Sounding Off: Let's hear it for the Aggies (you read that rigth) - Abilene Reporter-News

In the months I’ve had this column, I’ve gained â€" perhaps earned is a more appropriate word â€" a reputation with some as an Aggie-hater.

In the opinion of some readers, my general tone toward Texas A&M athletics has been “negative” and rarely do I give the Aggies the credit they deserve.

If you’re one of those people, prepare to be shocked.

After giving the College Station crowd a harder time than maybe I should â€" but remember that I am a Baylor grad, I’m going to devote a large portion of this week’s column to praising the Fightin’ Texas Aggies. The Ags, along with their not-so-friendly rivals 93 miles to the northwest, may have one of the most underrated men’s basketball teams in the country.

If you know what I’m talking about, you’ve paid closer attention than most. If you don’t, you might be an ESPN college basketball analyst.

Over the past four months, Baylor and A&M each have put together extremely impressive campaigns. Yet with the Big 12 tournament beginning today and Selection Sunday looming, the two schools are the Rodney Dangerfields of the college basketball world.

The resumes are there, but where’s the respect?

At first glance, the two schools might appear to be getting their due. Baylor (24-6) is ranked No. 21 in The Associated Press poll and No. 20 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll, A&M is ranked Nos. 23 and 24, respectively. Both are considered locks for the NCAA tournament.

With each school’s basketball history, they should be thankful to be in the polls and to be headed to the dance, right?

Wrong.

And a deeper examination of each team’s season shows just how wrong that line of thinking is.

If you consider rating percentage index (RPI) to be a valuable tool, which the NCAA tournament committee has since RPI was introduced in 1981, then Baylor and A&M are top 15 teams.

Baylor owns the eighth-best RPI, which takes into account schedule strength and a team’s performance against that schedule. The Aggies are ranked 11th in RPI. A&M played the sixth toughest schedule in the nation, Baylor was ranked 18th in strength of schedule and both teams finished 11-5 and tied for second with No. 9 Kansas State in the top conference in college basketball this season. It’s hard, then, to understand the knock on each.

A&M’s eight losses are the second most among ranked teams, but similar records haven’t seemed to hurt No. 5 Ohio State (24-7), No. 11 Michigan State (24-7), No. 13 Wisconsin (23-7) and No. 15 Tennessee (23-7), all of which have cracked the top 15 with worse RPIs and schedule strengths than the Aggies.

And though Baylor went 2-3 against RPI top 25 teams and lacks a real “signature win,” the Bears went 11-5 against teams with top 100 RPIs, never lost two games in a row and are the only team in the nation that hasn’t lost a game by double digits this season.

You put those resumes under the name “University of Texas” and you’re talking about a top 15 ranking and a No. 3 or 4 seed in the tournament. Instead, Baylor and A&M have been tabbed as five and six seeds in most projections, and none of the pundits care to explain why.

I don’t think there’s any sort of anti-Big 12 sentiment or any grand conspiracy to keep two up-and-coming programs down. But I think ignorance has served the same purpose.

In the eyes of many analysts and voters, basketball doesn’t exist outside of the Big East or the ACC, which is why it takes forever for North Carolina and UConn to drop out of the polls/tournament projections despite fielding average teams and why the Baylors and A&Ms of the world are overlooked.

But those that have had the privilege of watching these two teams have seen what a remarkable job Baylor’s Scott Drew and A&M’s Mark Turgeon have done with their teams this year. Both are mentally tough squads with physical tools that make them a difficult matchup for anyone they’ll face in the coming weeks.

I just hope the NCAA tournament committee does a better job of recognizing this than the national media.

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