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The most wonderful time of year
Published: 2/29/2012 10:23 AM
Last Modified: 2/29/2012 10:23 AM

Football is my favorite sport.

I can watch all 18 holes of the last two rounds of the four golf majors.

Perhaps my most exciting moment as a sports fan was when the Houston Rockets broke through to win the 1994 NBA Finals, capturing the city's first big league title.

But there is still no better time in sports than the 30-plus day run that is college basketball's March Madness.

I watched the last several minutes and overtime of the Kansas-Missouri game last Saturday. You could feel the electricity in the building through the television. It was that intense.

Unfortunately, there isn't nearly that type of excitement in Oklahoma basketball.

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State must play on the first day of the Big 12 Tournament and don't figure to stick around past the second day.

Oral Roberts has had a great season. Tulsa is making nice a late-season push. But both need conference tournament championships to make the NCAAs.

I realize the Golden Eagles are a stylish pick to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. But I still think ORU must win the Summit League Tournament -- which begins Saturday -- just to get there.

Take a look at these two blind resumes (compiled based on information from RealTimeRPI.com) and see what you think...

Team A
Top 50 record: 2-5
Top 100 record: 6-8
Losses to teams over 100: 2

Team B
Top 50 record: 0-2
Top 100 record: 3-3
Losses to teams over 100: 2

Which team is more deserving an at-large bid?

Team B is Oral Roberts, at 26-5 overall and ranked in the top 40 in RPI.

Team A is Colorado State, at 17-10, but 26th in the latest RealTimeRPI.com ranking. Colorado State is fifth in the Mountain West, a league ranked 10 spots ahead of the Summit League.

Is Colorado State more deserving? That's hard to say. But according to ESPN's latest Bracketology, the Rams would be one of the first four teams left out of this year's field.

Last year's NCAA Tournament darling -- Virginia Commonwealth -- is also among ESPN's last four out.

VCU's resume? 25-6, 60 RPI, 1-2 vs. the top 50, 4-4 against the top 100 and two losses to teams outside the top 100. VCU is second in the Colonial League, a conference one spot ahead of the Summit League.

The lesson here? ORU can't afford to leave its NCAA fate in the committee's hands.

March Madness starts now.

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Tulsa World Sports Editor Michael Peters has nearly 20 years of daily newspaper experience. A 1993 graduate of Texas A&M, he worked at papers in Bryan-College Station, Texas, Beaumont, Texas, and Galveston, Texas, before joining the Houston Chronicle as High School Sports Editor in 2008. While in Houston, he coordinated coverage of the 2008 Texas Class 5A state football championships and the 2011 NCAA Men's Final Four.

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