(04-11-2021 09:58 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (04-11-2021 08:27 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: Welcome aboard! I’m going to offer a tweak to your plan, that makes things less complicated:
What if all the mid majors (everyone but the top 6-7 conferences) gave their regular season champion a bye all the way to the conference final?
It gives your best team the best shot to represent in the tournament while still participating the conference tournament.
I think that’s much more realistic.
It’s instructive that everyone in the NCAA already has the power to award their auto-bid to their regular season champs, but none of them choose to do so. The TV money that leagues receive for that “win and in” conference title game is simply too great compared to the alternative. What’s most “fair” in determining a champion isn’t necessarily what’s most compelling for TV... which is evidenced by the single elimination nature of the NCAA Tournament itself.
So, I think it’s more of matter of giving the regular season conference champ a greater advantage (a bye to the championship game as you’ve suggested or at least to the semifinals) instead of attempting to supplant the conference tournament auto-bid (which won’t happen).
Though the MAC has gone the other way. They had the top four schools with a first round bye, going straight into the quarterfinals, with the remaining eight playing in, hosted at the higher seeded school. When the tournament was reformed, rather than giving a semi-final bye to the top two or a championship bye to the top team, they went to a top eight tournament and the bottom four DNQ.
And as far as I can tell, that is with the support of the basketball schools. I think one concern is that too many byes sees a team that was higher ranked in the regular season come into their first tournament game a little "cold" compared to their opponent.
It also makes the quarterfinal seeding a more predictable reward for regular season performance ... since if a #5 v #12 play-in game sees a fluke result, perhaps due to untimely injuries or (in this season) non-start by key players in the #5 team, the #4 could end up seeded against #12, while the #2 team is seeded against #7.
Or, conversely, if there are three schools whose seasons are basically washed out, #12 might be determined to try to go out with a bang while #10 has checked out for next year, and #5 came into the quarterfinals after a tough scrap while #7 hosted a nice easy warm up scrimmage to get ready for the quarterfinals.
Of course, the fact that there was no visible media value to the four first round games surely made dropping the first round entirely an easier decision.