Column: View from the Stands; No need to panic about basketball team

Ever since the men’s basketball team’s 83-77 loss at home to New Mexico State, everyone’s been saying two things.

“Those refs sucked,” and “There goes our at-large bid. Now the only way we make the big dance is winning the WAC tournament.”

I am here to tell you, fellow Aggie fans, that this is not true. Well, at least the second part isn’t true.

USU has too many opportunities in front of it to have NMSU stand in the way of a potential at-large bid.

Despite NMSU’s 10-12 overall record, USU’s two losses to the other Aggies are not as bad as they sound. Not that the Aggies should have lost either game, but everyone in Logan still remembers last season’s losses to Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne and Idaho.

Those were bad losses. Just look at where the teams were ranked.

The best place to find those ranking is the Ratings Percentage Index. It’s not perfect, but it is a very good top-to-bottom indication of where a team stands compared to the rest of the country.

Here’s some numbers:

After Saturday’s loss, USU is No. 53 in the RPI out of 334 Division-I schools. With the win, NMSU moved from No. 154 to No. 127. Last season, Idaho finished at No. 289 and IPFW finished at No. 307. Again, the NMSU losses aren’t nearly as bad as last year’s bad losses.

The worst loss USU has on its record this season is the double-overtime thriller at No. 148 Fresno State – the same place where WAC-leading Nevada lost by 10 points.

But come selection Sunday, if USU doesn’t win the WAC tournament and doesn’t get an at-large bid, the selection committee will not be pointing to NMSU as to why the Aggies got left out.

USU still has home games against No. 72 Northwestern State and No. 37 Nevada as well as the WAC tournament, where it would likely face another top-100 team or two.

If the Aggies can take care of business against those teams, the selection committee would be hard-pressed to find a reason to keep USU out of the big dance. If the Aggies can’t beat those teams, then the committee can point to the fact that USU couldn’t beat the tough teams when it needed to.

The NMSU losses will be a non-factor either way.

The bottom line is, the only way USU will be on the bubble on selection Sunday is if it loses more games. USU still controls its own at-large destiny.

Bryan Hinton is a senior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to bhhinton@cc.usu.edu.