College Basketball

How tourney committee screwed Wichita State

If Wichita State is going to complete its quest for a historic undefeated season, it’s going to have to earn it the hard way. The NCAA Selection Committee saw to that by stacking the toughest Big Dance bracket in recent memory.

Every Selection Sunday, fans argue about teams that got lucky bids they didn’t warrant, and the snubbed ones that deserved to go dancing. But everybody agrees Middletown product Cleanthony Early and his Shockers — 34-0 and the top seed in the Midwest — will have to run a brutal gantlet to reach the Final Four.

“No one has their own agenda that they’re trying to accomplish. I think everyone’s team-orientated,” Early said. “They understand and they view the big picture more than anything, and they feel like they understand their piece of the puzzle.”

And that puzzle is trying to make history. Wichita State — which awaits the winner of Tuesday’s Cal Poly-Texas Southern play-in game — is the first undefeated team to reach the NCAA Tournament since UNLV in 1991. The Shockers are trying to become the eighth team — and first since Indiana in 1976 — to run the table.

Joining that august company won’t be easy. The other top seeds were overall No. 1 Florida (32-3) in the South, Arizona (30-4) in the West and, surprisingly, Virginia (28-6) in the East. While the other top seeds were faits accompli, the committee considered Villanova and Michigan for the East No. 1 before picking the Cavaliers.

The Wolverines ended up a second seed in a loaded Midwest that has three Final Four teams from a year ago, with Duke and Kentucky thrown in for good measure.

“We evaluate all of the regions in making sure they’re very strong regions and there’s balance. There’s certainly some great name basketball schools in that region, but the competitiveness is very balanced when you look in its entirety,’’ committee chairman Ron Wellman insisted. “I don’t see a region that’s exceptionally more difficult or easier than other regions: We’ve achieved balance.’’

Michigan faces Wofford, No. 3 seed Duke plays Mercer, No. 8 Kentucky plays Kansas State and — considered a potential No. 1 seed — Rick Pitino’s Louisville squad shockingly ended up a No. 4 seed, awaiting a matchup with Manhattan and Pitino protégé Steve Masiello.

“Louisville finished the season exceptionally strong. Anybody who watched Louisville play, you could easily predict they’d be another national championship contender again this season,’’ Wellman said. “But the committee’s job is to look at the entire body of work. When you look at Louisville against everybody else, we felt they were slotted appropriately.”

There is no hotter team in the country than Louisville, the defending national champs having won 12-of-13, including the AAC final over Connecticut. But neither the AAC nor the Big East — both of which splintered off from the original Big East — garnered much respect from the Selection Committee.

Each was tied for sixth with four bids to the Big Dance. Big East champion Providence was seeded No. 11 in the East awaiting a game with North Carolina, and AAC runner-up UConn was seeded No. 7 in the same region against St. Joseph’s.

AAC newcomer SMU wasn’t even that lucky, representing the most glaring omission despite a 23-9 record and being ranked going into championship week.

“When I saw Louisville [was a No. 4] I kind of figured they didn’t have a lot of respect for our conference,” said SMU coach Larry Brown, whose team paid for its 303rd-ranked non-conference slate. “But we only can blame ourselves, that’s the way I look at it.”

Wichita State is even better than last year’s Final Four team. Early — who once lived on 188th Street in The Bronx — leads the Shockers in scoring (15.8) and rebounding (5.9), while point guard Fred VanVleet is the MVC Player of the Year and their floor leader.

Still, they haven’t faced an NCAA Tournament team in three months. That will change starting in St. Louis on Friday when, after getting by the play-in winner, they’ll have to face — if things go according to chalk — Kentucky, Louisville and Michigan just to reach the Final Four.