CIS Basketball’s “At-Large” Berth is Nonsensical

The CIS Final 8 Men’s Basketball Tournament will get under way this weekend in Ottawa and will be contested by 7 teams who met specific standards to enter it, and by 1 team which did not.

Carleton is this year’s host and defending champion, but they will be the #2 seed in the national tournament, after losing a thriller to Ottawa in the OUA championship for their first loss since the opening game of last year’s regular season. The Gee-Gees will be the #1 seed, and the OUA bronze medal winning McMaster Marauders will be the #7 seed.

The Alberta Golden Bears (#3) and Victoria Vikes (#5) will represent Canada West as the two finalists from Canada’s second strongest basketball conference.

The nationally-unranked-since-week-5 St. Mary’s Huskies (yet seeded #6 for the Final 8) will be the lone representative from Atlantic University Sport (AUS), qualifying automatically as its champion.

Speaking of champions, the McGill Redmen (seeded #4) will represent the tiny (5-team) RSEQ conference.

And the Saskatchewan Huskies (#8)  will represent all that is wrong with the CIS Final 8 system.

But no matter, they will be quick cannon fodder for the red-hot Ottawa Gee-Gees.

However it begs the question: was there a better option than the Canada West Bronze medalist Huskies for this extra berth?

The answer is yes, as the CIS’s own selection parameters for the At-Large Berth betray themselves.

Basically, the At-Large berth is chosen by “a selection commitee” (made up of some coaches, but mostly anonymous CIS big wigs), the night after the final conference playoff game.

So, on Sunday night, this high council gathered (probably by phone) and allegedly used nine criteria to decide which team most deserved a second chance to compete for National glory. These nine criteria are broken down nicely in this article by Martin Timmerman: http://cishoops.ca/cis2013/cisatlarge.php.

I’ll try and simplify.

The teams on the outside looking in to the National Final 8 are compared by:

1) Their regular season conference records.

2) Their record against the already qualified Final 8 teams and the other teams under At-Large consideration.

3) Their record in games against non-conference CIS teams in tournament and exhibition play.

4) Their best 5 weeks in the CIS Top 10 rankings after November 15th.

5) Their record against CIS teams with winning percentage above .800.

6) Above .650.

7) Above .500.

8) Below .500.

9) The round from which your team was eliminated from the playoffs.

The ninth criteria is a system the CIS uses to separate certain playoff achievements into pre-decided, illogical “clusters.” For example, losing in a Canada West Semi-final is always seen as slightly better than losing in the OUA Quarter-Finals, regardless of how incorrect that statement would be when you look at this year’s teams.

Anyway, that’s just the ninth criteria. Let’s step back now and look at which teams have a shot at this berth.

Logically, the teams in question for the At-Large Berth are defined by the CIS playing regulations as the AUS finalist and 2 semi-finalists, the 2 Canada-West semi-finalists, the RSEQ finalist, the 4 OUA quarter-finalists, and the 1 non-qualifying OUA semi-finalist.

Of these 11 teams, when they are compared against one another using the CIS’s nine criteria, 4 rise to the top (as seen in Timmerman’s article). Acadia wins 4 categories, Ryerson wins 3 and Windsor wins 1, meanwhile Saskatchewan does not win any. Looking at the 9th criteria, Acadia, Windsor, and Saskatchewan are in the top cluster while Ryerson is in the second one.

Intriguing. So Acadia should be in?

Not necessarily.

Digging a little deeper, the reason Ryerson and Windsor do not win more criteria categories than Acadia is because they PLAY MORE GOOD TEAMS. Acadia wins most of their 4 categories because they do not have to play five games against Carleton, Ottawa, and McMaster. Their toughest games were against AUS champion St. Mary’s, whom they beat only 2 out of 3 times during the season.  When they did face OUA teams in tournaments, they were thumped soundly by McMaster and LOST TO THE WESTERN MUSTANGS who finished 8-14 in the OUA. On top of that, Acadia fell steadily as the season progressed, losing in an upset in the semi-finals to AUS finalist St. Francis-Xavier, and therefore in no way deserve to be at Nationals despite what the all-mighty criteria say.

Good, so the committee got it right by not sending Acadia.

But what about the Final 8 bound Saskatchewan Huskies?

Besides not even winning any of the dubious criteria columns, Saskatchewan beat no teams of consequence during the season, tournaments, exhibition play, or playoffs, losing 1 game to Victoria and 3 games to Alberta in their only games against National-level teams. Oh, and they also lost to UNB (5th in the AUS), as well as Lethbridge (15-7), Winnipeg (14-8), and Trinity Western (10-12) in the Canada West Conference. They fell from 5th to completely out of the National rankings by Week 13, just sneaking back into the 10th spot in the final week.

Don’t get me wrong, I whole-heartedly congratulate the Huskies for winning the Canada West Bronze Medal, they had a good season. But don’t tell me they are one of the Top 8 teams in the country.

The case between Ryerson and Windsor is closer.

First of all, the Rams beat the Lancers in their only meeting earlier this season. However, due to the OUA division system, the Rams were forced to play through an Ottawa team to make the final four, which they fell ONE POINT short of doing so against the #1 Gee-Gees. That was a road game too.

The Rams also were the closest challenger (before Ottawa’s upset) the Carleton Ravens faced all season. They led the Ravens in a season game into the final two minutes of the fourth quarter before eventually losing by just three points, 71-68. Ryerson’s only non-Ottawa slip-ups came against the Final 8 bound Marauders and the Laurentian Voyageurs who were several times ranked in the top 10 this season. That said the Rams soundly beat the Voyageurs in their other regular season meeting. In non-conference play, the Rams were undefeated, most “notably” beating RSEQ runner-up Bishop’s 95-70, which goes to show the low level of competition McGill had to deal with in order qualify for Nationals, but in the Redmen’s defense, they also crushed Bishop’s.

Meanwhile, the Windsor Lancers not only split the season series with McMaster, but also took them to overtime in the OUA Bronze medal game (a game they led most of the way). This was a day after playing well against Carleton in the semi-final, losing by 13pts. Let’s also point out the Lancers beat the Ravens to begin last season (with an identical starting 5 as their match-up this year) and were the last team to do so before Ottawa knocked them off in this year’s OUA championship. Besides losing to Ryerson, the Lancers did have a couple of other unfortunate slip-ups (in which injuries played a role). Windsor lost to Lakehead (9-13) and Waterloo (5-17) during the season, which regardless of the bad luck involved, definitely detracts from their case. They also were, until Ryerson’s playoff exit against the Ontario Champions, consistently ranked lower than the Rams in the National rankings.

The goal of the At-Large berth should be to put the best basketball team remaining into the National tournament. Period. That’s what the nine criteria are supposed to point to, mixed with a healthy “degree of discretion,” which even the CIS admits to. And again, do not get me wrong, discretion is absolutely a good thing, as it keeps a team like Acadia from qualifying via statistical anomalies.

Unfortunately, discretion might as well have been the only criteria, as in no universe do the Saskatchewan Huskies beat the Ryerson Rams or the Windsor Lancer based in any small way on the nine parameters laid out by the CIS.

I’ll say what some have been wanting to say: the committee ultimately had only one criteria, and that was a fear of Ontario bias. They wouldn’t dare put 4 OUA teams in the Final 8, no matter how much better the quality of its eligible teams.

The tournament seeding also gives this bias away, as this same committee decided to match-up the Carleton Ravens and McMaster Marauders in the National Quarter-Finals, which is an absolute joke.

The McMaster Marauders are a FAR better team than the Saint Mary’s Huskies (let alone the other three teams ranked #3-#5). Saint Mary’s went 14-16 in a very weak conference, and lost to Brock (OUA 4-18) in an exhibition game to begin the season. All the CIS had to do was seed McMaster at #6 ahead of St. Mary’s, and nothing would be suspicious about the rankings. But the CIS wouldn’t dare risk a National Final Four which includes three OUA teams. Just like they can’t imagine 4 OUA teams in the Final 8.

Absolutely, have the conference champion from each region of the country at the National Championship. Great, I’m all for it. But if you’re going to expand the National Championships past that point, do not arbitrarily reward non-champion teams for their geographic location rather than their basketball ability. And certainly don’t hide behind a set of complicated criteria that hold little to no value.

Oh, and when the Carleton Ravens inevitably take on the Ottawa Gee-Gees in a championship game for the second weekend in a row on Sunday afternoon, maybe ask yourselves why two of their greatest threats to the National throne were sitting at home watching the entire tournament.

The fear of geographical bias is the only reason that explains why the Ryerson Rams or the Windsor Lancers will not compete this weekend, and this same mistake is poised to repeat itself next year when Ryerson host the Final Eight. Yes, in 2015 this will mean that two teams out of McMaster, Ottawa, Carleton, and Windsor will be guaranteed not to qualify for the Nationals if the CIS will not consider allowing 4 OUA teams qualify for the CIS Final 8.

Your school’s geographic location.

Call it the 10th, all-powerful criteria.

-Alex Bloomfield