Is that fair? You have a team that play great all season but for one bad game has to sit and watch the worst team from your conference taking your spot in NCCA Tournament.

Yes....the did what they needed to do.

Something has to be done about these conference tournaments.

only way a team like that should get in is if they win their conference tourney...

of course, the NCAA tourney needs 3 more play-in games for the other 3 regions...make the 8 lowest rated teams play their way into the tourney...that would open up 3 more spots in the tourney for deserving teams.

68 NCAA teams (4 play-ins)
32 NIT teams
16 CBI teams

the field of NCAA teams is now over 300...the tourney needs to grow with it.

Go Tigers!!!
Drew

If u are going to add more play in games.. which I don't mind.. the last 8 in should have to play them. I understand that small conf teams are not as good as these teams but they played by the rules and earned their way in.. the last few vote ins are just that vote ins. Make the last 8 play for 4 spots n give them the 16 seeds.. make em earn everything they get.

They did it the old fashion way, they earned it!

I agree that 3 more play-in games would make sense.

As for a 20-loss team - - they did what they needed to do to get in. Each league has to determine how they want to award their auto bid, and all of them apart from the Ivy uses the Conference Tournament.... knowing that you may have a situation where a team gets hot at the right moment and wins it all.

I don't feel sorry for the regular season champs. If you're a good team, you take care of business and don't allow a 20-loss team to beat you.

not only that wvu C. they now get an auto bid to the NIT so its not like they are done. the small conf almost never will get 2 teams in.. and never be seeded above 12.. they don't need the further penalty of having to play to get into a tournie they earned the bid to. The big conf always will get multible bids.. and the top 2nd tier conf.. have good shots at them..

yeah, i really like the NIT rule that if you win the regular season in your conference, and you don't win the conference tourney, you get an auto-bid to the NIT.

that means a lot in these little conference to know if you win your league, you'll play in the post season.

i also like the new CBI...anything not NCAA is just extra practice, but it really helps to give the "non-NCAA" teams something to play for.

the NCAA already added 1 "play-in" game...they have also made it clear they won't be getting rid of it...that's fine with me, but go ahead and do 4 play-in games...1 for each region, meaning 68 total teams...that will allow space for 3 more deserving teams.

Go Tigers!!!
Drew

goodknightfl Wrote:not only that wvu C. they now get an auto bid to the NIT so its not like they are done. the small conf almost never will get 2 teams in.. and never be seeded above 12.. they don't need the further penalty of having to play to get into a tournie they earned the bid to. The big conf always will get multible bids.. and the top 2nd tier conf.. have good shots at them..

Yeah I like that rule with the NIT being required to take a regular season champ that doesn't go to the NCAA Tourney. That's a nice reward for these smaller league with no hope of an at-large.

That's an excellent point about the play-in games, and having smaller leagues being required to take an extra step to get "into" the tournament.... the solution, I think, is to have the playin games at the site of the first round games, rather than at a separate site, so that it feels like an actual part of the tournament.

I think if 8 teams are facing possible play-in games each year, it will motivate the bottom leagues to try and get stronger to avoid these games. It's all about competition, and rewarding the best teams. If a SWAC or OVC team goes 2-10 OOC and then rampages through their league and wins it, what does that say about the league? A 19-13 Syracuse team is going to beat a 20-9 Alabama State team 9 times out of 10. I understand rewarding teams from lower-tier leagues on their seasons, but I also think we need to make sure deserving teams don't get penalized at the expense of the smaller guys. There needs to be a balance.

I see nothing wrong with a team winning their conference tournament to make the NCAA field. This was setup that way in the beginning, and as such is traditional - for all you traditionalists.

The fact that another team missing the cut because a team went on a run at the right time of the year is unfortunate. But them's the breaks. ANYONE can make the tournament, IF they win their conference tournament. If a team is upset that they weren't invited to the dance, then they should have won their conference tourney to guarantee their arrival at the party.

A conference can always decide to abandon their conference tourney and just go with the regular season champ. The Ivy still does, the PAC-10 & Big Ten did without conference tourneys for most of their existence and the SEC went nearly 20 years from the late 50s to the 70s without one. The WAC didn't have one until the 80s (the WAC referred to being the classic WAC).

Or a conference can always game their system to benefit the top seeds.
-The Big West re-seeds every round and the top two seeds get a bye to the semifinals
-The WCC uses a staggered format so that the top two seeds get byes to the semifinals
-Some conferences give the conference tournament to the highest seeded team (Horizon)
-NEC and Patriot League go completely with on-campus sites, America East puts the championship at the highest seed
-C-USA has the top seeded semifinal team play its game first since the semifinal is played at a pre-noon tip time.

You play the games for 3 months but if somehow you have bad night all that accomplishment mean nothing. If you don’t do well in the final exam you fail the class. Try it next year.

Nobody forces these conferences to have tournaments.

zibby Wrote:Nobody forces these conferences to have tournaments.

Yep! The Ivy doesn't have one, and don't forget, in the past, neither did the Big and Pac 10.

I'd like to see all conference tournaments limited to 8 teams. Even the Big East.

So what they got in. They're not going to be a top seed and will probably get knocked off in the first round- or not.
The tournament is not about the straight up 65 best teams but it is all inclusive. So even the winner of the State University OF New York can have a shot at the national title. The real tournament begins with the sweet 16./ This first round crap is just so the dreamers can have their dream and something to tell the grand kids.