Selection Sunday was a disappointing night for the Tennessee Volunteers basketball team. The Vols not only failed to make the NCAA Tournament, but they were also named a 2-seed for the National Invitation Tournament.
Head coach Cuonzo Martin held a press conference after the announcement. He seemed very composed and quite docile. He stood still, calmly taking question after question, answering each reporter with ease and consideration. He even addressed one question with a smile.
His reaction on Monday was completely different.
“No, I’m not angry,” Martin said with a shake of his head. “I’m upset for our guys. I felt like we did the work.”
But Martin did not stop there. He said Tennessee was not the only SEC team that deserved to be in the tournament and didn’t understand a committee that overlooked that kind of talent.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said of the committee’s decision. “I’d say it’s a lack of respect more than anything.”
The man sitting before me on Monday wasn’t the man I talked to on Sunday. He clearly had time to think and realized he wasn’t satisfied with the results.
2013 NCAA Tournament Selection Committee Chairman Mike Bobinski mentioned during an interview with CBS that Tennessee did not beat enough “powerful teams” and “struggled to win on the road,” but Martin said he wasn’t buying that explanation.
He said the committee’s decision made the Vols and the SEC look like a mid-major league. One reporter asked if Martin had noticed the SEC having a bit of a “down season” this year.
“How’s the league down when you have nine teams in the top 100 RPI and the only other league to have more is the Big East?” Martin said.
In Martin’s eyes, the league is no mid-major that has to schedule aggressively to make an impact. Martin said he wants to see every team in the SEC succeed and gain the respect they deserve.
“You look at Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. Those are NCAA Tournament teams. They’re just not playing in the NCAA Tournament,” Martin said. “I believe that.”
Looking at the assurance in his face, I believed it too.
He even went so far as to say that Bobinski’s comments were inaccurate.
So what started this day-two reaction? We may never know.
Maybe Martin lost some sleep last night and used the time to mull over why and how only three SEC teams made the NCAA Tournament. Maybe he realized that it wasn’t his team’s performance that failed to recommend itself to the committee. Maybe he realized the committee just didn’t give the SEC the respect it deserves.
— Lauren Kittrell is a senior in journalism and electronic media. She can be reached [email protected].
