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    Alexander: Exposing college basketball’s ‘they didn’t play anybody’ trope
    • March 13, 2026

    The world according to Jim:

    • So now Miami (Ohio) is on the bubble, a 31-0 regular season marred by a loss in its conference tournament, and the power conference apologists are trotting out the “but their strength of schedule” arguments for bumping them in favor of, for example, the Southeastern Conference’s 12th-place team.

    Yes, that would be Auburn. And yes, former Tigers coach Bruce Pearl – whose son inherited his job and led Auburn to a 17-16 overall record and 7-11 in the SEC a year after his dad’s team went 32-6 and reached the Final Four – backtracked this week after previously suggesting that the RedHawks didn’t play anybody during the season and shouldn’t get an at-large bid.

    (For the record, Steven Pearl still maintains Auburn deserves a bid after blowing a 10-point lead in a conference tournament loss to Tennessee on Thursday. No team with 16 losses has ever earned an at-large bid.) …

    • But there is another back story here, and it affects every mid-major program that poses anything considering a threat: The power schools aren’t inclined to play them, and definitely not on their home courts. Thus, the upward strivers seldom have ample opportunities to amass the Quad 1 wins that seem to sway the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

    Miami is an isolated case because of its perfect regular season. But this affects tournament consideration, seeding and bracketing, for all mid-majors and lower. So this concerns you, Big West and WAC programs, and even West Coast Conference schools not named Gonzaga. …

    • Quad 1 results, by the way, are home games against teams ranked 1-30 in the NCAA’s NET metric, neutral site games against 1-50 and road games against 1-75. …

    • So here’s the case involving Miami: As of Friday morning, they were 64th in the NET ranking, listed with a 28-1 record since three non-Division I victories weren’t included. They finished 14-0 on the road and 13-0 at home, but their record in Quad 1 games was 0-0.

    And it wasn’t a case of not wanting to play the big boys. Matt Brown, who writes the “Extra Points” college sports newsletter, brought the receipts: a list of the schools that told Miami no last spring, when the RedHawks reached out to arrange a 2025-26 game, including a willingness to travel to play a guarantee game (translated: lose a game, get a check). In most cases, that’s the only way a mid-major can get a game with a power conference program.

    The list included UCLA and USC, plus Wisconsin, Oregon, Michigan State, Ohio State, Illinois and Nebraska from the Big Ten; Mississippi State and Florida from the SEC; Virginia Tech and Pitt from the ACC; and BYU, Kansas and Utah from the Big XII. …

    • And, in fairness, the bigger schools weren’t always ducking Miami. In a lot of cases, dates didn’t line up, or the bigger school had already filled its quota of guarantee games. For example, UCLA associate head coach Darren Savino responded to the request from Miami’s Jonathan Holmes last May thusly: “Sorry for the delayed response. Appreciate you reaching out. We are looking to start a Home and Home series. We are done with our buy games for next year.” …

    • This is not an isolated phenomenon. For example, look at UC Irvine’s 2025-26 nonconference schedule. The Anteaters, 22-10 going into Friday night’s Big West semifinal against CSUN but 117 in the current NET ranking, played exhibitions against Arizona State and UCLA, but as for games that counted? No Quad 1 games and a 1-4 record in Quad 2s (which are defined as home games vs. 31-75, neutral against 51-100, road against 76-135). In UCI’s case, that included home losses to Northern Iowa (71st in the current NET) and Belmont (63) and a neutral-site loss to Utah Valley (83). …

    • It’s a similar story with California Baptist (101st, 23-8, 0-1 in Quad 1), UC San Diego (124th, 21-11, 0-1 in Quad 1) or just about any non-power conference team you can name. And consider the aforementioned Belmont, which was 26-5, had one Quad 1 victory, but lost to Drake in the first round of last week’s Missouri Valley Conference tournament and might have no shot at an at-large bid. …

    • Yes, the deck is stacked. Which will make it all the more joyous when one of those upstarts knocks off one of the powers over the next few weeks, or at least makes them sweat. (Especially if you had that upset on your bracket.) …

    • This week’s quiz was swiped from the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy – I only steal from the best – who ran it in his notes last week: Name seven Hall of Famers alongside whom Magic Johnson played with the Lakers. Answer below. …

    • Kobe Bryant’s fan club was aghast, irate – ah, name your adjective – when Miami’s Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against Washington earlier this week, surpassing Kobe’s 81 as the NBA’s second-most points by an individual behind the late Wilt Chamberlain’s 100. And yes, Miami coach Erik Spoelstra unapologetically went to great (outlandish?) lengths to make sure his guy got the record in what turned out to be a circus of a fourth quarter.

    But bottom line? My guess is that if Kobe were still here – as we all wish he were – he’d have simply congratulated Bam for the feat. I don’t think he would have taken it personally, so why should his fans? …

    • Quiz answer: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper, Vlade Divac, Spencer Haywood, Bob McAdoo, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy. Haywood was the guy you might not have guessed, given the way his only season with the Lakers (1979-80) ended when coach Paul Westhead dismissed him right before the Finals. …

    • Finally, a shout-out to community college football coaching legend Tom Craft – I suspect he’d grouse about that adjective, but it fits – who will be inducted into the California Community Colleges Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Saturday in Visalia.

    Craft was 261-78-1 on the two-year level, retiring as Riverside City College’s head coach following the 2024 season after having rejuvenated a dormant program to the tune of a 146-22 record, 12 conference championships, two state titles and a shared national championship in 15 seasons. He’d previously won three state titles at Palomar and was the offensive coordinator on Mt. SAC’s 2009 title team, and was named American Community College Football Coaches Association national coach of the year in 2019 and 2023.

    And after “retiring” at RCC, he couldn’t quite stay away. Last season, he was the quarterbacks coach for his successor and son, former UCLA quarterback Kevin Craft.

    jalexander@scng.com

    ​ Orange County Register 

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