Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Packer and Nantz eat crow... sort of

SI.com has a short interview with our good buddies Jim and Bill, giving them the opportunity to apologize or at least admit they were wrong. They prettty much did (at least Nantz did)...

Nantz: Best tournament ever. And obviously, the Missouri Valley has proven us wrong, so good for them, good for [MVC commissioner] Doug Elgin. As I said on the air, this has validated what they had been crowing about all season long, and now I see why they should have their chests stuck out so proudly.

But they proceeded to try to reframe their comments from the selection show to be not challenging the selection committee for their picks of mid-majors, but to actually challenging the RPI...

Nantz: This is what the tournament is about. One thing -- I know you want to get it right and I know this will get edited, but our question had to do with the RPI, not with the committee. That's what got lost. It came across like we were challenging Craig Littlepage and the committee. We were saying, 'Wait a minute, the Big Ten this year beat one team out of conference that was a top 10 team, and yet they're rated the No. 1 conference, how can that be? How can teams like Hofstra be ranked 31st in the country and their best nonconference win was St. John's?' We were just confused by all of that.
Right... That's exactly what they said...