I was around, too, getting my first taste of what it meant to cover Division I basketball on a regular basis.

The team to which I was assigned by The Pittsburgh Press — the Duquesne Dukes — was not the best in the league. Not even close. As I watched and wrote about the games in the Atlantic 10 and saw what was happening around the country relative to the NCAA Tournament selection process, however, it struck me it was unfair teams from such leagues as the Big Eight and Big East could get into the show with losing records in conference play.

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So I wrote about it three decades ago. I might even have been the first to come up with the idea: No team with a losing league record should be allowed to enter the NCAAs an at-large selection.

And then I received a promotion, in 1989-90, to cover the Pitt Panthers. And I realized how foolish I’d been. The Big East was a few years removed from its Ewing/Mullin/Pinckney peak, but the quality of play was significantly better than what I’d observed in the A-10. Temple deserved its No. 1 ranking in 1987-88; that team could have played with anyone. But measuring top-to-bottom, you arrived near the bottom a lot sooner in the A-10.

In 1990-91, the Saturday before Selection Sunday commenced with eight of the Big East’s nine teams still considered prospects for NCAA bids. Seven were chosen, including Villanova with a 7-9 record. No league since has come close to placing 78 percent of its teams into the field.

By then I learned a simple lesson: All leagues are not the same. They’re not the same from year to year, even.

The 2017-18 Big Ten did not perform well in nonconference games and did not establish a high quality of play. Last season, league members won 74 percent of games outside the league, ranking only fifth among Division I conferences. This year, they lead all leagues at 79 percent, and that figure has been compiled against better opposition.

It wasn’t enough for Nebraska last season to win 13 Big Ten games. The Huskers didn’t earn their way in with enough high-quality victories, even though they are members of one of the traditional power leagues. They got good in a down year; they had hope they could overcome this obstacle, but no real argument when they did not.

This year, there at least two Big Ten teams standing under .500 that currently are contending for NCAA bids — Ohio State (17-10, 7-9) and Minnesota (17-11, 7-10). Whether either makes it, or both, will depend largely on how they perform in their remaining games.

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They should not be excluded on a needless rule that takes into account neither the difficulty of the league nor the difficulty of the team’s schedule within that league. Ohio State has played twice against Big Ten leader Michigan State, and its games against top contenders Purdue and Michigan are both on the road. Should that keep out the Buckeyes?

The secret to assuring more teams from the Atlantic 10 and lesser conferences get a fair shot at at-large bids is properly evaluating their success. and not dismissing their achievements because they lack scheduling power. It appears the NCAA’s NET ranking is having that effect, with Buffalo of the Mid-American ranked 16, Wofford of the Southern Conference ranked 19 and VCU of the A-10 ranked 35. These teams have won a combined 91 percent of their conference games.

That’s nearly impossible to do in any league, whether it’s the 1988 Atlantic 10 or the 2019 Mountain West. Success in either of them, however, is not as difficult as in the 1991 Big East or 2019 Big Ten. Finishing under .500 in conference rightly costs a team a shot at a regular season title. It should claim no part of the NCAA selection process. It was a bad idea 30 years ago, even though it was mine.