Kendric Davis and SMU Getting Snubbed From the NCAA Tournament Would Be a College Basketball Travesty

Update: SMU was snubbed from the NCAA Tournament, along with Texas A&M. Kendric Davis will have to settle for the NIT — and it is March Madness’ loss too. The American Athletic Conference received much less respect overall than it deserved. Its double 29-5 champ Houston only got a No. 5 seed and a tough draw with Big Ten regular season champ Illinois looming as the No. 4 seed. Meanwhile, Memphis found itself stuck with a No. 9 seed — and the dreaded No. 1 seed second round matchup if it advances.

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FORT WORTH — Kendric Davis heads down a largely empty back hallway of Dickies Arena, one lone SMU official in a sports coat at his side. The games are over for the night — and one of the best college basketball players in the country is heading to the bus for the short drive home to SMU’s campus. Uncertainty trailing him every step.

Davis deserves to play more big time games. NCAA Tournament games. So does the Mustangs’ 6-foot-5 Charles Barkley specimen of a center Marcus Weathers and the rest of Coach Tim Jankovich’s battlers. But nothing is guaranteed.

Despite beating Memphis twice earlier in the season and storming back to beat a Houston team that should be a Top 4 seed, a 23-8 SMU team finds itself in limbo on Selection Sunday. ESPN’s resident bracketologist Joe Lunardi is now projecting that the Mustangs will just miss the 68-team field. Lunardi has SMU as his first team out.

Which is like being the almost vice president, but even worst. Still, when you’re as talented as Kendric Davis you want to believe.

“I’m confident,” Davis says when I ask him about the NCAA Tournament after SMU’s 70-63 loss to Memphis in the American Athletic Conference Semifinals Saturday night. “We finished second in the league (in the regular season). And whether Houston or Memphis wins the tournament, we’ve got a win with them.

“So we finished right behind a Top 20 team in the country. So — if we just leave it — if we get in the tournament, I know we can be dangerous.”

Kendric Davis and SMU should be in the NCAA Tournament. They’ve earned it. But Texas A&M’s unexpected run to the SEC Championship Game, Indiana’s sprint into the field and Richmond’s potential bid stealing in the Atlantic 10 has shifted the equation. Still, punishing this SMU team so severely for early season losses to bad Missouri and Loyola Marymount teams seems to miss the larger point.

This is one of the best 68 teams in the country. SMU has shown that all conference season — and it shows it again in this nip-and-tuck semifinal loss to Memphis, one of the more talented teams in all of America. SMU displays plenty of heart — and skill — in coming back to take a 55-51 lead on Penny Hardaway’s team with seven minutes remaining.

“For these guys. I want this team to go. I want this team to experience it as a group. They deserve it. If they didn’t deserve it, I wouldn’t be talking that way.” — SMU coach Tim Jankovich

A rare off night from Kendric Davis (which Memphis tries to take plenty of credit for) and the preternatural gifts of Memphis freshman Jalen Duren, who gets nine points, seven rebounds and two blocks in only 17 minutes despite suffering a hard fall, prevent SMU from finishing this time against Memphis.

But it’s hard to say SMU’s season isn’t worthy. In fact, you’d better not say that within earshot of SMU coach Tim Jankovich. Jankovich is a 62-year-old basketball junkie who’s been coaching all over the map almost from the moment he stopped playing at Kansas State. He’s been an assistant at major college programs (Kansas, Baylor, Illinois, Texas) and he’s been a head coach everywhere from junior college to the Southland Conference to the Missouri Valley.

But you get the idea that this particular SMU team is one of his all-time favorite teams ever. Jankovich mentions how proud he is of the group again and again after Memphis 70, SMU 63. You can almost hear the pain he’s feeling even imagining this team being left out of the big dance.

“I’ve been in too many situations like this one where you’re right there,” Jankovich says. “It’s not fun. I don’t wish it on anyone. But really I’m not worried about for me. Gosh, I’ve done it forever. Of course, I would like to go in. . .But for these guys. I want this team to go. I want this team to experience it as a group. They deserve it.

“If they didn’t deserve it, I wouldn’t be talking that way. But really every finger crossed, every vein, every prayer, whatever. . . that the committee sees fit. And sees it as I do. It’s bothersome. But maybe we’ll get some great news.”

Big time college basketball is supposed to be more fair than big time college football. And it largely is. But if SMU is left out the NCAA Tournament field — and only locks Houston (28-5) and Memphis (21-9) make it out of an underrated American Athletic Conference — it will be at least a little blow to that notion.

And a devastating one for Kendric Davis, the type of senior star who came back to school and seemingly did everything right.

“Kendric Davis, rightfully so, was the Player of the Year in this league,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson says. “. . . You take him off that team, it’s not the same team. You put Kendric Davis on just about any team, he’s a great, outstanding college point guard. He can do a lot of things to hurt you. And like most little guys, he’s got a swagger about him.”

The 6-foot (maybe) Davis leaves this game with a white bandage over his right eye. It almost completely covers his eyebrow. SMU’s lifeline played all 40 minutes of this game. Not taking a single break. Trying to will his guys into the NCAA Tournament.

He still deserves to get there.