Which regular season champs need to win their conference tournament to secure a bid?

Akron. Any loss in the MAC tournament they are NIT bound.

There are 23 conferences likely to be 1-bid conferences. So here are the candidates.

Conference Leaders
► highest RPI from projected one-bid conferences - (23 total): Vermont (America East), Florida Gulf Coast (Atlantic Sun), North Dakota (Big Sky), Winthrop (Big South), UC Irvine (Big West), UNC-Wilmington (CAA), Middle Tennessee State (Conference USA), Valparaiso (Horizon), Princeton (Ivy League), Monmouth (MAAC), Akron (MAC), N.C. Central (MEAC), Illinois State (Missouri Valley), Nevada (Mountain West), Mount Saint Mary's (Northeast), Belmont (Ohio Valley), Bucknell (Patriot), East Tennessee State (Southern), New Orleans (Southland), Texas Southern (SWAC), South Dakota (Summit), Texas-Arlington (Sun Belt), CSU Bakersfield (WAC).

Belmont has lost already so they have an NIT berth.

Valparaiso will be without their star Alec Peters, so I have a feeling that someone else will be representing the Horizon League in the tournament.

EDIT: Apparently, I had been misinformed and Oakland got the tiebreaker over Valparaiso. Oakland was defeated by Youngstown State in the Horizon League quarterfinals, and will be going to the NIT.

The above list is why the lower mids need their own tournament. (Exclude FBS conferences MAC, SBC, CUSA, MWC, and as long as Wichita State is in the MVC they also). That is 18 conferences. Add 14 at-large you have a nice 32 team Tournament, and almost all regular season winner get in regardless (MEAC, SWAC, AEC are so weak you can't possibly give a 2nd bid even at this level).

Doubt it will happen soon, but it makes sense. NCAA simply has to assure the same money for one bid conferences, a smaller share for at-large based on whatever income they can get from the 2nd tournament. I don't think there would be a any financial penalty dropping from 68 to 50 for the top tournament. I think it will take a few more years of "pretend we are all on the same level" before people get serious about it happening. But this is getting just silly the 1st round blow outs.

SMH...this board...

Yeah, let them pass up a chance at a national title and a thrill of a lifetime by playing the best and most well known teams in the country to instead play in a minor tournament amongst themselves. That tournament already more or less exists, it's called the CIT. You're not necessarily stupid but I should negative rep that post for stupidity.

(03-04-2017 01:19 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  The above list is why the lower mids need their own tournament. (Exclude FBS conferences MAC, SBC, CUSA, MWC, and as long as Wichita State is in the MVC they also). That is 18 conferences. Add 14 at-large you have a nice 32 team Tournament, and almost all regular season winner get in regardless (MEAC, SWAC, AEC are so weak you can't possibly give a 2nd bid even at this level).

Doubt it will happen soon, but it makes sense. NCAA simply has to assure the same money for one bid conferences, a smaller share for at-large based on whatever income they can get from the 2nd tournament. I don't think there would be a any financial penalty dropping from 68 to 50 for the top tournament. I think it will take a few more years of "pretend we are all on the same level" before people get serious about it happening. But this is getting just silly the 1st round blow outs.

Great, another guy advocating for March Mildness

(03-04-2017 01:19 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  The above list is why the lower mids need their own tournament. (Exclude FBS conferences MAC, SBC, CUSA, MWC, and as long as Wichita State is in the MVC they also). That is 18 conferences. Add 14 at-large you have a nice 32 team Tournament, and almost all regular season winner get in regardless (MEAC, SWAC, AEC are so weak you can't possibly give a 2nd bid even at this level).

Doubt it will happen soon, but it makes sense. NCAA simply has to assure the same money for one bid conferences, a smaller share for at-large based on whatever income they can get from the 2nd tournament. I don't think there would be a any financial penalty dropping from 68 to 50 for the top tournament. I think it will take a few more years of "pretend we are all on the same level" before people get serious about it happening. But this is getting just silly the 1st round blow outs.

Is this DavidSt's brother?

(03-04-2017 02:23 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  Yeah, let them pass up a chance at a national title and a thrill of a lifetime by playing the best and most well known teams in the country to instead play in a minor conference amongst themselves.

I think he was suggesting it as being instead of the NIT, not the NCAAT.

But even then, I think most of those teams are very happy with the NIT.

It's coming. I know fans like to bet on Southern, Winthrop, Eastern Washington, Monmouth, UC Davis, Vermont and Cal State Bakersfield, UNC Central, Bucknell for their final four, or at least the elite eight.

Besides being first round double digit victims what do they bring? None has a real shot at even the sweet sixteen, even if one of the manages to run into a team that is revolting on their coach and prefers to go home than to beat a team without a single guy who could make their roster. (That 2 seed we see every couple years or so who lost the 1st game in their conference tourney and has chemistry issues.)

Sure there is a man's team in the lower mids like Sam Houston last year. And every five to seven years one makes a deep run, like Westhead's LMU team of the 80's (before most of the board was born) or still in almost recent memory FGCU, or go a couple rounds like Steph Curry's Davidson. But the odds get longer every year. The resource gap grows, the recruiting gap grows.

It's not a dream it's a fantasy, like expecting Tim Tebow to make a MLB roster.

(03-04-2017 05:40 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  It's coming. I know fans like to bet on Southern, Winthrop, Eastern Washington, Monmouth, UC Davis, Vermont and Cal State Bakersfield, UNC Central, Bucknell for their final four, or at least the elite eight.

Besides being first round double digit victims what do they bring? None has a real shot at even the sweet sixteen, even if one of the manages to run into a team that is revolting on their coach and prefers to go home than to beat a team without a single guy who could make their roster. (That 2 seed we see every couple years or so who lost the 1st game in their conference tourney and has chemistry issues.)

Sure there is a man's team in the lower mids like Sam Houston last year. And every five to seven years one makes a deep run, like Westhead's LMU team of the 80's (before most of the board was born) or still in almost recent memory FGCU, or go a couple rounds like Steph Curry's Davidson. But the odds get longer every year. The resource gap grows, the recruiting gap grows.

It's not a dream it's a fantasy, like expecting Tim Tebow to make a MLB roster.

Another doozie.

(03-04-2017 05:40 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  It's coming. I know fans like to bet on Southern, Winthrop, Eastern Washington, Monmouth, UC Davis, Vermont and Cal State Bakersfield, UNC Central, Bucknell for their final four, or at least the elite eight.

Besides being first round double digit victims what do they bring? None has a real shot at even the sweet sixteen, even if one of the manages to run into a team that is revolting on their coach and prefers to go home than to beat a team without a single guy who could make their roster. (That 2 seed we see every couple years or so who lost the 1st game in their conference tourney and has chemistry issues.)

Sure there is a man's team in the lower mids like Sam Houston last year. And every five to seven years one makes a deep run, like Westhead's LMU team of the 80's (before most of the board was born) or still in almost recent memory FGCU, or go a couple rounds like Steph Curry's Davidson. But the odds get longer every year. The resource gap grows, the recruiting gap grows.

It's not a dream it's a fantasy, like expecting Tim Tebow to make a MLB roster.

Yeah, if I had a chance to do speed dating, I'd rather do it with average looking girls because they were in my league rather than supermodels if I had the option.

Who cares if they have a small chance at advancing? First, they have a chance at a national title, which isn't there in football. No one is gonna voluntarily segregate themselves to a virtual I-AA, that's stupid. But second, there's the thrill of taking down a Duke, UCLA, Kentucky or being the first 16 to take down a 1. If the dregs of D-I want to compete badly enough for a national title, they'll drop to D-II or D-III.

Oakland just got knocked out tonight and South Dakota just escaped in their tournament.

(03-04-2017 09:15 AM)dxdtdemon Wrote:  Valparaiso will be without their star Alec Peters, so I have a feeling that someone else will be representing the Horizon League in the tournament.

EDIT: Apparently, I had been misinformed and Oakland got the tiebreaker over Valparaiso. Oakland was defeated by Youngstown State in the Horizon League quarterfinals, and will be going to the NIT.

Both were taken out. Valpo's slide took them from the bubble to some obscure post-season tournament. Horizon has a history of being a wicked tourney for the regular season champ.

Looking elsewhere, I can see both MSMC and Bucknell going down. Summit and CAA might be seeing its champs take a dive in the tournaments. Heck, CoC's got theirs made.

Wow. Alec Peters was their best player since Bryce Drew and Valparaiso ended up wasting his career.

(03-04-2017 03:52 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  I think he was suggesting it as being instead of the NIT, not the NCAAT.

But even then, I think most of those teams are very happy with the NIT.

They'd be when they are the regular season champs. When they are second place, they'd rather the NIT have more spots.

Seed the top 16, add a round, 48. Every conference gets two in, as long as they have winning records, and then at-large until it's full.

Still be room for a pay to play tournament, but obviously not for three.

Nah, I say, let the NIT fold into the NCAA Tournament. Let the NIT Final Four become the First Four. That way, every conference champion gets a second chance as well as every bubble team.

(03-05-2017 08:22 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  Nah, I say, let the NIT fold into the NCAA Tournament. Let the NIT Final Four become the First Four. That way, every conference champion gets a second chance as well as every bubble team.

if you are going to do that, you might as well just expand the NCAA tourney to 96 teams and have each conference get 2 AQ teams, its regular season champ and its tourney champ. If 1 team wins both, the 2nd place team would go too.

I like the idea of giving each conference 2 bids and letting the regular season and conference tournament champs both in.

This does create a question as to whether the regular season champs should participate in the conference tournament. On one side they really have nothing to play for other than raising their RPI and seeding with some more quality wins at the risk of injury to their players. On the flip side, I imagine a lot of coaches would not like to have their teams sit idle for that long.