My Solution to the Small School "Snub" Issue

[jncuse]

This solution would have solved things for this year anyway.

Here is the high level summary:

• 72 teams
• 31 conference champs, best 33 at larges (initial 64)
• 8 Teams get in as play in, 4 must be from multi-bid conferences, 4 must be from single bid conferences
• Keep 2 16 Seeds Play in Games

By ensuring 4 spots are from multi-bid conferences, the current powers are no worse off (this year they would an extra team in St Bonaventure). Teams that avoided the play in before, still avoid the play in now.

The last 4 spots are the best regular season champions that did not get in.

This year the Play in Games would be something like:

Vanderbilt vs St Mary's
Tulsa vs Wichita St
Michigan vs San Diego St
St Bonaventure vs Monmouth

The only weakness is that some years the 4 best regular season champions that get in the play in game could be a little weaker. This year is probably a strong crop.

This does not cause a disincentive for these teams not to try to win their conference. Obviously they would prefer to win the tourney and avoid the play in game.

Just a thought. And I think all of the above games would be fairly interesting as play in games. Keep everything in Dayton. Move the 16 vs 16 games to the afternoon. They are clearly not as interesting as the matchups above.

You will still get whiners. But I do think the small schools sometimes get a raw deal will go away without hurting power leagues.

Thoughts?

 

[HOFCeluck]

Honestly I think this is over-analyzed.

Just do the best 64 teams. No play ins, no auto bids. Just the best 64 teams in America.

 

[CorduroyG]

Honestly I think this is over-analyzed.

Just do the best 64 teams. No play ins, no auto bids. Just the best 64 teams in America.

nah. the biggest appeal of the tournament, at least the opening weekend, is the cinderella teams. theyll never get rid of the auto bids.

 

[Marsh01]

I love the enthusiasm but teams just need to play better and it will settle itself.

 

[HOFCeluck]

nah. the biggest appeal of the tournament, at least the opening weekend, is the cinderella teams. theyll never get rid of the auto bids.

I know they never will, I'm just saying they should.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Honestly I think this is over-analyzed.

Just do the best 64 teams. No play ins, no auto bids. Just the best 64 teams in America.

You've just eliminated 22 out of 32 conferences from ever having a team considered.

Which is why it will never happen.

$$$$

 

[FrancoPizza]

Eliminate the conference tournaments and give auto bids to regular season champs. Problem solved.

 

[HOFCeluck]

You've just eliminated 22 out of 32 conferences from ever having a team considered.

Perfect.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

Actually, if the tournament mandated only conference champs could get in, then annnounced a field of 64, watch how fast the super conferences break up.

 

[dasher]

Eliminate the conference tournaments and give auto bids to regular season champs. Problem solved.

And no one will attend the conference tournaments. They would have little meaning.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Honestly I think this is over-analyzed.

Just do the best 64 teams. No play ins, no auto bids. Just the best 64 teams in America.

That would be nice. You can have every conference regular season champ automatically in a pool of 96 teams. Same for the conference tourney champs. Then add in at large teams and rank them 1-96. The Top 64 go to the NCAAs the remaining 32 go to the NIT. I would also make it so you have to be over .500 in conference to get in as an at large. So this year's NIT teams FSU, GA Tech, and Bama would get left out.

For this year I think all the Top 50 seeded teams would have made it. After that it would have been some combo of NCAAT and NIT teams making up the remaining 14 teams. ich means a team like Buffalo might have been the last team in.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

nah. the biggest appeal of the tournament, at least the opening weekend, is the cinderella teams. theyll never get rid of the auto bids.

I love the little guy the first week then hate that they are around the second week. Every now and then you get a VCU or Wichita St but if you pick the best 64 teams then those schools would have been 15 seeds and still could have made runs as Cinderellas.

 

[TheCusian]

Actually, if the tournament mandated only conference champs could get in, then annnounced a field of 64, watch how fast the super conferences break up.

Not with football driving the bus.

 

[BlazeOrange]

Eliminate the conference tournaments and give auto bids to regular season champs. Problem solved.

Unless something's changed. it's each conferences decision on whether the regular season or tourney champ gets the autobid. I think the Ivy's were the last holdout.

And no one will attend the conference tournaments. They would have little meaning.

Not sure if anyone is attending the minor conference tournaments anyway - at least not enough to make significant money over regular games. But for the multibid conferences, there is still the incentive to play your way off the bubble (insert wisecrack about SU this year) or improve seeding.

 

[KaiserUEO]

heres mine... em.

if these small schools continue to in their conf tourneys...then why the should they be allowed in the big boy 1??

sure every once in a blue moon they win 1, but more often than not...they don't.

and when they do, 99% of the time they get their doors blown off in rnd 2.

certainly don't need to bring 2 crappy small schools from crappy confs in.

not good.

 

[Jasoncuse]

The problem isn't the conference tourneys or disrespecting the little guys. The problem is the lack of transparency and consistency when it comes to the selection process. What the committee views as important seems to change from year to year. This year they seemed to overlook individual team RPI's (see us, Bonnies, etc), yet used top 50 RPI wins as a major sticking point (see us again). That makes no sense, really. It seemed they used Kenpom numbers, though they didn't specifically say that. Other years, it's been the last 10-12 games, RPI, road wins, whatever. They've said teams need to schedule up out of conference, which is what Monmouth did as best they could, and it didn't seem to help all that much. Nobody really knows what the selection process entails, what's important or why one team makes it over another. The committee is also not the best representation of who is most invested in knowing the teams, the games and how to compare. They don't watch the games like others and probably aren't nearly qualified enough.

 

[cuseguy]

The problem is too many schools think they should be playing Division 1 basketball.

It's a relatively cheap sport to start, so you have all these Johnny come latelys looking for a piece of the pie.

Let them start their own tournament just like we have FBS and FCS football.

 

[CaptainJ]

I think the simplest step would be to ad 4 more teams for 2 more play in games. Overall, folks seem to accept the current play ins without too much difficulty, and being the extra "round" is already added, it would seem to be less of a move than when the first 4 teams were added. Sure the size the public requires is arbitrary, but 72 seems like it should be enough without being too much and really requires little extra effort and adjustments and would have cancelled out the controversy of this season, as long as the scale doesn't continue to slide to the point where folks feel more teams deserve to be in, hence the label of the extra "play in" game. All 4 1 seeds would have equal treatment this way.

 

[Briancuse]

The tournament is perfect the way it is, if your Monmouth don't lose 3 games against teams in the 200's, and beat Iona.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

The problem is too many schools think they should be playing Division 1 basketball.

It's a relatively cheap sport to start, so you have all these Johnny come latelys looking for a piece of the pie.

Let them start their own tournament just like we have FBS and FCS football.

That wouldn't be bad either. Have only FBS schools plus the Big East and A10. That would make up 153 schools if I am counting right. The OOC games would be a lot more interesting as no more little guys.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

The tournament is perfect the way it is, if your Monmouth don't lose 3 games against teams in the 200's, and beat Iona.

But it isn't. Seeds 14-16 (14 teams in total) really have no business being in the tournament. If they were replaced with 10 at large teams it would be a lot better. Teams seeded 14-16 have a combined THREE Sweet 16s. And seeds 14-16 have a combined 0.0 Elite 8s.

This year wouldn't it be better to remove:

Austin Peay, Cal State Bakersfield, Fairleigh Dickinson, Florida Golf Coast, Fresno State, Hampton, Holy Cross, Middle Tennessee State, UNC Asheville, Southern, Stephen Austin, Weber State

and add:

BYU, Florida, Monmouth, Saint Mary's, San Diego State, South Carolina, St Bonaventure, Valpo

 

[721Comstock]

But it isn't. Seeds 14-16 (14 teams in total) really have no business being in the tournament. If they were replaced with 10 at large teams it would be a lot better. Teams seeded 14-16 have a combined THREE Sweet 16s. And seeds 14-16 have a combined 0.0 Elite 8s.

This year wouldn't it be better to remove:

Austin Peay, Cal State Bakersfield, Fairleigh Dickinson, Florida Golf Coast, Fresno State, Hampton, Holy Cross, Middle Tennessee State, UNC Asheville, Southern, Stephen Austin, Weber State

and add:

BYU, Florida, Monmouth, Saint Mary's, San Diego State, South Carolina, St Bonaventure, Valpo

Removing a team like FGCU means we never would have had scenes like these:

Short of SU making a FF run, there's nothing more entertaining than watching Georgetown lose to yet another 15 seed.

 

[Ish88888]

The tournament is perfect the way it is, if your Monmouth don't lose 3 games against teams in the 200's, and beat Iona.

The tourney is faaaar from perfect. A team like fdu in tbe tourney is a travesty. They are a high school team that got hot for 3 days in their aweful conference tourney. We dont have close to the "best " 68. We have about 55-58 teams and then 10-13 teams that are just aweful. I watch siena games. 4-5 teams in the maac would bury this fdu team every time. The mid majors should do what the ivy does and award the regular season winner the bid, the 4 month body of work instead of who got hot for 3 days in the end of the year tourney, the tourney is only there to generate $$$. Btw, monmouth is better than at least 10-12 teams in this tourney, they are 18-22 yo kids, they will have off nights, esp. Against their own tourney teams that know them well. Find me a team that didnt have 2-3 bad nights. To take the 7th team in 4 power 5 conferences and not monmouth is a travesty. The committee is a joke with a moving target of criteria. Problem is, they are a bunch of administrative suits who wouldn't know a basketball from a bowling ball. Get 5 historic coaches on that committee and it would give it some credibility.

 

[Chris02M]

The tourney is faaaar from perfect. A team like fdu in tbe tourney is a travesty. They are a high school team that got hot for 3 days in their aweful conference tourney. We dont have close to the "best " 68. We have about 55-58 teams and then 10-13 teams that are just aweful. I watch siena games. 4-5 teams in the maac would bury this fdu team every time. The mid majors should do what the ivy does and award the regular season winner the bid, the 4 month body of work instead of who got hot for 3 days in the end of the year tourney, the tourney is only there to generate $$$. Btw, monmouth is better than at least 10-12 teams in this tourney, they are 18-22 yo kids, they will have off nights, esp. Against their own tourney teams that know them well. Find me a team that didnt have 2-3 bad nights. To take the 7th team in 4 power 5 conferences and not monmouth is a travesty. The committee is a joke with a moving target of criteria. Problem is, they are a bunch of administrative suits who wouldn't know a basketball from a bowling ball. Get 5 historic coaches on that committee and it would give it some credibility.

ivy is holdiung a tournament starting next year top 4 teams play

 

[jncuse]

I think blaming it on the committee for not being able to make the choices between these teams is harsh and incorrect. The suggestion that historic coaches would be able to figure it out is laughable to me (they would all have their own biases that are just natural). Do you think Jim Boeheim on the committee is going to be able to be the one to decipher Vanderbilt from Monmouth. Jim Calhoun? Maybe we can bring in the guy who was at Davidson forever? You think he may not be biased to the little guy. Come on now that would not solve a thing. It is hard... damn hard to compare the two types of teams. I could easily compare Syracuse against every P5 team. But compare Syracuse to a small school. Hard. I can focus on metrics that I know Syracuse will be better at, because inherently they have more opportunities. It does not mean they are a better team.

I simply put my arms up against small teams... because we are supposed to try to work with small samples. Thankfully they had some clear warts. But I didn't know how they would separate them this year. Where Lunardi looked m0re like a fool to me is how he compared us to other P5 or multi-bid teams in the hunt.

Either way, it's not easy and this solves it to an extent. But I can also accept some of the opinions and reservations here -- if a team is clearly great they will find a way to get noticed. They don't need any special rules.

I also agree with many here who have stated the obvious easy solution -- put the regular season champ in the tournament. That would solve the problem for a St. Mary's, Monmouth, Valpo. The tourney champs can play for the NIT.

Not that it matters, abut I would tweak my suggestion to teams that are from leagues with only bid. The second place team from the Colonial for example, would perhaps be better than a regular season champ who lost.

Either way, the tournament does not need to anything to get more P5 teams IMO. I don't think there is one P5 team that can really whine this year. If you are going to add its a solution for these guys that are hard to measure.

The reason I like 72 and adding specific types only, is because its adding teams that may be tourney level. I just fear the 96 that almost came about some years ago, as a way to eliminate the problem.