I've understood the purpose of the tourney winners getting the automatic invite instead of the regular season champs, although I've never been a fan of that...

And as Harvard isn't going to matter much, since they don't do the tourneys...

But Liberty?!? 15-20 record and they get to go to the dance...

I guess Gonzaga gets the "easy" first round match (if they hold the #1 slot)

I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer giving the automatic bid to the regular season champ. Winning a regular season conference title is a much bigger feat than winning a three or four day tournament. But, the conferences love their conference tournaments and without the automatic bid attached to them, they would be meaningless. If they did give the automatic bids to the conference regular season champions, you could have a stronger NCAA tournament, mainly because the participants from the middle level and lower level conferences would be the best from those leagues.

(03-10-2013 02:40 PM)JMSTiger Wrote:  I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer giving the automatic bid to the regular season champ. Winning a regular season conference title is a much bigger feat than winning a three or four day tournament. But, the conferences love their conference tournaments and without the automatic bid attached to them, they would be meaningless. If they did give the automatic bids to the conference regular season champions, you could have a stronger NCAA tournament, mainly because the participants from the middle level and lower level conferences would be the best from those leagues.

That makes two of us JMS... I've always been a proponent of the regular season champ getting the autobid. If the conference tourney winners don't get an NCAA bid, give them the Auto-Bid to the NIT tournament, so it's still has some value (instead of the reverse they changed it to .. Regular season champs who don't win their tourney get the auto NIT bid).

Agree - regular season winner gets the auto bid to NCAAs; tourney winner gets auto bid to NIT if they don't make NCAAs.

(03-10-2013 02:42 PM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(03-10-2013 02:40 PM)JMSTiger Wrote:  I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer giving the automatic bid to the regular season champ. Winning a regular season conference title is a much bigger feat than winning a three or four day tournament. But, the conferences love their conference tournaments and without the automatic bid attached to them, they would be meaningless. If they did give the automatic bids to the conference regular season champions, you could have a stronger NCAA tournament, mainly because the participants from the middle level and lower level conferences would be the best from those leagues.

That makes two of us JMS... I've always been a proponent of the regular season champ getting the autobid. If the conference tourney winners don't get an NCAA bid, give them the Auto-Bid to the NIT tournament, so it's still has some value (instead of the reverse they changed it to .. Regular season champs who don't win their tourney get the auto NIT bid).

Those that have been around awhile will remember how important each conference game was prior to conference tournaments. Every game was important among the top teams in the conference......every game. However, the ACC was making money on their tourney and here we are....along the the expanded field.

Frankly, every conference has a choice as to how it determines its champion. Regular season or tourney. However, it it's regular season, I don't think that a tourney is allowed.

i've never seen the point of the conference tourneys (other than $$$)...it makes the regular season pointless.

(03-10-2013 04:44 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  i've never seen the point of the conference tourneys (other than $$$)

In that case, you have seen the point.

(03-10-2013 04:49 PM)Chappy Wrote:  

(03-10-2013 04:44 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  i've never seen the point of the conference tourneys (other than $$$)

In that case, you have seen the point.

i thought that as i was typing it...

The way the media is poor-mouthing CUSA this year, perhaps Southern Miss can win the autobid so we can play Liberty in the opening round.

When talking about conferences, we here "regional" a lot. For me, regional doesn't have to do with travel or actual miles. It meant which group UTEP was a part of. WAC championship meant a lot to our fan base. The winner of the WAC tournament was a big deal. UTEP was a part of the WAC and the tournament told who the champion was. What happened in our region mattered to us. The NCAA tournament was obviously always a big deal. But that was something we dealt with after WAC tournament. The conference tournament mattered.

Things are different in 2013. Everything is national. Regional is out. Not just in college athletics. There used to be regional music scenes. Regional wrestling promotions. ETC. Regions used to have variety. Now every is national cable channels and the same across the country. All the local tv channels with local flavor have been gobbled up by the CW or Univision.

Long rant but I can see why everyone looks toward the NCAA tourny all season and not value winning the conference tournament - which used to be the primary goal.

(03-10-2013 04:51 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(03-10-2013 04:49 PM)Chappy Wrote:  

(03-10-2013 04:44 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  i've never seen the point of the conference tourneys (other than $$$)

In that case, you have seen the point.

i thought that as i was typing it...

Your sig is hilarious :)

Yeah - they do it for the money. Come on. Everybody should know this history. Back when the NCAA tournament was 22-24 teams, conferences usually got 1 bid. You played the regular season to get the best seed in the tourney, and then you had to win the tourney to advance. Research the history of the ACC tourney if this is new to you.

Sure, some leagues were slow to adopt the conference tourney. They preferred their 1 bid to go to the regular season champ. But it made all kinds of sense for bigger conferences to adopt league tournaments once NCAA fields expanded. It gave their middle teams a chance to dance when their top teams were almost always assured a bid.

And several of those middle teams have capitalized when they might otherwise not have gotten a bid. See UConn in 2011 and NC St in 1983.

Btw, Liberty's RPI was listed as 299 going into today's Big South Title Game. 299!!

I've always been split on this. Sometimes a team starts off the season slow and plays itself out of a chance to win the regular season conference championship, but gets hot going into the latter part of the year. So although they don't end up as regular season champs or have a record indicative of going to the NCAA tournament......say 18-10 coming out of CUSA.....they win 3 or 4 games in the conference tournament and end up 22-10 with an automatic invite. So it goes both ways. Sometimes you end up with a team making the tournament with a bad record.

Elsewise, they ought to just get rid of conference tournaments.

I looked up to see who had the worse record ever, but still made the NCAA tournament.

Here are the worst six teams (by winning percentage) to make the NCAA tournament. Note - each team was seeded last in their region and lost in the First Round.0.360 - 1961 George Washington (9-16) Loss 84-67 vs Princeton
0.379 - 1995 Florida International (11-18) Loss 92-56 vs UCLA
0.379 - 1996 Central Florida (11-18) Loss 92-70 vs Massachusetts
0.379 - 1997 Fairfield (11-18) Loss 82-74 vs North Carolina
0.400 - 1999 Florida A&M (12-18) Loss 99-58 vs Duke
0.400 - 2005 Oakland, Mich (12-18) Loss 96-68 vs North Carolina

Sure, there are more deserving teams being left out, but that happens anyway even without conference tournaments playing into it.

if you cant win your conference tourny theny whats make you think you your team would do well in the big dance???

The idea of the Conference Tourneys for the lesser-known Division I Conferences was financially and marketing based. The question I have now is, does the say, Big South Conference, make enough $$$$ from ESPN by having the network show their Tournament Championship Game to justify having a season ending tournament to determine their representative in the NCAA Tournament?

(03-10-2013 02:40 PM)JMSTiger Wrote:  I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer giving the automatic bid to the regular season champ. Winning a regular season conference title is a much bigger feat than winning a three or four day tournament. But, the conferences love their conference tournaments and without the automatic bid attached to them, they would be meaningless. If they did give the automatic bids to the conference regular season champions, you could have a stronger NCAA tournament, mainly because the participants from the middle level and lower level conferences would be the best from those leagues.

The why even have an NCAA tourney?

Gonzaga National Champs

(03-10-2013 02:12 PM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  I've understood the purpose of the tourney winners getting the automatic invite instead of the regular season champs, although I've never been a fan of that...

And as Harvard isn't going to matter much, since they don't do the tourneys...

But Liberty?!? 15-20 record and they get to go to the dance...

I guess Gonzaga gets the "easy" first round match (if they hold the #1 slot)

IA that it almost makes the whole regular season worthless if all it takes is a few upsets in the tournament to get some teams in

(03-10-2013 08:02 PM)MU ATO Wrote:  

(03-10-2013 02:40 PM)JMSTiger Wrote:  I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer giving the automatic bid to the regular season champ. Winning a regular season conference title is a much bigger feat than winning a three or four day tournament. But, the conferences love their conference tournaments and without the automatic bid attached to them, they would be meaningless. If they did give the automatic bids to the conference regular season champions, you could have a stronger NCAA tournament, mainly because the participants from the middle level and lower level conferences would be the best from those leagues.

The why even have an NCAA tourney?

Gonzaga National Champs

Right, everyone gets upset that football doesn't have a playoff but then gets upset that basketball teams that have no business being in the tournament win a conference tournament and get in. Hard to have it both ways.

Look at Grambling who hasn't won a game all season and hasn't been within 10 points in any loss is still eligible to get into the tournament if they should do a miracle run in the SWAC