(03-16-2014 08:51 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote:  The Southern Conference/ACC has been deciding the basketball championship via tournament since 1933. We aren't changing.

Shh! Don't tell ACC fans that. They think they invented it.

I have been thinking about this.

I have been thinking about conferences ending their conference tournaments.

The NCAA tournament could expand to accept the NIT teams (basically, one more weekend).

The conference tournaments could be played at the middle of the season (January/Martin Luther King Day). So, the NIT opens the season, teams play in some tournaments in Hawaii/Puerto Rico/Alaska/etc..., the teams play some warm up games/high profile games, and the conference tournaments start the conference schedule. Teams, then, play their conference schedule, and get ready for the NCAA.

(03-17-2014 07:58 PM)chess Wrote:  I have been thinking about this.

I have been thinking about conferences ending their conference tournaments.

The NCAA tournament could expand to accept the NIT teams (basically, one more weekend).

The conference tournaments could be played at the middle of the season (January/Martin Luther King Day). So, the NIT opens the season, teams play in some tournaments in Hawaii/Puerto Rico/Alaska/etc..., the teams play some warm up games/high profile games, and the conference tournaments start the conference schedule. Teams, then, play their conference schedule, and get ready for the NCAA.

This is something I always thought about (especially when people were talking about expanding the tournament to 68 or more teams):

The NCAA selection committee should make the 64 selections for the NCAA tournament. Then they should make a selection for the next 16 for the NIT. This is where you put those middle of the pack performing schools (Iowa, NC State, Tennessee, SMU, Xavier, etc) against the mid/low-majors, who won their regular season conference but lost in the conference tournament (Green Bay, FGCU, Vermont, etc)

Play the NIT FIRST. Then the Final Four NIT teams become the "last four in" the NCAA tournament.

This helps to lessen the "who really belongs" angle because they would have had to win some NIT games to secure their spot in the NCAA tourney. It would also make the NIT a much bigger spectacle.

(03-16-2014 01:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  The autobid to the NCAA tournament should go to the conference's regular-season champ. Period.

Unfortunately, it's never going to happen because the only relevance the conference tournament has is the ability to hand an autobid to the tournament winner.

I can agree with you there and it really took the PAC 10 (at the time) a lot thinking to have a tournament but then I guess the money was there and they kept having the conference tourney.

Basically, a conference tournament should only be use if there is no round-robin scheduling. That is the stipulation in the NCAA rules is that if a round-robin schedule is not used a tournament will need to be played to decide the champion.

However, without Champ Week with ESPN, these small conferences wouldn't get any publicity, not to mention that ESPN would be losing a core of b-ball programming for that week.

(03-18-2014 10:19 AM)HuskyU Wrote:  The NCAA selection committee should make the 64 selections for the NCAA tournament. Then they should make a selection for the next 16 for the NIT. ...

Play the NIT FIRST. Then the Final Four NIT teams become the "last four in" the NCAA tournament.

If you are playing the NIT first and promoting the top four, you can scratch the play-in games entirely ... make 60 NCAA tournament selections, put the best regular season team from the single-bid conferences into the NIT and then fill out the at-large picks. Seed the NIT winners on the border between the last at-large pick and the auto-bids filling in the bottom of the bracket.

I wonder about the timing, though ... when would the NIT tournament start and when would the NCAA tournament start, relative to Conference Championship weekend?

(03-16-2014 03:38 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 03:33 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 01:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  The autobid to the NCAA tournament should go to the conference's regular-season champ. Period.

Unfortunately, it's never going to happen because the only relevance the conference tournament has is the ability to hand an autobid to the tournament winner.

This isn't in response to a 13-19 Cal Poly repping us in the NCAA's now, is it?

I'm not singling them out, no. Almost every year, there are at least one or two sub .500 teams that win conference tournaments.

I will..... It's absolutely absurd that a school with this record is in the tournament while SMU is going to the NIT..... The only way to prevent this from happening is:

(03-16-2014 03:38 PM)Wedge Wrote:  The autobid to the NCAA tournament should go to the conference's regular-season champ. Period.

(03-18-2014 10:46 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 01:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  The autobid to the NCAA tournament should go to the conference's regular-season champ. Period.

Unfortunately, it's never going to happen because the only relevance the conference tournament has is the ability to hand an autobid to the tournament winner.

I can agree with you there and it really took the PAC 10 (at the time) a lot thinking to have a tournament but then I guess the money was there and they kept having the conference tourney.

Most teams in the Pac wanted a conference tournament because every coach (except the consistent winners) wants a three-game shot to get lucky or hot and make the NCAA tournament. They had to put the tournament in LA (it was only recently moved to Las Vegas) to get UCLA's vote, which was the 8th vote needed to approve the tournament at the time. It was also for money, though -- at the time Fox was a part-owner of Staples Center and was willing to pay a lot to get a 10-year deal to have the tournament there.

(03-18-2014 10:19 AM)HuskyU Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 07:58 PM)chess Wrote:  I have been thinking about this.

I have been thinking about conferences ending their conference tournaments.

The NCAA tournament could expand to accept the NIT teams (basically, one more weekend).

The conference tournaments could be played at the middle of the season (January/Martin Luther King Day). So, the NIT opens the season, teams play in some tournaments in Hawaii/Puerto Rico/Alaska/etc..., the teams play some warm up games/high profile games, and the conference tournaments start the conference schedule. Teams, then, play their conference schedule, and get ready for the NCAA.

This is something I always thought about (especially when people were talking about expanding the tournament to 68 or more teams):

The NCAA selection committee should make the 64 selections for the NCAA tournament. Then they should make a selection for the next 16 for the NIT. This is where you put those middle of the pack performing schools (Iowa, NC State, Tennessee, SMU, Xavier, etc) against the mid/low-majors, who won their regular season conference but lost in the conference tournament (Green Bay, FGCU, Vermont, etc)

Play the NIT FIRST. Then the Final Four NIT teams become the "last four in" the NCAA tournament.

This helps to lessen the "who really belongs" angle because they would have had to win some NIT games to secure their spot in the NCAA tourney. It would also make the NIT a much bigger spectacle.

Your suggestion is a way to keep the late season NIT going.

My suggestion is to dump the NIT and just have those teams join an expanded NCAA tournament (128 teams/ 64 games). The first weekend, a team plays one game. If you win, then you go to the traditional Thurs/Sat or Fri/Sun match-ups for the second weekend.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketba...2/sort/RPI

If you look at the RPI, around 128 (we have a number of teams tied, so estimate the top 128 teams) we get Wake Forest, Penn State, Vanderbilt, William & Mary, Princeton, American, etc... Many of these teams have winning records but are not world beaters.

(03-18-2014 12:35 PM)chess Wrote:  

(03-18-2014 10:19 AM)HuskyU Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 07:58 PM)chess Wrote:  I have been thinking about this.

I have been thinking about conferences ending their conference tournaments.

The NCAA tournament could expand to accept the NIT teams (basically, one more weekend).

The conference tournaments could be played at the middle of the season (January/Martin Luther King Day). So, the NIT opens the season, teams play in some tournaments in Hawaii/Puerto Rico/Alaska/etc..., the teams play some warm up games/high profile games, and the conference tournaments start the conference schedule. Teams, then, play their conference schedule, and get ready for the NCAA.

This is something I always thought about (especially when people were talking about expanding the tournament to 68 or more teams):

The NCAA selection committee should make the 64 selections for the NCAA tournament. Then they should make a selection for the next 16 for the NIT. This is where you put those middle of the pack performing schools (Iowa, NC State, Tennessee, SMU, Xavier, etc) against the mid/low-majors, who won their regular season conference but lost in the conference tournament (Green Bay, FGCU, Vermont, etc)

Play the NIT FIRST. Then the Final Four NIT teams become the "last four in" the NCAA tournament.

This helps to lessen the "who really belongs" angle because they would have had to win some NIT games to secure their spot in the NCAA tourney. It would also make the NIT a much bigger spectacle.

Your suggestion is a way to keep the late season NIT going.

My suggestion is to dump the NIT and just have those teams join an expanded NCAA tournament (128 teams/ 64 games). The first weekend, a team plays one game. If you win, then you go to the traditional Thurs/Sat or Fri/Sun match-ups for the second weekend.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketba...2/sort/RPI

If you look at the RPI, around 128 (we have a number of teams tied, so estimate the top 128 teams) we get Wake Forest, Penn State, Vanderbilt, William & Mary, Princeton, American, etc... Many of these teams have winning records but are not world beaters.

I'm afraid that would just create an entire lost weekend - indeed, a lost week - right in the middle of what should be the most exciting time of the year for college hoops. You would have 64 games, most of which would be mismatches, and the rest of which would be between teams few people care about.

My solution would be to have 88 teams. There are about 19-20 conferences that are always going to be one-bid leagues. Have them finish their season one week before the majors and mid-majors do. Give them 32 bids, and play down to 8 teams while the major conference tournaments are taking place. The next week, select the remaining 56 teams for the 64 team field. The 8 survivors will have a better shot at upsetting the majors than the weakest teams currently do. And they'll have the pride of having won two NCAAT games in the process.

IMV, expanding to 128 would be going overboard, but expanding to 96 would allow two auto bids per conference ... tournament winner and best remaining regular season record ... and 32 at large bids,.with the top 32 seeds with a bye.

If there are 8 conferences with more than 1 at large bid now, about half of the at large bids would be in the first round and half receive byes.

That would render the NIT largely redundant, unless they wanted to merge with one of the pay-to-play tournaments.

(03-18-2014 02:19 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  IMV, expanding to 128 would be going overboard, but expanding to 96 would allow two auto bids per conference ... tournament winner and best remaining regular season record ... and 32 at large bids,.with the top 32 seeds with a bye.

If there are 8 conferences with more than 1 at large bid now, about half of the at large bids would be in the first round and half receive byes.

That would render the NIT largely redundant, unless they wanted to merge with one of the pay-to-play tournaments.

No offense, but we don't need two auto-bids from the SWAC, MEAC or Northeast Conference. One is not even needed from a better league like the Horizon most years.

(03-18-2014 07:40 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  No offense, but we don't need two auto-bids from the SWAC, MEAC or Northeast Conference. One is not even needed from a better league like the Horizon most years.

The current rules of the two NCAA mens BBall tournaments, that Championship and the NIT, guaranteed two bids for the majority of lower tier conferences this year. It wouldn't render the NIT redundant if it did not do at least as well on that front.