It depends on what your belief that the tournament should represent. If you believe that it should only comprise of the "best" 64 (/68) teams in the nation, then you would likely believe that the smaller leagues shouldn't get any automatic qualifiers at all.
I would absolutely be ok with this.
The NCAA tourney has always been more of an inclusive event
Yes it has been inclusive . . . of conference CHAMPIONS. Not also-rans that lost to crappy (#204 in NET) #8 seeds in their league tournaments.
(T)hat belief has been justified by the countless Cinderellas that have been produced over the years. Yeah, almost all Cinderellas barely make it past the sweet 16, but the fact that so many exist at all proves that any team can be competitive at this level.
In the 40 tournaments since they expanded to 64 there have been a total of 640 #13-#16 seeds. Those 640 teams have a grand combined total of exactly ONE second weekend win in the NCAA Tournament. To me that isn't justification that is proof that they didn't belong in the first place.
It's REALLY hard to go undefeated in the regular season, even with a creampuff schedule. Miami OH is one of only 25 teams to have ever done it (out of what?, something like 26 leagues @ 8 teams each for 75 years = 15,000+ attempts). They absolutely deserve to be rewarded for that.
I agree with ^this^ and and this:
Hard for me to see what the point of a regular season is if you don't reward teams who go undefeated during one. Leaving Miami out is just declaring the regular season a glorified exhibition. Which hey, maybe it is. But that would put the stamp on it.
I have a really simple solution that I would 100% support. Lets get rid of league tournaments altogether and replace them with two additional regular season conference games. Ie, in the B1G instead of 11 OOC and 20 League games followed by a League Tournament, instead play 11 OOC and 22 League games with NO League Tournament.
On this point I 100% agree with something
@ELA said a few weeks ago:
As much as Id rather not give them credit, please stop referring to this as the Big Ten regular season championship. This is the Big Ten championship, the other is a postseason tournament.
My team is still alive in the BTT so in theory they could win it and yet I will tell you right now that if they do, I would still tell you that Michigan not Ohio State was the 2026 B1G Champion.
Please understand that the above is no small concession on my part. I absolutely despise Michigan. They knocked my team out of the NCAAT back in the early 90s with the Fab(ulously well paid) Five. That dirtbag cheating Michigan team literally had a payroll that might have rivaled some small-market NBA teams (back when that was not allowed) and obviously you all know about their dirtbag cheating ways in football. I absolutely despise Michigan and as I look around my office:
- My diploma is in a frame with a picture of the Horseshoe.
- I have a framed poster of the last play of the 2002 NC (tOSU over Miami).
- I have a framed picture of Woody.
- I have a framed generic Ohio State logo thing.
- I have a picture of Brutus and I at a pregame event at the 2006 Iowa game in Iowa City.
- I have a frame that we made of my parents, brother, and I at the 1997 RoseBowl with my ticketstub from that game.
- I have a picture of my late father and I at a game in the Horeshoe.
- I have a Buckeye Legends framed thing that I bought on one of my Bowl trips.
In spite of all of that, the team that went 19-1 in the regular season is the Champion as far as I am concerned.
Above
@grillrat made it out as a dichotomy between either:
- Best 64 (or 68) or
- Rewarding League Champions.
It isn't. As it currently exists it is a hybrid between the two. There are two ways in:
- Be a League Champion - as your league defines it, or
- Be one of the best however many non-Champions are needed to fill out the 68 team bracket.
Miami is CLEARLY AND OBVIOUSLY neither of those things and it isn't even close. Not only are they definitively NOT the MAC Champion, they will not even be in that game nor even in the semi-final.
That kicks them down among the other non-champions and in Lunardi's latest forecast the eight teams closest to the cut-line are (by NET ranking):
- #37 SMU
- #38 Indiana
- #39 Auburn
- #40 Santa Clara
- #44 VCU
- #45 New Mexico
- #57 VaTech
- #62 Stanford
Only four of those can make it and none of them will make it if they lose their league tournament opener to a team ranked 200+.
