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Ball Fair?
SIUC graduate student's thesis examines NCAA Tournament success

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD, THE SOUTHERN

Sunday, April 6, 2008 1:14 AM CDT

CARBONDALE - It's being touted as a historic NCAA tournament this weekend as four marquee Division I men's basketball programs - North Carolina, UCLA, Kansas and Memphis - battle for the top prize.

It may also bolster the thesis of Wilfred T. Reilly, a Southern Illinois University Carbondale doctoral student in the department of political science who has written a paper, "Ball Fair? A Quantitative Examination of Which Universities Succeed in the Men's NCAA Tournament."

The paper has been published recently by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

Reilly's thesis is that most universities, with the exception of the elite in major conferences, spend too much money for too little a chance at succeeding in big tournaments such as the NCAA championship.

"Athletic investment only makes sense if you win at the highest level," Reilly said.

Studying the NCAA tournament from 1998 to 2007 for example, large mid-major schools with 20,000 students or more, where SIUC would be included, have sent only one team to the Final Four, and that was George Mason University in 2006.

"There's been no small school in the last decade that has made it into the Final Four," Reilly said.

In his paper, Reilly describes the Salukis as a team like Gonzaga University, "which win consistently in the tournament" but do not make it into the Final Four.

He's not derailing Saluki effort, pride and work. But statistically, it doesn't pan out for schools of SIUC's size and conference given all the variables such as tournament seeds, location of play and the athletic investment the huge universities in major conferences make into athletics.

"SIU has played in eight NCAA games during the past five years. The Salukis have beaten Virginia Tech and come within three points of Kansas; they have been described as legitimate potential champions," Reilly writes in his paper.

If the Salukis had beaten Kansas in 2007, for example, they would have had to play UCLA, Florida and Ohio State in succession.

"Given how the tournament is seeded, they would have had to do so in packed, unfriendly arenas. This is unlikely. Southern's success indicates that the best regional universities are good enough to beat two opponents, not that they have a chance of winning a national championship," Reilly writes.

What's happening on the national scale, with schools making huge investments into athletics for a chance to get into the Final Four, for example, is that colleges overlook valuable dollars that could be used in more graduate research and improving the quality of undergraduate education, Reilly said.

The paper will likely generate discussion, said Mike Lawrence, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

"His paper is carefully researched and written. It is well argued. It should not be construed as representing a policy position of our institute. However, we believe it merits consideration in an ongoing dialogue," Lawrence said.

scott.fitzgerald@thesouthern.com / 351-5076