-7 era of sports coverage, opinions make the world go 'round. In many cases, those opinions are manufactured for manufacturing's sake. Just tune in to Around The Horn every afternoon for at least one example.
Yet, more often than not, there are genuine opinions that come from experts and represent that person's true feelings and beliefs. Just as often, those opinions end up making those experts look foolish.
Such is very much the case with this year's VCU Rams, the team that nobody wanted in the field of 68 that has since shocked the world. They've beaten USC, Georgetown, Purdue, Florida State and Kansas by an average margin of 10.8 points. In the Final Four, they'll face Butler, another afterthought for most experts just a few weeks ago.
Of course, analysts and experts are paid to do their research and say what they believe. In the unpredictable field of sports, you're lucky if you can be correct 30 percent of the time. That's something that both and Vitale need a little more help with.
"WE never said they could not WIN games," Vitale tweeted on Sunday. "We said their resume did not meet criteria in our minds [for] selection. Does not change my views!"
Vitale also went on to tweet that he was "eating crow, baby!" but that hardly makes up for his statement that he still believes what he said. If the criteria is about anything other than the ability to win games, than what is the point of any criteria at all? The selection committee faces the nearly impossible task of cutting down the nations' 346 teams into a field of 68, and, ideally, the at-large teams should represent those that have a chance to win.
For Vitale, though, it's about something else. Apparently, when he said that the Rams had the same case as Roseanne Barr in a beauty contest versus Scarlett Johansson, he believed that Roseanne was less attractive than Scarlett but could still beat her? Or that Roseanne could go on to beat four more of the most attractive women on the planet? Somehow, I don't think that's what he meant.
Picking on Vitale, though, isn't necessarily fair, as Bilas essentially said the same thing.
"Those arguments for selection are Selection Sunday-only arguments," Bilas told Newsday. "They have nothing to do with performance. I'll put it this way: The fact that VCU has played extraordinarily well and won does not make my argument wrong. Similarly, the fact that UAB lost and did not play well does not make my argument against them right.
"That's not the way the world works. It's certainly not the way the college basketball world works. If one actually listened intently to what was said on Selection Sunday, the argument was basically that Colorado or Virginia Tech was worthy of getting in first, not that any one team didn't belong at all."
Much like Vitale's Roseanne-Scarlett beauty contest, Bilas seems to be forgetting that he questioned whether the selection committee knew the basketball was round. To say anything other than, "I misjudged VCU and I was wrong" — for Bilas, Vitale or any other paid analyst — is simply disingenuous.
(For what it's worth, of the teams Bilas wanted in the tournament over VCU, two were eliminated in the first round of the NIT and two were eliminated in the second round. All four teams lost to teams that "didn't belong" in the field of 68.)
In the world of prognostication, you're simply set up to be wrong. Some of us know that fact rather well.
Yet while nobody can be right all the time and nobody expects anyone to be right all the time, when you're proven wrong, you're proven wrong. If you're going to eat crow, baby, then you have to eat the whole bird. Otherwise, you just look like a crying Jayhawk.
Should Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale be eating even more crow? Share your thoughts below?
NESN's college basketball coverage is presented by Bodog.net.
