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Topic: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed

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MichiFan87

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2020, 05:05:39 PM »
D1 is going to keep growing. Some schools will drop (eg. Savannah State most recently) but many more will replace them (recently / next are Dixie State, UC San Diego, Merrimack, Tarleton State, North Alabama, Bellarmine....) I don't begrudge them the option..... To be fair, it has worked out well for some schools (Boise State and UCF were in D2 until 30-40 years ago, North Dakota State has dominated FCS football and been decent in basketball since joining D1).

It won't happen for basketball, but I do think it would make some sense to split D1 for sports that have a lot of programs (softball, soccer, volleyball, etc.), but it'll never happen.

As for the Basketball tournament, there's no reason not to go back to 64 teams. That's how it is on the women's side with the same number of conferences, and the First Four teams are rarely very good (VCU's final four run aside)..... They won't ever shrink the field further for the same reasons they wouldn't go below 64 in soccer, baseball, softball, and volleyball. Every conference is going to get an autobid while still making room for the top 30-40 teams overall.
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betarhoalphadelta

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #15 on: March 11, 2020, 05:46:57 PM »
Quote from: medinabuckeye1 on March 11, 2020, 04:21:59 PM
My big objection to that would be that it would deprive two pretty good major conference teams of a spot because they compromised and made it the last four at-large and the last four auto-bids.  It should have been the last four auto-bids.  The last four auto-bids are horrible, the last for at-large are mediocre. 

I would love that, but as a practical matter it would never happen.  What makes the tournament so exciting is the one-and-done nature of it.  Kansas appears to be the best team in the country this year but if they have an off night next weekend they'll miss the S16.  That is exciting.  
What makes it exciting is primarily that it's one of those sporting events [like the Super Bowl] that people who would normally never pay attention do so, and the reason they do so is the bracket.

That's why I say drop it to 64, or if it has to be 68, make ALL of the play-in games for the 16 seeds. That way it's the weakest teams that have to justify themselves, not the teams [like you say] such as Purdue and Minnesota that are FAR better than any 13-16 seed, fighting for their spot.

But I'd rather get rid of it entirely. Because the first four end up not "factoring" into the bracket because most brackets aren't due until games start on Thursday morning and basically you are forced to pick "whichever team wins the Tues/Wed games". I just don't like the feel of it.

The other bit of it if you expand to 80, you are basically giving up on the cinderellas. It's FUN when a 14 beats a 3. But what if that 14 is, for example. 16-16 Purdue? So they play some terrible 19-seed auto-bid. Is anyone going to be excited about a 19 beating a 14? No. Is anyone going to be excited about a high-major team like Purdue beating a 3 as a 14? No. For the life of me I'll never forget that UMBC beat Virginia as a 16 over a 1 [and I've forgotten what UMBC even stands for], but I'm not sure I'd feel the same if it's a beleaguered P5 in the 16 seed who manages to knock off a 1. That's just a garden variety upset, not a historic loss. And I don't think a 19 who beats a 14, probably playing the best game of their season against the best competition they've faced, has much of a chance of pulling it off twice in a row to beat a 3. 

So yeah, we don't need 80 teams. 
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medinabuckeye1

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #16 on: March 11, 2020, 05:53:14 PM »
Quote from: medinabuckeye1 on March 11, 2020, 04:52:52 PM
The #4 seeds aren't THAT much better than the #5 seeds.  Instead, this is a result of the way that the bracket is constructed.  The top 11-12 seeds in each region are legitimate teams.  The bottom 4-5 seeds in each region are "tallest midget" champions of weak leagues that have to be fit in somewhere based on the rules.  Once you get past the top 11 or 12 seeds you are out of decent teams and just slotting in the crap. 
To illustrate my point, here are the #10 through #14 seeds per Lunardi's latest sorted by their current NET rankings:


Note the large gap between #13 seed #80 per NET Vermont and #13 seed #96 per NET N. Texas.  All the teams on this list down through Vermont might plausibly be tournament quality teams, from N. Texas down they aren't, at all.  

This is why #13 - #16 seeds have such a terrible history.  There are two decent #13 seeds (#73 Akron and #80 Vermont) then it gets really week.  The rest of the #13's and all of the #14, #15, and #16 seeds are just really bad teams.  

I think they should be eliminated with a conditional auto-bid rule (as laid out above) and if that isn't acceptable then they should have to play a decent team to get to the field of 64.  
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bayareabadger

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #17 on: March 11, 2020, 07:08:26 PM »
Couldn’t one argue that instead of going to 80 and making some grand play in, we just tweak our perspective.

How about this, Medina, just treat it as a 38 team tournament or whatever. The top four or so seeds get byes that are “crappy” teams. And if your crappy bye rises up and knocks you out, that’s on you. 

We have byes that fill TV time and a tighter top group of teams. Sounds AOK to me. 
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betarhoalphadelta

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #18 on: March 11, 2020, 07:22:00 PM »
Quote from: bayareabadger on March 11, 2020, 07:08:26 PM
Couldn’t one argue that instead of going to 80 and making some grand play in, we just tweak our perspective.

How about this, Medina, just treat it as a 38 team tournament or whatever. The top four or so seeds get byes that are “crappy” teams. And if your crappy bye rises up and knocks you out, that’s on you.

We have byes that fill TV time and a tighter top group of teams. Sounds AOK to me.
And it's provides excellent schadenfreude for the rest of us fans when it happens too. :72:
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Brutus Buckeye

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #19 on: March 11, 2020, 08:58:08 PM »
I like the autobids, but can see why they would aggravate Medina's statistical brain.
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MaximumSam

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #20 on: March 11, 2020, 10:18:28 PM »
The NCAA tourney is perhaps the one thing in sports that doesn't need fixed
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Cincydawg

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #21 on: March 12, 2020, 08:03:07 AM »
What is the objective of a tournament in your opinion?  (Make money is obviously a major one.)

I usually start with defining the objective.
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FearlessF

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #22 on: March 12, 2020, 09:24:36 AM »
making even more money means expanding

64 teams seems to work wonderfully for money making

I agree with MaxSam, it needs nothing
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Cincydawg

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Re: OT: The NCAA Tournament, how and why it should be changed
« Reply #23 on: March 12, 2020, 09:25:28 AM »
Yes, the motivation is making more money.  The current system adds excitement for less heralded conferences and their playoffs.
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