(03-23-2014 09:58 AM)TexanMark Wrote: So in your mind:
ACC
SEC
B1G
B12
Pac12
AAC
Big East
Well, originally
in Sports Illustrated's coverage, referring to Gulfcoastal's comment and link to SI. And obviously the mainstream sports press cannot define "major" in a way that threatens to omit one of the P5 conferences: with the SEC's recent weakness in BBall, setting the boundary line at The American safely includes the SEC without the risk of having to fudge the criteria on a year by year basis.
But those are seven of the top eight in RPI and seven of the eight conferences that had more at-large than conference champion bids, so for this season, add the A10 and its a reasonable list even without putting the thumb on the scales to the benefit of the P5, as the sporting press is bound to do by commercial considerations.
Quote: Probably a good line of demarcation but obviously about 20-25 solid programs stranded in "midmajor" leagues. Teams like SDSU, BYU, several A-10 schools, Wichita St, Gonzaga, New Mexico, UNLV, etc...
To my mind, you can't have the American on that list without having the A10 on that list, even if the A10 only has a $5m/year media contract and so is close to the situation of earning less from media contract than from NCAA units and other distributions of tournament net revenue (remember that the other distributions total to more than the BBall fund, and that the Grants in Aid fund on its own is more than half the size of the BBall fund).
The real boundary line question to me is whether you put the dividing line between the American and the WCC, or between the MWC and the MVC. I don't have a horse in the race either way. "How major is major" is one of those "how long is a short piece of string?" questions ... its dropping a boundary line into what is in reality a question of degree.
(03-23-2014 09:58 AM)TexanMark Wrote: I love the NCAA tourney the way it is though....(changed my mind from a more select grouping). Every year we get these crazy upsets which is good for the game and general fans out there.
Hell, if it was me, I'd open it up even further ... set up four regional 4-team playoff tournaments to slot in the #11 seed in each region, and seed in the best 16 out of 32 from the best regular season school that didn't get one of the 60 main bids.