There has been a lot of discussion about why certain conferences received so many bids to the NCAA Tournament and why others, namely the Big East, did not.
Providence head coach Kim English was asked for her thoughts after her team was named a Big East snub in Sunday’s selection, and the Friars’ first-year coach didn’t hold back.
“I think the analysis is the Bulls,” English told reporters. “I think you can schedule a bad team in nonleague and just beat them out and win by 50, 60 points. I think it’s been a gentleman’s agreement to coach for this long. That means having a big lead at the end of a match, you eliminate players for health reasons, and you eliminate players to give other players a chance to play.
“But now there may be a change in the college basketball world. We have a schedule where we beat other teams by 40, 50 points. [It] That might be the thing to do, but going into this league, the analytics within the league are not going to look very good. You’re playing against really, really good coaches. ”
Providence, Seton Hall and St. John’s all missed out on at-large bids after participating in what is considered one of the toughest conferences in the country.
The Friars finished the season with six wins against Quadrant 1 opponents, ranking them 57th in the NET rankings.
Providence was ranked 53rd in the KenPom rankings.
Mr English said the analysis did not always tell the whole story and there was a “flaw in the system”.
The Providence coach acknowledged that his team had a chance to get better and miss games during the regular season.
“It’s what you earn.” english said. “If you don’t take care of these games, you’re putting your faith in other people’s hands. That’s not where you want to be. That’s not where we want to be as a program. New York in the future. We definitely want to be there, even if we don’t deal with business in .”
Providence still has a good chance of earning an invite to the NIT, which will be announced late Sunday night.
