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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2499088, member: 289"] This statement stuck with me. After another morning of listening to discussions of quadrants and how many or what wins we need, I went back to my hobby of overthinking things, (that may have been under-thought to begin with). I don't like the uncertainty of this time of year- not only the uncertainty of whether you are going to make it but the uncertainty of what you have to do to make it. I also don't like arguments about which team that don't really belong in a national championship tournament will make it and which will not. If we have a team that clearly isn't among the top teams I'd just as soon know ahead of time that we aren't going to get in unless we do certain specific things. I also don't like the undervaluing of the regular season, which I think does more to establish the quality of a team than a single elimination tournament. How about this: Automatic bids go to any team that wins or ties for their conference regular season championship, (which would be the team with the best record, regardless of divisions) and to conference tournament champions. Then let's use a mathematical system or a compilation of mathematical systems to fill out the rest of the field up to 64. (I prefer math systems because we can keep track of where a team stands as the season goes on and what factors will be important in future games and the finals decisions are not made behind closed doors). Such a system would put a strong emphasis on the conference regular seasons and on the conference tournaments. I don't like the way they have been stressing the pre-conference season so much in recent years: teams are still eveolivng into the teams they will become at that stage. Let's look at last season as an example: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E2%80%9317_NCAA_Division_I_men%27s_basketball_season#Conference_winners_and_tournaments"]2016–17 NCAA Division I men's basketball season - Wikipedia[/URL] There were 38 conference regular season champions or co-champions and 12 other teams that were not but won their conference tournaments. (Note: UT Martin was not actually among them: they won the western division of the Ohio Valley conference with a 10-6 conference record while Belmont on the East with a 15-1 record: to me that doesn't make them co-champions.) That's 50 teams. we need 14 more. Now let's look at the Sagarin rankings just as an objective source for picking the other 14 teams: [URL="https://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaab/sagarin/2017/team/"]NCAAB Sagarin - NCAAB Basketball - USA TODAY[/URL] The other 14 would have been West Virginia, Florida, Louisville, Virginia, UCLA, Baylor, Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, Florida State, St. Mary's Notre Dame, Butler and South Carolina. The last 10 teams out would have been Creighton, Xavier, TCU, U of Miami, Indiana, Kansas State, Marquette, Arkansas, Michigan State and Minnesota. All wound up with double figures in losses, (three of them had 10 losses,,meaning they would have had 9 on selection Sunday). Sagarin ranked Minnesota #37. Syracuse was at #44 with what was an 18-14 record on selection Sunday. These teams had no real right to be playing for a national championship with those records so nothing would have been stolen from them. All the true national title contenders would be in this tournament.Syracuse would have know that they weren't going to get in as an at large team and couldn't win the conference regular season so it was all about the ACC tournament. it would have been a worse situation than what actually transpired but a clearer one, without all the angst the current system produces. We were an NIT team and would have know that was where we were going if we didn't win the tournament. It would have been all about the action on the court, not what happened behind closed doors. [/QUOTE]

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