Is there a better way of doing this?

[SWC75]

People in this country can hardly agree on anything. Virtually every sports fan in America loves March Madness and I've never met one who hates it.

What are we even discussing here?

Don't change an awesome thing beyond tweaks around the edges. Want a couple more play-in games? Fine. Regular season champ plays conference tourney champ for an auto bid? That's cool. But don't mess with March Madness beyond that.

I'd go for a full set of pay-in games as the first round, 9the top 32 seeds get a bye). Have the regular season and tourney champs both get in and can the NIT. I don't view that as a radical change at this point, at least as compared to my other suggestions. I've no idea why 11 seeds are in two of the four play-in games. As JB says 96 is still a much smaller percent age of teams than go to bowl games.

 

[pokercuse08]

I'd go for a full set of pay-in games as the first round, 9the top 32 seeds get a bye). Have the regular season and tourney champs both get in and can the NIT. I don't view that as a radical change at this point, at least as compared to my other suggestions. I've no idea why 11 seeds are in two of the four play-in games. As JB says 96 is still a much smaller percent age of teams than go to bowl games.

That's still a radical change. And it could ultimately hurt the small conferences. They get two teams in play-in games instead of one in the field of 64, and they may often end up with zero in the real field... And people who aren't die hard CBB fans don't watch the play-in games and they don't count in brackets.

March Madness is basically perfect as is. Trying to radically overhaul it is absurd.

 

[CuseCPT]

I don't think the tournament is very good at figuring out who the best team in the country is, but I also don't think it should be changed. There's nothing else like it.

 

[djcon57]

I don't think the tournament is very good at figuring out who the best team in the country is, but I also don't think it should be changed. There's nothing else like it.

yeah. It’s perfect. even the first four at this point I’m fine with. If you want to add another 8, go for it.

 

[SWC75]

That's still a radical change. And it could ultimately hurt the small conferences. They get two teams in play-in games instead of one in the field of 64, and they may often end up with zero in the real field... And people who aren't die hard CBB fans don't watch the play-in games and they don't count in brackets.

March Madness is basically perfect as is. Trying to radically overhaul it is absurd.

But they get two teams in. And the lesser conferences belong in the play-in games because they don't really belong in this division. It would be no more a radical change than going from 48 to 64, as was done in 1985.

 

[Halfmooncuse]

I say it every time it comes up, but the NBA & CFB are much bigger outliers than CBB. Flukes happen all the time in MLB/NHL. Tampa Bay lost home games vs every good team they played except one. If you take away the last two Uconn flukes, just about every champion since 2000 has been elite.

I do think it'd be awesome if conf tournaments were eliminated and used strictly as tiebreakers, old Ivy League style.

Wow I haven’t read an article so large as this since my senior year in college. Any larger it would have to be bound in a hard cover. Good job mate.

 

[pokercuse08]

But they get two teams in. And the lesser conferences belong in the play-in games because they don't really belong in this division. It would be no more a radical change than going from 48 to 64, as was done in 1985.

Just make them add a game to their own tournaments if the regular season champ doesn't win the conference tourney and be done with it, then. It's of the same significance and those games aren't going to draw TV eyeballs any more than the current small conference tournaments do.

Why are you so adamant about changing something so good? Is March Madness not working for you?

 

[SWC75]

Just make them add a game to their own tournaments if the regular season champ doesn't win the conference tourney and be done with it, then. It's of the same significance and those games aren't going to draw TV eyeballs any more than the current small conference tournaments do.

Why are you so adamant about changing something so good? Is March Madness not working for you?

It became good because of people who thought it could be better. It still could.