Analysis of leagues in the NCAA wrt BB tournament:
The above is a list of the 32 leagues. Each league Champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The list is sorted first by the percentage of teams in each league that are ranked in the top-68 in the end-of-season NET rankings. First, a tip of the cap to the B12. I don't remember ever seeing this before but every single team in the B12 is in the top-68 in the NET. Wow! That is impressive. Our league was second with 11 of 14 teams in the top-68 (78.6%) followed by the SEC with just under two-thirds. The rest of the power leagues and the MWC each had between 40-50% of their teams in the top-68, CUSA was at about a quarter and all the rest of the leagues were at one-in-five or less.
I used top-68 here because the Tournament takes 68 teams.
The top 19 leagues each have at least one team in the top-68 in the NET. So their Champions either are top-68 or at least had to win a league with at least one quality team.
The other 13 auto-bids in the Tournament are, quite simply, the tallest midget. They range from relatively tall midgets out of the Sunbelt and SoCon to the NEC where their best team was #301 and would have been dead last in the B12, B1G, SEC, B-East, MWC, and a number of other leagues.
So here comes my annual pitch for expanding the tournament:
Frankly, I'd be fine with contracting by simply instituting a minimum threshold for the auto-bid. I would suggest going back to 64 (something I am very much in favor of) but adding a rule that you don't get an auto-bid unless at least one of your league's teams is in the top-128. This year, that would eliminate the bottom six leagues (Big South, Southland, SWAC, MEAC, OVC, and NEC).
Assuming that they are NOT going to institute a minimum threshold, I favor expanding the Tournament to 80 (increase of 12) with the following format:
First weekend, eight locations:
- Thursday/Friday: Two games per location, eight games per day, 16 games total to get down to 64 teams (seeds 13-20 play).
- Saturday/Sunday: Four games per location, 16 games per day, 32 games total to get down to 32 teams.
- Monday/Tuesday: Two games per location, eight games per day, 16 games total to get down to the Sweet Sixteen.
Second weekend, four locations:
- Saturday/Sunday: Two games per location, four games per day, eight games total to get down to the Elite Eight.
- Monday/Tuesday: One game per location, two games per day, four games total to get down to the Final Four.
Third weekend, as is:
- Saturday: Two games.
- Monday: Championship.
Advantages, as I see it:
- A more watchable tournament: By starting a couple days earlier the busiest days end up on the weekend when more people can watch.
- Better quality teams: There is a humongous drop-off in quality after the 12 seeds. #10's through #12's upset their a little better than once every three attempts. The #12's have as many first round wins (53) as the #13's (31) and the #14's (22) combined. In the second round and beyond the disparity becomes even more glaring. #13's and below have made it to the S16 only 11 times. With the exception of the #9's, every other seed has more S16 appearances individually than the #13 and worse have COMBINED and the #13 and below have only been to the Elite Eight once. #12's have been to two E8's and every other seed has been to the E8 at least four times.
- Everybody gets a "winnable" game. I realize that the definition of "winnable" is somewhat subjective but as mentioned above the #12's and above win at least one third of the time. That to me is "winnable". If my team has a one-in-three chance that is a game. The #13's and below are nowhere close to that. #13's are 31-117 in the first round, #14's are 22-126, #15's are 10-138, and the #16's are 1-147.
To expand on point #3, (just a few examples, not a complete list):
- ASUN last won in 2019.
- Big Sky last won in 2006.
- Big South last won in 2018.
- Big West last won in 2019.
- Colonial last won in 2015.
- Ivy last won in 2016.
- MWC last won in 2018.
- NEC last won in 2019.
- OVC last won in 2016.
We take these tallest midgets that are nowhere near tournament quality and put them up against the best teams in the country and that, to me, is just silly. I'd prefer to give them a winnable game against a generally better but still mediocre team.
