RE: At large bids this year
Its hard to argue with the committee. 32 of 36 at-large went to the P6. They had 26 of the 32 round, 15 of the sweet 16, and 7 of the elite 8. Gonzaga is the monster of the mid-majors, and they were seriously considered for the New Big East when it formed. Not only that the higher seeds have been winning for the most part. We are at the elite 8 and 3 of 4 #1 seeds are left, 2 of the #2 seeds were left, and 1 of the #4 seeds. P6 Xavier and South Carolina were the "low seed" survivors.
I break the mid-majors into two groups, upper and lower. This year that would be the 2 WCC, 3 A10, 2 AAC, plus Nevada. Wichita State and Middle Tennessee of the single bid MWC, MVC, and CUSA. These were all seeded #12 or higher. These 10 schools went 6-4 in the first round (3-2 against P6, 2 were eliminated against each other), 1-5 in the second round. They beat three P6 teams, but Cincinnati was a higher seed, while Rhode Island and Middle Tennessee were mild upsets. These schools all lost to P6 in the 2nd round, gone by the weekend, except Gonzaga.
The bottom 20 schools, were all single bid conferences. Two got wins against other lower mids in the first four. 17 lost in the first round to P6, and the other lost to Gonzaga. If you add Nevada (MWC), and Wichita State (MVC), as one bid conference teams, they went 0-21 against P6.
Frankly if you dropped the bottom 20 conferences, eliminating the first four, the Tournament would not have changed much, just Providence and Wake Forest would have been 12 seeds. The 1-4 seeds would have had first day byes, and they all won anyway against all the 13-16 seeds (which says the committee got those right). You have the same tournament but just 8 games in stead of 16 of Thursday and Friday.
IMO the gap has opened up so much that the bottom 20 conferences, who also had 9 AQ bids in the NIT, and 2 at-large. Throw in UNC Asheville who was the first excluded along with Ohio State from the NIT, and that would give you a nice 32 team Tournament. These schools would be playing for a real NCAA National Championship, albeit like the FCS. It's better these days to be in the NIT (the 11 schools have gone 8-10 with Bakersfield in the final four), than to go 0-18 in the first round of the NCAA. Win you conference and you get be warmup round one for a Major, nothing more. It's been that way for a few years now, and getting worse.
The NIT would be fine by grabbing the 4 P6 schools with wining records left out, and adding the 7 upper mids who had RPI up to 100 (well 103). You'd probably have almost the same final four, except Bakersfield. So no harm here.
Anyway, when the one bid conferences are all gone by the first weekend, and 1-21 versus P6 (including some P6 teams with injured top players or otherwise a mess) it's hard to argue the committee got it wrong, or that the bottom 20 conferences are shafted. The recent history says they may pull one or two upsets in a given year, but they are gone by round 3, almost all gone in round 1. The upper mids are getting fewer and not lasting much longer, save one team it seems in any given year.
RPI alone is not good enough, you also have to look at top 50 wins and losses. The P6 have a built in advantage. But they also have the players who are NBA bound, and the top coaches (a couple exceptions out there like Marshall, Cronin, Bennett and Few), and the facilities, recruiting resources and the TV exposure.
As a result for the tournament, 38 of 75 P6 schools got in (just over 50%), and another 13 in the NIT (67% in a tournament). Frankly to have a 48 team tournament, the P group needs only 2 more conferences to get to about 100 schools. Or as it now sits 6 conferences with 72 schools to provide the other 10 (they also provided 8 of the NIT). The credits earned are massive difference as well:
P6 have 38 bid credits, plus 54 win credits (56 possible)* = 92 credits for 75 schools
Upper mids have 10 bid credits, plus 8 win credits (10 possible)* = 18 credits for 72 schools
Lower mids have 20 bid credits, plus 2 win credits = 22 credits for 204 school
* 2 credits dependent upon Gonzaga winning or losing in final four
Each credit has an aggregate value of $1.6m over 6 years
This will come to about $2m per P6 school, $400K per "upper" and $173K per "lower" mid-school
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