You could add enough "first round" games so that there is no gap between the seeds playing in the first round.

Essentially there are 22 conference champions seeded lower than the last at-large team. If you make those 22 teams play a first round "play-in" game, that means you should have at least seeds 14 to 16 playing first round games. If you expand it to the 13 seed, then you would have about 10 at-large teams also playing in the first round.

That sounds about right. Expand to 80 teams. Seeds #13 and below play a first round game.

Of course now you have the problem of should the #16 play another #16. Or should the teams be seeded from #13 to #20 and have #13 play #20 in the first round.

Regular season champs and conference tourney champs should both get an autobid.

To make room, expand to the 72-team format and have the 16-seed matchups first draw from among teams that won conference tourneys but did not win regular season championships.

The 10/11/12-seed play in games would be teams that are truly "at large," meaning that they did not win either the regular season or conference tourney championship.

4 16 seed games would give those teams:
shot at winning a NCAA tournament game
win share for their conference

This year we would see:
Holy Cross vs UNC Asheville
Southern vs Weber State
Fairleigh Dickenson vs Austin Peay
FGCU vs Hampton

Big change you would see in the overall bracket is 12 seeds would be the last ones in, the 13 seeds would be the top mid-majors. Now will they get the upsets at 4/13 like they do at 5/12? Also I think you would see some upsets against the higher seeds with some better teams getting pushed down.

(03-14-2016 10:26 AM)brista21 Wrote:  96 teams is too many. I could see the argument for 72 teams. Where the bottom 6 autobids duke it out and the bottom 10 at-larges duke it out for the right to be in the main 64 team tournament. That would have the benefit of watching 3 16-seeds win a game in the tournament. It would also have more of these bubble teams have to really earn it. Michigan probably did just enough to make the play-in game which they did. Syracuse in my opinion this season should have been in a similar position making a play-in game.

I think there's a lot better argument for 48 teams.

(03-14-2016 05:23 PM)goofus Wrote:  Of course now you have the problem of should the #16 play another #16. Or should the teams be seeded from #13 to #20 and have #13 play #20 in the first round.

if it's expanded beyond #X v #X, the match-ups should be seeded.

Last eight autobids and last eight at-large is as large as the current format directly expands, with each quarter of the bracket has two play in games, one at the bottom of the bracket and one midway.

But the broadcast partner would surely prefer just 64, and the First Four was a concession to Power Conferences pressure for more at-large places. Unless that pressure is increasing, there's no reason to expect the tournament to expand.

How about 1-seeds facing off, we need fewer of them.

If auto-bids are forced to play in, I think it's fair they're relegated to those from the newer conferences that forced their creation, and pegged against other at-larges.

If that sounds ludicrous, then do away with them for autos entirely. They earned something at-large's didn't. And the committee can never say with a straight face more weight is given to them because of this nonsense. Make at-large's earn their place.

(03-13-2016 05:57 PM)SubGod22 Wrote:  Not a fan of play in games in general, but the should only be for at-large teams. Not autobids.

I disagree. It should be auto-bids only. 16-16 across the board. This 11-11 buy-ins were artificially manufactured and clearly a compromise by committee to end up with 2 11-11 and 2 16-16.

I'd also be in favor of expanding the field to 96 with the bottom 64 teams playing on Tuesday and Wednesday of the opening week. That would be a killer week of basketball.

The NCAA has to be careful to not make this too confusing though. Part of the tournament's popularity is the simplicity of filling out a bracket and rooting for who you picked. Another part of the appeal is seeing teams that the majority of people have never heard of (like UALR) and see them upset a traditional power.

(03-14-2016 06:28 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  4 16 seed games would give those teams:
shot at winning a NCAA tournament game
win share for their conference

This year we would see:
Holy Cross vs UNC Asheville
Southern vs Weber State
Fairleigh Dickenson vs Austin Peay
FGCU vs Hampton

Big change you would see in the overall bracket is 12 seeds would be the last ones in, the 13 seeds would be the top mid-majors. Now will they get the upsets at 4/13 like they do at 5/12? Also I think you would see some upsets against the higher seeds with some better teams getting pushed down.

You'd also see a slightly better chance at upsets at all of the seeds, including 16 v 1. 1 seeds would be facing more 15 type teams.

(03-18-2016 09:43 AM)Frog in the Kitchen Sink Wrote:  

(03-14-2016 06:28 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  4 16 seed games would give those teams:
shot at winning a NCAA tournament game
win share for their conference

This year we would see:
Holy Cross vs UNC Asheville
Southern vs Weber State
Fairleigh Dickenson vs Austin Peay
FGCU vs Hampton

Big change you would see in the overall bracket is 12 seeds would be the last ones in, the 13 seeds would be the top mid-majors. Now will they get the upsets at 4/13 like they do at 5/12? Also I think you would see some upsets against the higher seeds with some better teams getting pushed down.

You'd also see a slightly better chance at upsets at all of the seeds, including 16 v 1. 1 seeds would be facing more 15 type teams.

Right now, the #1 seeds aren't really facing #16 quality teams. If you base their "true" seed on their RPI, then the #16s on average would be the equivalent of #50"s (if you had that many teams in the field). They typically have an average RPI in the 200 range.

By contrast, #15's are a lot better. This year their average RPI is about 110.

#14's average 83, #13's are at 65, and #12's averaged 42. It shouldn't be a surprise when #12's upset a #5 every year, because the difference in RPI isn't all that great.

If you had all the teams in the one-bid conferences play down to the best 8, and the 8 teams that emerged were the best RPI teams in the field, the worst of them would have had an RPI of 50 this year. That's the equivalent of a #13 seed. The best of them would be about #8 or #9 seeds. That means the #1's would face, not the weakest of the weak, but the weakest of the strong, in the first round. That would mean a lot of upsets over time (as opposed to the zero we have now, and likely will always have).

Kansas should still beat Syracuse in that scenario, but it wouldn't be impossible for them to lose.


EDIT: This year, the average RPI of the #11 seeds is 53, while the average of the #12's is 42. That says to me that the selection committee devalues the RPI of the teams from one-bid conferences, and automatically relegates them to lower seeds (and thus more difficult first round games).