I think that they should maybe mandate that a team needs to be at least .500 in their own Conference in order to qualify for an at large bid.
Sorry if this has already been discussed, I haven't read the entire thread. Just sorta jumping in here.
but, that's not fair
some programs unfairly belong to very strong basketball conferences
Yes I follow such a program, and they don't belong on any bubble.
I wanted to come back to this discussion. I think that
@Brutus Buckeye 's opinion is, in a way, football-based. In football, I agree with his sentiment as I understand it.
As I understand it, Brutus' position is that a team like Ohio State (and all fringe tournament teams) shouldn't be in the tournament anyway because they clearly are not NC material. I agree that Ohio State and all of the other barely-in / barely-out bubble teams are clearly not NC material. In football that would be the end of the discussion for me. They aren't NC material therefore they shouldn't be in the NC tournament.
IMHO, basketball is different. There are a LOT of teams in the NC Tournament that clearly are not NC material. In the first 35 years since they expanded to 64 teams (1985-2019) the bottom four seeds (#13-16) in each region have made a grand combined total of just nine Sweet Sixteen appearances and no #13 or worse has ever won a Sweet Sixteen game:
- The #16's are 1-139 in the 1/16 game and 0-1 in the second round.
- The #15's are 8-132 in the 2/15 game, 1-7 in the second round, and 0-1 in the Sweet Sixteen.
- The #14's are 21-119 in the 3/14 game, 2-19 in the second round, and 0-2 in the Sweet Sixteen.
- The #13's are 29-111 in the 4/13 game, 6-23 in the second round, and 0-6 in the Sweet Sixteen.
My point in sharing this is to demonstrate that approximately the worst 16 conference champions each year are absolutely NOT NC material. Their inclusion in the NC Tournament has no bearing whatsoever on the ultimate NC determination as evidenced by the fact that in 35 years there have been 560 #13-#16 seeds and none of them have EVER won a game in the second weekend of the tournament.
The upsets are cute and fun to watch and it is very entertaining but the worst conference champions in the tournament are just window dressing. They are not even close to competitive, they aren't even close to being bona-fide NC material. It is true that they are all conference Champions but it is also true that Rutgers is the best college basketball team in Picastaway New Jersey. So what? The #13-16 seeds all won a conference tournament that is effectively a tallest midget competition.
In football I completely agree with Brutus' sentiment. IMHO, the football NC should be determined by the elite teams that are NC material. In basketball we already gave up on that idea long, long ago.
While I agree that a team like tOSU isn't NC material, I still wanted them in the tournament. Part of the reason is simply that I knew that there would be ~16 teams worse than Ohio State in the tournament. I also see that as unfair to the teams that just missed the cut. Indiana is better than a whole bunch of teams that got into the NCAA Tournament.
A few years ago when they talked about expanding the tournament I was adamantly opposed for basically the reason that I think Brutus feels that tOSU "(doesn't) belong on any bubble". Since then I've changed my mind. The complete futility of the worst ~16 conference champions has demonstrated, to me anyway, that they aught to all be playing what would effectively be a play-in game.
My new position is that the tournament should be expanded to 80 teams by adding one team to each pod such that the pods would be:
- 1/8/9/16/17
- 2/7/10/15/18
- 3/6/11/14/19
- 4/5/12/13/20
Then I would arrange the first weekend games as follows:
Thursday/Friday:
- One game per pod
- Two games per site
- Four games per region
- Eight games per day
- 16 games total as follows:
- 16/17
- 15/18
- 14/19
- 13/20
Saturday/Sunday:
- Two games per pod
- Four games per site
- Eight games per region
- 16 games per day
- 32 games total as follows:
- 1-16/17
- 2-15/18
- 3-14/19
- 4-13/20
- 5-12
- 6-11
- 7-10
- 8-9
Monday/Tuesday:
- One game per pod
- Two games per site
- Four games per region
- Eight games per day
- 16 games total as follows:
- 1/16/17 vs 8/9
- 2/15/18 v 7/10
- 3/14/19 v 6/11
- 4/13/20 vs 5/12
Starting with the second weekend we would be back to the current schedule.
As I see it, here are the main advantages:
- It would reduce the MASSIVE advantage currently given to weak teams from weak conferences by admitting more at-large teams.
- It would give every team in the tournament a plausible chance to win at least two games. As it stands now the #13-16 seeds have very little chance to win one game, almost no chance to win two, and no #13-16 has ever won three. With this proposed set-up the #13-20 teams would get a reasonably competitive game on Thursday/Friday then a theoretically winnable game on Saturday/Sunday and once in a while one of them would also win a third game on Monday/Tuesday.
- It would make the tournament more watchable: As it stands now, the biggest days are the first Thursday and Friday when most of us are at work and they play 16 games per day. In this system those 16-game days would be on the weekend (Saturday/Sunday) with somewhat less active 8-game days on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.
- That new first weekend would be an even bigger show than it already is. There would be 64 games over Thursday (8), Friday (8), Saturday (16), Sunday (16), Monday (8), and Tuesday (8).