Virginia Commonwealth head coach Shaka Smart took a stand recently after Duke’s head coach Mike Krzyzewski said that the Atlantic 10 did not deserve to get six teams in the NCAA tournament, especially since he thought NC State deserved an at-large berth ahead of A-10 teams.
“First of all, comparing your own league to someone else’s league is like me saying that my daughter is cuter than your daughter,” he said. “There’s a level of bias that comes into play that you shouldn’t even make those comments. Secondly, coaches are too busy to be an authority on someone else’s conference.
“I know our league really well because we’ve been in our league preparing for our league, but I don’t know much about anyone else’s league beyond the teams we’ve played in nonconference play.”
“You kind of want to stand up for your league,” he said. “A lot of this league solidarity, like a Duke guy standing up for NC State, that’s all self-serving too. Let’s be honest. ‘Our league is great because it’s our league’ — it’s a lot of that.
“Let’s just have a level of respect for each other, and let’s respect the nine people on the selection committee and the work they put into to picking the 68 teams.”
Kudos to Smart for standing up for what he believes.
[ESPN]