NCAA Volleyball Tournament Selection Committee: Taking Care of Their Own

 First, a little history lesson is in order. The NCAA has been sanctioning Division One women's volleyball championships since 1981. In those past 30 years, 13 titles have been won by Pac-12 teams (Stanford, USC, UCLA, Washington), 5 titles have been won by Big West schools (Pacific and Long Beach State), and 3 have been won by Hawaii (joining the Big West next year). You do the math: 21 of 30 women's volleyball titles have been won by schools in states with at least one border meshing with the Pacific Ocean.
  In contrast, how many titles has the currently composed Big 12 accrued (not including Nebraska, now a member of the Big Ten)? One. Texas in 1988.
  Flash forward to 2011. In the last coaches' poll (AVCA), 6 of the top 16 came from the Pac-12, 2 from the Big 12. In that same poll, the top 4 were USC, Nebraska, Hawaii, and UCLA--3 from the Far West. The last NCAA committee rankings ran like this to set up the tournament seedings: only 3 of the top 16 came from the Pac-12, while an equal number came from the . . . Big 12! More incredulously, the NCAA deigned no school west of Nebraska worthy of a top 4 seed--their top 4 were Texas, Nebraska, Illinois, and IOWA STATE!!! Purdue was in at 5 and NORTHERN IOWA in at 6!!! The coaches' poll had Iowa State #14 and Northern Iowa #12. My own rankings had Northern Iowa #11 and Iowa State #13. More stupefying is this: according to the NCAA selection committee, the Big 12 had as many quality teams as the Pac-12--each had seven member schools chosen for the Big Dance.
  So what's going on? Is it that prevalent anti-Far West bias affecting the committee members? Is it an unusually distorted pro-Big 12 and pro-Missouri Valley viewpoint? If so, why?
  Well, who's on the NCAA volleyball committee? The chairperson, Diane Turnham, is the associate athletic director at Middle Tennessee State from the Sun Belt Conference. Incidentally, Middle Tennessee State made the field of 64, and the "powerful" Sun Belt has two teams in the field--Middle Tennessee (questionable) and Western Kentucky (deserved). 
  Of the 9 other committee members, only 2 are from west of Missouri: Nona Richardson of Cal-Davis (Big West) and Colleen Lim of Pacific (also Big West). In other words, the most historically dominant women's volleyball conference has no direct representation on the NCAA volleyball committee. Why is that? To be fair, the glaring omission didn't diminish the Pac-12 numbers in the Big Dance field. It probably impacted the lower-than-deserved seedings, however.
  The real problem lies in the disproportionate number of regions and regional representation found on the committee. The regions represented are as follows: East, Northeast, Mideast, South, Central, Midwest, West, and Pacific. 
  Could we have some redistricting here? They do it in politics, and the NCAA is, alas, nothing but a machine full of political machinations. Two suggestions: 1) either add Northwest and Mountain regions or delete the redundant Central and Northeast regions from the committee to create more geographical balance, and 2) limit representation to one member from each region. As it is, both the Mideast and Midwest regions have two representatives each. Ouch! What's fair about that? No wonder a slight Ohio State team got shoehorned in, giving the Big Ten, a legitimate volleyball power conference, a ludicrous eight-school representation in the Big Dance.
  No wonder mediocre squads like Baylor, Kansas State, and Missouri from the Big 12 made it. If two Midwest reps and one redundant Central region rep weren't enough to make sure the Big 12 was over-represented, having Cynthia Gannon of Missouri State (Midwest) and Sarah Reesman of Missouri (Central) on the committee sealed the deal at least for Missouri and Missouri State's inclusion! 
  What's more, Missouri State's Ms. Gannon probably didn't take a backseat when it was suggested that Missouri Valley Conference mate Northern Iowa deserved an inflated seeding/ranking, for it made her own school look better in losing to them. Ditto Missouri's Ms. Reesman, when it was suggested that not one, but two Big 12 teams deserved top 4 seeds, including overhyped Iowa State. That logic led to the conclusion that Missouri was a very good team, not mediocre, because it lost to several great Big-12 teams, not just one.
 On the other hand, was Colorado State the only Mountain West school deserving of a Big Dance bid? What about TCU (25-7), Wyoming (20-11), and San Diego State (20-10)? Yes, CSU won the MWC tournament, but CSU also beat Nebraska. Then again, just as in football, how could the Mountain West Conference be respected in women's volleyball when THERE IS NO MOUNTAIN REGION, or representative of same, present at NCAA volleyball committee meetings?
  Elsewhere, the Big East and SEC have no direct representation on the committee; tournament schools from those conferences deserved inclusion: Marquette, Cincinnati, Louisville (Big East) and Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky (SEC). Even a few conferences with direct representation didn't take advantage of the situation.
  The ACC (Ms. Barbara Walker of Wake Forest) placed four deserving teams in the tourney: Duke, Florida State, Miami (FL), and North Carolina. The abovementioned Ms. Lim and Ms. Richardson of the Big West only placed one Big West team in the Big Dance, Long Beach State. Of course, those two Westerners may have lobbied for more Western teams to be included, but they could have been outvoted or vetoed by the other eight members. 
  On the other hand, some conferences with direct representation, including the Big Ten (Ms. Terry Gawlik of Wisconsin) and Big 12 (the abovementioned Ms. Reesman of Missouri) could be viewed as stuffing the ballot box. Perhaps Ms. Gawlik considers herself a legendary leader (well, she was the chairperson of this committee in recent years and the Big Ten football divisions are called Legends and Leaders), but how could she get away with Ohio State (19-14) and, some would argue, Minnesota (18-11)? True, Minnesota is hosting a regional. True, Minnesota had one of the toughest schedules in the nation. But Ohio State? 
  As for the Big 12, what already hasn't been said? Sure, Texas deserved a Top 4 seed, but not Iowa State. Sure, Texas A&M and Oklahoma also deserved inclusion, but not necessarily Baylor, Kansas State, and Missouri. Is the Big 12 really on the same level as the Pac-12 in volleyball? We'll see how that plays out over the next three weekends.
  As a brief postscript, could there be other explanations for the illogical seedings and conference over-representations and under-representations?
  Committee chair Ms. Turnham may not know volleyball, but she definitely knows football and politics. In both, a good defense is a good offense. These are her words recently in why the committee disregards the AVCA poll: "The Coaches' Poll is based off of the votes of the Division I volleyball coaches. The coaches do not necessarily have to use the NCAA selection criteria when placing their votes." TRANSLATION: "We are more objective, fair, unbiased, and knowledgeable than the Division I coaches."
  While Ms. Turnham tries to be as dispassionate and judicious when explaining that the selection committee's formula comes from a combination of RPI, won-loss record, results against common opponents, results from head-to-head competition, and input from regional advisory committees, we all know that the regional input and direct selection committee member input are the over-riding factors, making them even more biased and fallible than the AVCA poll. In other words, like with the BCS committee's so-called strictly objective and mathematical formulas in determining BCS standings and team placements in bowl games, it's all smoke and mirrors, with a dose of reality for surface credibility and a veneer of justice.
  At least Division I volleyball coaches have historical perspective and show Far West teams the proper respect. My historical perspective allows me to approve of Penn State's super-cupcake path to the regionals. Why? They are the defending four-time national champion. They deserve respect, and so do the Pac-12 powers and Hawaii.
  Are most or all of the small-school administrators trying to impress big-school administrators? Do all of the non-West, small-school committee members dream of jobs in the Big Ten or Big 12? Interesting thought. Could other, more insidious, influences be involved here? I hope not.