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UAB’s loss doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have danced

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The jokes were everywhere on twitter tonight.

Uuniversity of Air Balls. UAB was supposed to be playing in the 16 seed game. UAB passed the laughable test. Did anyone else watch the Roast of UAB?

Seriously, just do a twitter search for “UAB”. There is some gold in there that cannot be reprinted here.

It was probably deserved as well. The Blazers got eviscerated by Clemson, who advance to play West Virginia at noon on Saturday, on the opening night of the NCAA Tournament, losing 70-52 in a game was not even that competitive. UAB was 12-24 from beyond the arc, and when you make 12 three pointers and lose by 18 points, its a pretty good indicator that every other aspect of the game was about as competitive as it would have been if the five writers on this blog were playing. (Word is that Mike Miller has a nasty jump hook.)

And throughout the game, the talk centered on the fact that UAB didn’t deserve to be in the tournament. That Virginia Tech or Colorado or Alabama should have gotten in over them.

Umm, no. Sorry. One game doesn’t make a season’s worth of sample size irrelevant. Clemson came in playing some of their best basketball of the season, having blown out Boston College and nearly beaten UNC in the ACC Tournament. UAB was struggling coming in, having lost to East Carolina in the first round of the Conference USA tournament.

We probably could have all seen this coming.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/33399756?launch=42107868" width="420" height="245" allowFullscreen="true” /]

And for what its worth, bitching about who got into the tournament and who didn’t has the shelf life of, at most, 18 hours. By noon on the Monday after Selection Sunday, the focus needs to shift from “who didn’t get in” to “who am I going to pick in my bracket”. Complaining about who got snubbed is akin to complaining about the parking ticket you got because you forgot to feed the meter. You can fight it, you can say how much you hate the city, you can complain about the ridiculous amount of money one hours costs, but in the end you better pay that ticket in 30 days or it will get doubled.

Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @ballinisahabit.