March Madness is in full swing and whether you bet on a bracket or not, you are most likely forced to pay attention to the tournament from the buzz it creates in the media or your friends and family. So then who do you root for if you live in Appalachia Ohio? The Bobcats. But they are not in the tournament.
While March Madness is exciting, it is disappointing that the women’s Ohio University basketball team did not make the tournament. The women’s team’s 28-5 overall record and second place finish in the MAC was promising. However, Buffalo won the automatic MAC bid, but many Bobcat fans still hoped that the selection committee would consider Ohio.
When Ohio was not selected, Ohio University student Connor Mills asked the selection committee on Twitter, “What more did Ohio need to do to qualify for the tournament?”
The selection committee replied, “Ohio had a strength of schedule of 98, and 18 of their 27 wins were 100+ in the RPI. Those were the reasons they were one of our first teams out.”
Students, Noah Wolfe and Jake Hromada, took to twitter to express disagreement with their reasoning.
Although, the women’s basketball team is still on the court. The Bobcats qualified for the Women’s National Invitation Tournament and beat out High Point in the first round 81-74 and Middle Tennessee State in the second round 59-57. They will advance to the third round of the tournament for the second time in program history where they will host Western Kentucky Thursday.
March Madness is the NCAA’s money maker. There are huge discrepancies between the women’s and the men’s tournament. According to the NCAA, there were 97 million viewers in 180 countries over the span of the 2018 men’s tournament while the women’s tournament viewership was less than half that. Then, who is left to watch the NIT and WNIT? With what feels like everyone paying attention to men’s March Madness, don’t forget about our Lady Bobcats in the WNIT.
Image credit: Ohio Bobcats.com