(03-13-2017 09:58 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-12-2017 07:01 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  I think it's the best compromise, personally. Perfect. Also increases odds of monster upsets so you're ridding the bottom 2 champions through a play-in process and moving everyone back 2 spots. Since they started this in 2011, we've had 4 15's (Lehigh, Norfolk St, Florida Gulf Coast, Middle Tennessee) have won. A 16 (Southern) was also, like, tied with a 1 with 4 minutes left.

Agreed. It's one of the things that the NCAA has actually managed correctly with the proper amount of balance and restraint. If we just had all of the lowest seeded conference champs play each other, we all know realistically that it would remove interest from the event. Having teams play for at-large bids provides the opportunity for more higher profile power teams involved and we saw VCU make it to the Final Four coming out of the First Four round, so the public now sees these are "real" NCAA Tournament games as opposed to sacrificial lambs fighting for the "privilege" of getting destroyed by a #1 seed.

By the same token, if you just made the First Four consist of solely at-large bids, that would reduce the quality of the matchups in the tournament overall as that would push bad conference champ teams that are currently #16 seeds into the #15 seed line, current #15 seeds into the #14 seed line, and so on and so forth. That wouldn't improve the quality of the tournament, either.

As a result, the compromise balances both fairness (making some, but not all, at-large teams and the worst conference champs play in the First Four round) with realism (the at-large bids can actually make a legit run in the NCAA Tournament while we realistically know it will be difficult for the worst conference champs to do so). That's a pretty rare for college administrators.

Nothing is perfect, but as far as college sports institutions go, there is very little to complain about the format of the NCAA Tournament itself. I can write (and have written) many thousands of words about how I would change the playoff system for college football. In contrast, I wouldn't mess with the current format of the NCAA Tournament at all.

I say one or the other but both is weird. Making all the 16's play-ins would increase the quality. You likely eliminate all or most of the fluke teams that won their conference tournament to get in and provide the 1's with legit teams to play. Or you can say they all earned their spot, so the last of the at-larges should earn theirs.

Doing both seems to be just catering to the demands of TV.

(03-13-2017 02:46 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-13-2017 01:59 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  Champions shouldn't assume that risk, even if their conference is garbage. It shouldn't be the NEC's fault the C7 are a bunch of snobs who can't get along with public schools who play football. Or one of the HBC conferences' that a couple of front-range schools couldn't get accept having to share their schedule with their horribly planned 16-team conference.

Of course they can assume that risk when their conference is garbage. I know it's not PC to state around because of affinity for the "little guy", but the entire NCAA is funded on the backs of those "snobs" that enable the NCAA Tournament to make billions of dollars in revenue. A bunch of random schools getting together in a conference and then partaking in a multi-billion enterprise where they aren't the ones that bring in the revenue that enables this event to exist in the first place aren't "equal" partners.

What every other sport does besides men's basketball and football is irrelevant because NONE of those other sports exist without men's basketball and football. Are there different rules for men's basketball and football? Of course there are because those are the two sports that support every single other scholarship athlete out there.

I guess it all depends upon your definition of what's "fair". Is it equal access in and of itself (as you seem to suggest) or is it receiving a return that is proportional with the value that a league brings to the table? That can be debated endlessly among reasonable people, but as I've stated before, the NCAA Tournament actually does a pretty good job of balancing BOTH. The whole reason why I think the NCAA Tournament has a good format is that it is NOT just 100% one way or the other. There isn't complete "kumbaya" B.S. in pretending that every league is made equal, but the broad access is there to still allow such leagues to have a chance on the biggest stage (if only on paper). That's a really tough balance and the NCAA Tournament does it well.

But some of those schools have been around longer and even contributed more to the NCAA than some of those big schools. They deserve just as much access as the bigger schools and thankfully basketball is fair and not like football, otherwise the NIT would be the relevant tournament and schools like Gonzaga and Xavier would likely still be relative unknowns.