The reward for Norfolk State winning 24 games and earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament is playing No. 1 seed Florida.
Longtime Spartans coach Robert Jones was not happy that his group was ranked No. 16 in the tournament bracket.
“We played a really good schedule, so I don’t understand. Is it that much of a MEAC bias or that much of an HBCU bias?” Jones asked on Selection Sunday after learning where the Spartans were seeded. “We played who they wanted us to play, we beat who we were supposed to beat. We beat them by the metric we were supposed to beat them by, and we still got a 16.”
In terms of NET Rankings, a system that the NCAA Tournament selection committee uses to help determine seeding, Norfolk State’s 183 rating was the best among the six teams that were 16 seeds.
However, the MEAC — with a .231 non-conference winning percentage — was second to last in NET ranking only to the SWAC out of 32 Division I conferences.
While Jones expressed frustration with where Norfolk State was seeded, its position in the tournament will be used as motivation, he said.
“We’ve got to go out there with a chip on our shoulder and show the world what’s up,” Jones said.
