There are a lot of issues that are at hand with this BCS power conference movement. More, now then ever you have teams that are making the Dance just because they associated with a BCS conference. Now you have 18-12 Penn State being considered over a 25-7 Davidson. Well if that is the case why don't you make it beneficial for everybody. Add another round to the tournament. Yep you got it 128 teams. One more game. More money being made. People who should be in are in and everybody is happy.
Davidson did have some bad losses.
(03-15-2009 04:31 PM)jstud63 Wrote: [ -> ]There are a lot of issues that are at hand with this BCS power conference movement. More, now then ever you have teams that are making the Dance just because they associated with a BCS conference. Now you have 18-12 Penn State being considered over a 25-7 Davidson. Well if that is the case why don't you make it beneficial for everybody. Add another round to the tournament. Yep you got it 128 teams. One more game. More money being made. People who should be in are in and everybody is happy.
I've been thinking the same thing. This might be the only way for the small guys to crash what has turned into a Good-ole-Boys club. It's time to settle the issue on the court. If the BCS clubs won't play us during the regular season then the least they can do is give us a few 1st round games.
The problem is the Have's holding down the Have Not's. This would be a perfect opportunity to even things out. 25-7 is 25-7. That is pretty impressive in any league in Division 1 athletics.
No. There should only be 64 teams (I know there are 65 teams now). There are not 128 teams that are good enough to be in the NCAA tournament. The problem is not in how many teams there are, but in how those teams are selected.
Here is what I would do:
1. The regular season champions of each conference would get the automatic bids. Just because a team gets hot for a few games in a row does not mean they should be awarded a spot. This would place more importance on the regular season.
2. In certain conferences, perhaps the top 10 conferences in the RPI would have their conference tournament champions awarded automatic spots as well, if different from the regular season champions.
3. The final spots would then go to the highest rated RPI teams remaining, no matter who they are.
Oh, and one more thing. The first round losers will then go into a consolation tournament that would be the NIT.
There should only be 31 teams. Each conference champion and thats it. It is the only fair way. Expanding the tourney screws the little guy.
(03-15-2009 04:31 PM)jstud63 Wrote: [ -> ]There are a lot of issues that are at hand with this BCS power conference movement. More, now then ever you have teams that are making the Dance just because they associated with a BCS conference. Now you have 18-12 Penn State being considered over a 25-7 Davidson. Well if that is the case why don't you make it beneficial for everybody. Add another round to the tournament. Yep you got it 128 teams. One more game. More money being made. People who should be in are in and everybody is happy.
Then we'd have 8 non power conference "at large" teams in, and they'd be paired against each other in the first round
I disagree, Memphis.
I think the conference tournaments are great...every program in the country (except for the Ivy League and independents) has a chance to make their season up until the last week of the season. Keeps things interesting. In the Ivy League, the excitement and interest level suffers because many schools have nothing to play even a few weeks into the conference schedule.
I do think that something has to be done to increase the number of non-BCS programs in the dance...perhaps a bracket busters series late in the year featuring BCS vs. non-BCS teams. It is a real crock that BCS programs have all the scheduling advantages. I also think it's ridiculous that BCS teams get passes on a lot of games (i.e. Maryland losing at Virginia down the stretch) when non-BCS teams really have little margin for error.
Having said that, Xavier, Butler, Dayton and BYU all won some quality games. Our 2 best wins of the year were at Arizona and over UTEP. Hardly We had a chance-- had we beaten Butler or BC or Oklahoma or Cincinnati or Louisville, we'd have been in good shape.
If you go to 128 you'll see every single team in the Big Six go in, with what's left over going to the rest of us.
(03-15-2009 11:50 PM)ncblazer Wrote: [ -> ]I disagree, Memphis.
I think the conference tournaments are great...every program in the country (except for the Ivy League and independents) has a chance to make their season up until the last week of the season. Keeps things interesting. In the Ivy League, the excitement and interest level suffers because many schools have nothing to play even a few weeks into the conference schedule.
I do think that something has to be done to increase the number of non-BCS programs in the dance...perhaps a bracket busters series late in the year featuring BCS vs. non-BCS teams. It is a real crock that BCS programs have all the scheduling advantages. I also think it's ridiculous that BCS teams get passes on a lot of games (i.e. Maryland losing at Virginia down the stretch) when non-BCS teams really have little margin for error.
Having said that, Xavier, Butler, Dayton and BYU all won some quality games. Our 2 best wins of the year were at Arizona and over UTEP. Hardly We had a chance-- had we beaten Butler or BC or Oklahoma or Cincinnati or Louisville, we'd have been in good shape.
But there are a bunch of teams that had great seasons and earned a bid during the regular season by winning more games than any other conference member, only to have one bad game in the tournament and get relegated to the NIT.
It happened to Vermont, Davidson, Buffalo, Weber State, TN Martin and Jacksonville. They should be rewarded for a great season, not the teams that got hot and got in. In my system listed above, the top 10 conferences would have automatic bids for both the regular season and tournament champions (assuming they're different). That would mean the most exciting tournaments would still mean something. No one gets excited about the MEACC or Big South tournament anyway.