Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Could March Madness be better?
I think it can be done and easily. I must admit I did not think of this, this one comes from the thoughts of Skip Bayless which I have expanded upon. I think 64 is perfect they should drop the play in game but other than that I am ok with the current tournament format. Here is where my problem occurs. I am not a fan of the Mid-Major and lower teams having a conference tournament, I would even be ok the major conferences not having one either, but if a lesser team from one of those conferences wins and gets and automatic bid I can understand their argument. However if a team is in the Ohio Valley Conf., the Ohio Valley usually only sends one school the conference champ, occasionally they will have an at large bid which is fine we are not here to discuss at large bids. If Murray St. who is the best team in the conference at the moment at 26-3 and will win the regular season conference championship, should take out Morehead St. 19-9 in the first round and then get upset in the second round. Now if that were to happen Murray state having almost 30 wins would probably get an at large bid but because they got beat a team in a horrible conf. with just over 20 wins would aslo go on an automatic bid. Thus pushing a bubble team, which this year especially means UNC, UCONN, UCLA, Louisville, and GT would all get passed over Austin Peay 16-13 (and 3rd in the Ohio Valley) for having 2 good games in a row. I just used the Ohio Valley as example because most of you probably did not know that it existed but look it up this happens all the time, and it is even worse when the best team in the conference misses an at large bid, they then have one team representing their entire conference that is not even the best team in it. Leave the conf. tourney to the big boys, I would rather see the regular season winner of these conferences get an automatic bid for their entire body of work and make sure the best team goes to represent those conferences.
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i think their (or there) are to many teams in the tourny from the same conference also. no reason why we should have 5 or 6 teams from one conference in the tourny. and especially 7 or 8. Take the Big East. how in the hell can we not figure out after over 30 games and 18 conference games who the top 2 teams are? if after an entire season you are 6th in your own conference then you dont deserve to be in the big dance. 64 Teams is to many. make it 48. 32 AQ (automatic qualifier) and 16 AL (at large) bids. will a lot of people get left out? sure, but what are the odds of the best team getting left out of a pool of 48 teams. if you have all of your conference champions then you have the best teams from each conference. if you have the best teams from each conference then odds are, you have the best team in the country. i went back through the last 4 years and every team that played in the National title except one, won its regular season conf championship and the one that didnt, fla, won the SEC tourny.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that not every team has a chance to win the tournament but every team has a chance to effect the outcome of the tournament. When VCI as 15 seed beat Duke as a 2 seed, I doubt anyone thought VCI was going to win the tournament but if you were on Dukes side everything just changed dramaticlly. The tournament has been at 16 at 24 at 32 and at 48, but has been no where longer than 64. I think they settled on this because every team that wins their conference should get in that is the reward for winning your conference. The first round against an 11,12,13,14,15,16 seed is more mental than anything can you beat a team you are supposed to beat when it all matters, if not you will not be the team we concider our champion.
ReplyDeleteYou can't have a 48 team tournament unless you are gonna institute a bye in the process somewhere. If you wanted to reduce the field, you would have to go all the way down to 32, which is a ridiculous thought. There are over 300 division I basketball teams. 64 (or 65 with the play in game) is a good number and it shouldn't change. I agree with you to a degree Brad about the regular season champs of small conferences, but would Murray State actually receive an at large bid? I don't know. More factors go into this than just their win/loss record. If they have 30 wins and an RPI of 120, I doubt they make the tourney. If their RPI is good, then they deserve to be in. Fact of the matter is, all bubble teams make their own beds, so they can lay in it. All teams should take care of their own games and don't worry about the process. Fact is, when was the last time a bubble team won the tournament? I don't remember it ever happening.
ReplyDeleteit hasnt happened. if you can not prove that you are an elite team in your own conference then you dont deserve the right to be invited to the tourny. Gerogetown is 9-6 in the big east and will be invited and that is bullshit. if you are with out a doubt not the best team in your own conference then you damn sure aint one of the best in the country.
ReplyDeleteI think the point that you are missing Joe is that it is a TOURNAMENT. The best team in the nation is not always gonna win. A hot team can win the national title with the current system. If you don't like that, then you should have a basketball BCS system. The regular season just gets you ready for your chance to make noise in a tournament. And all teams know the stakes when the season starts, 64 teams will get to play for it all. So if the 6th best team in the ACC is one of the 64 chosen, then they should have all the right in the world to win it all b/c they were invited to play based on the regular season. Wouldn't be good enough in football, but it is in basketball.
ReplyDeletei just dont like the fact that 65 teams (about 20 %) of all D1 programs have a chance to get hot and win it all. if you hadnt proved that your not an elite team in your own conference then why should you get the opportunity? thats what i hate about it. and then every year we hear people bitching about who got left out and then we get to see some north eastern tech state get in and get killed. go and look at previous champions and where they finished in their conference at the end of the regular season. you will not find a team that finished 5th in the conference win it all and the reason why is the same reason they finished 5th in the conference. so why does this school get in?
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