D-3? Some are glorified NAIA programs. This is Houston Baptist's "arena."



And they just came back to D-I from NAIA. Everyone wants the publicity and funding that the top level of D-I brings but some (Chicago State, most of the SWAC, some of the MEAC, some of the NEC, WCC, ASun, etc...) clearly shouldn't be competing at that level.

Should bball go to I-AA type setup?

It's already basically does that. It's a Catch-22 where the lower echelon conferences don't have a shot but they do have a legit shot at the national title. There's no reason to have a 1-AA either, as there are only around 12 scholarships to give out in basketball but dozens in football, which is a major reason why there's a split.

(03-17-2016 03:30 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  there are only around 12 scholarships to give out in basketball

13 for D-I men's basketball, 15 for women's.

But how many of the low-major men's programs give out 13 scholarships? I'd guess there are some giving out 5 or fewer. Those are just trying to run a D-I basketball program at the lowest cost possible in order to collect the check from March Madness.

In a conference with 8 members, even if they get only an autobid and that team loses its first game, the conference gets about $200,000 for each member school in the annual payout from the NCAA basketball fund.

Exactly. It's almost counterintuitive for a SWAC school, for example, to play D-I as they are taking bodybag beatings to pay for the price of being D-I as well as Tournament payout when in essence, if they played at their proper level with regional opponents, the cost would shrink drastically.

I remember years back Prairie View played at defending national champion Florida and lost 95-33--after being ahead 15-13 at one point.

(03-17-2016 05:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-17-2016 03:30 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  there are only around 12 scholarships to give out in basketball

13 for D-I men's basketball, 15 for women's.

But how many of the low-major men's programs give out 13 scholarships? I'd guess there are some giving out 5 or fewer. Those are just trying to run a D-I basketball program at the lowest cost possible in order to collect the check from March Madness. .

There are Division I minimums for scholarships, so you might as well spend them on the only sport relevant to your revenues.

And back to the OP, there is also a D-I requirement that you play 1/3 of your contests in your home arena. You could argue for bumping that up--40%? 50% would significantly reduce the supply of buy games.

(03-16-2016 07:12 AM)Zombiewoof Wrote:  Before the tournament's expansion to 64 teams, most of these teams you are so worried about wouldn't have even sniffed the tournament. Worrying about the Cinderella chances of team #70 seems to be a bit bizarre to me. I have always thought the concept of a tournament snub was odd. Don't want to risk being left out of the already large field? Win more games, win the key games, win on the road and win when the committee says it counts most. Otherwise, you don't have much to complain about.

Monmouth did that this year and they were still snubbed.

(03-17-2016 09:55 PM)Niner National Wrote:  

(03-16-2016 07:12 AM)Zombiewoof Wrote:  Before the tournament's expansion to 64 teams, most of these teams you are so worried about wouldn't have even sniffed the tournament. Worrying about the Cinderella chances of team #70 seems to be a bit bizarre to me. I have always thought the concept of a tournament snub was odd. Don't want to risk being left out of the already large field? Win more games, win the key games, win on the road and win when the committee says it counts most. Otherwise, you don't have much to complain about.

Monmouth did that this year and they were still snubbed.

No they didn't. They lost the key game in their conference tournament. Which incidentally is the method the conference decided to use to determine their auto bid. The Ivy League gives it to the regular season champion. Monmouth's biggest issue was playing in the Metro Atlantic who had 8 team's RPI ranked below 200. Three of which were below 300.

Monmouth's issue wasn't being in the MAAC, but rather losing the 3 sub 200 games. If they win those 3 games, they ARE in the tourney this year, period.

(03-17-2016 10:17 PM)Shannon Panther Wrote:  

(03-17-2016 09:55 PM)Niner National Wrote:  

(03-16-2016 07:12 AM)Zombiewoof Wrote:  Before the tournament's expansion to 64 teams, most of these teams you are so worried about wouldn't have even sniffed the tournament. Worrying about the Cinderella chances of team #70 seems to be a bit bizarre to me. I have always thought the concept of a tournament snub was odd. Don't want to risk being left out of the already large field? Win more games, win the key games, win on the road and win when the committee says it counts most. Otherwise, you don't have much to complain about.

Monmouth did that this year and they were still snubbed.

No they didn't. They lost the key game in their conference tournament. Which incidentally is the method the conference decided to use to determine their auto bid. The Ivy League gives it to the regular season champion. Monmouth's biggest issue was playing in the Metro Atlantic who had 8 team's RPI ranked below 200. Three of which were below 300.

Not only did they have bad losses and numerous wins over bad teams but they lost to Iona twice down the stretch, including in the conference tournament final. Add in all of the conference tournament upsets and there's only so much grace you can be given. Win one more game and they're in.

Almost every team loses some conference games. Are you really going to fault a team like Monmouth when a lot of power conference teams make the tournament without having a winning record in their conference? You try to make having a few top 100 wins for a power conference team sound like a big deal, but when they play something like 14 games against top 100 competition, random luck will likely get them a few wins. Going 3-11 against the top 100 is a lot less impressive than 3-3.

(03-18-2016 12:09 AM)dxdtdemon Wrote:  Almost every team loses some conference games. Are you really going to fault a team like Monmouth when a lot of power conference teams make the tournament without having a winning record in their conference? You try to make having a few top 100 wins for a power conference team sound like a big deal, but when they play something like 14 games against top 100 competition, random luck will likely get them a few wins. Going 3-11 against the top 100 is a lot less impressive than 3-3.

Monmouth lost 3 sub 200 games. The entire RPI top 100 had only 2 other teams that lost at least 3 sub 200 games. Top 15 only like 11 teams.

Also Monmouth was not 3-3 vs the top 100, they were 2-3.

As I was stating even before the Selection Show:

-Their road/neutral record was fantastic
-They had a few good OOC wins
-Some of their "big" OOC wins were vastly overrated, probably because people wanted to see the little guy do well. UCLA and Georgetown were not good this year, period. A win over Rutgers is about as prestigious as a win over East Carolina.
-They rocketed in prestige early on and were an assumed lock to the Tournament but as the season wore on, not only did they take on some bad losses but some of their wins didn't look nearly as good as they did in December. And when it came time to sow down a bid, they lost to a random team in their league twice. Not once but twice in 2 or 3 weeks. As things played out, they were squeezed out of the field. They gave the committee the lattitude to make a WTF selection or two that left them on the outside looking in.

(03-17-2016 07:50 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(03-17-2016 05:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-17-2016 03:30 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  there are only around 12 scholarships to give out in basketball

13 for D-I men's basketball, 15 for women's.

But how many of the low-major men's programs give out 13 scholarships? I'd guess there are some giving out 5 or fewer. Those are just trying to run a D-I basketball program at the lowest cost possible in order to collect the check from March Madness. .

There are Division I minimums for scholarships, so you might as well spend them on the only sport relevant to your revenues.

If I'm reading the bylaw correctly (20.9.3.2), the least expensive way to comply with the minimum requirements for a school without football is to award at least half of the maximum allowable grants in 14 different sports, at least 7 of which have to be women's sports. That would mean offering 7 men's basketball scholarships. There are alternative ways of complying with this bylaw that allow a school to offer more or fewer basketball scholarships, but those appear to be at least somewhat more costly overall. So if a school is really trying to get away with the least amount they can spend on athletic scholarships, they would be at or just over half the maximum in each sport.

(Schools that offer no athletic scholarships at all are exempt from these minimums.)

This also illustrates how much greater the scholarship obligations are for FBS schools. While a D-I school without football could award about 100 athletic scholarships per year and have 14 varsity sports and be in compliance, every FBS school has to award at least 200 athletic scholarships and have at least 16 varsity sports.