Blanchette: Zags pick right time to display resume

If college basketball is your drug of choice, maybe your favorite day of the year is Selection Sunday. Hard not to get wrapped up in the intrigue of the bracket reveal, no matter what CBS does to screw it up.

Or maybe it’s Thursday and Friday of the first NCAA tournament week. Wall-to-wall ball on four channels, no matter what Charles Barkley does to screw it up.

Or the regional championship weekend upcoming with Final Four spots at stake, or the war between anticipation and dream-crushing that is Semifinal Saturday. Can’t screw up anything except your bracket.

Now, I got a charge out of the buzzer-beaters and miracle comebacks in the frantic first four days. But I’m not convinced that the high point wasn’t flipping to the Saint Mary’s-Georgia NIT game on Sunday. A lovely scenic of Alcatraz and San Francisco Bay appeared on the screen during a timeout as Quality Inn was pimped as a sponsor. At which point, ESPN play-by-play announcer Roxy Bernstein felt it necessary to point out, “That isn’t a Quality Inn. That’s the Rock.”

“Beds may be similar,” sidekick Corey Williams mused.

Bet I know who’s getting a memo from Bristol on advertiser retention this week.

Never mind that it may have been the most trenchant analysis of the weekend.

But then it was a tough weekend. On Thursday and Friday, double-digit seeds wreaked unprecedented bracket carnage – eight wins by teams seeded 11 or worse (five seed lines being the NCAA definition of an upset), plus two more by No. 10s. There was a half-court heave to force overtime and a dunk to win at the buzzer that didn’t count. It was preposterous chaos.

I even felt good for Kermit Davis. Until I remembered, c’mon, it’s Kermit Davis.

Naturally, this carnival was immediately hosed down by the Fun Extinguishers, and the selectors and seeders excoriated for shoddy work. Impossible that Middle Tennessee State was a 15 seed and unfair to Michigan State, it was offered. Wichita State an 11? Wish it all could be redone. Gonzaga – which almost no one had in the bracket until the Zags won the West Coast Conference tournament – was somehow an unjust draw for Seton Hall, which was more deserving of a better placement line.

Shame on the committee. Bad, bad committee. The Pac-12 basketball of committees.

Now, I enjoy a good committee bash as much as the next guy (Oregon State a 7? Riiiiiiight!), but let’s remember the Ten Commandments of the Bracket:

1) Thou shalt not use a tournament result to justify or incriminate a selection or seeding;

2-10) See Commandment 1.

For instance, if beating Michigan State means Middle Tennessee was mis-seeded at 15, then getting blown out by No. 10 Syracuse in the next round must validate it, no? And those who suggested Syracuse got an at-large gift on Sunday aren’t daft just because the Orange won a pair; that logic dictates none of the at-large pool’s first-round losers should have been invited, either.

Sometimes an upset is just an upset. Sometimes marginal teams get a good matchup and play their tails off.

Not that this registers with Jim Boeheim, the Syracuse coach whose team awaits Gonzaga in the Sweet 16 on Friday. Anyone who dissed the Orange’s worth should report for a brain scan, he insisted.

Actually, what he said was, “Nobody that said we didn’t deserve to be in obviously doesn’t know anything about basketball.”

OK, then.

When the tournament went chalk on Saturday and Sunday, the narrative reverted to all being right with the world and the big dogs getting their just rewards. Never mind that there are more big dogs and fewer hungry mutts in the tournament every year. And never mind that a buzzer tip-in and a historic meltdown kept this Sweet 16 from having the second most double-digit seeds in history.

Note to Northern Iowa: less work on half-court shots, more work on inbounding the ball.

Syracuse and Gonzaga are the two double-digits remaining, and Zags coach Mark Few has been decidedly indifferent to any perceived committee malpractice. No, he’s not a big fan of the RPI and would like to see a better metric. Yes, he wants people to understand his team played a tough schedule and most of the losses went down to the last possession. But he’s fully aware the Bulldogs didn’t win enough resume games to make a stronger case, and that the scoreboard has to count for something, eventually.

So they’re building the resume` now.

“Our numbers weren’t that great,” he said after the Zags bludgeoned Utah. “They kind of seed off the RPI. That was fine. End of the day, we’re playing our best basketball of the year at the right time. The guys are confident. They’re making plays. They’re having fun. It’s working.”

They’ve played their way off the Rock – and into the hard place of the Sweet 16. Where the beds may be similar.