(03-15-2020 04:03 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-15-2020 03:56 PM)bullet Wrote:  Its perfectly knowable. You base it on games that have actually been played. You don't try to imagine upsets that haven't happened. Its all every bit as easy as the bracket in normal years.

It was a silly idea and I'm glad it has been swept away, as to me not enough games have been played to base anything on. Oh well.

Not enough games? They used to always do it this way. Only the ACC played a tourney.

Thinking it was a silly idea is a reasonable position. Thinking there weren't enough games to base it on is silly.

(03-15-2020 05:29 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(03-15-2020 04:03 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-15-2020 03:56 PM)bullet Wrote:  Its perfectly knowable. You base it on games that have actually been played. You don't try to imagine upsets that haven't happened. Its all every bit as easy as the bracket in normal years.

It was a silly idea and I'm glad it has been swept away, as to me not enough games have been played to base anything on. Oh well.

Not enough games? They used to always do it this way. Only the ACC played a tourney.

Thinking it was a silly idea is a reasonable position. Thinking there weren't enough games to base it on is silly.

Yes, not enough games given that the field is determined after the conference tournaments are complete. That would be "enough" games because that constitutes the complete pre-NCAA tournament season.

The only fair way to do it would be to assume no one played any conference tournaments. Is it fair that the SWAC and MEAC regular season champions get in because their tournaments got canceled but Wright State and Colgate are denied a bid because they played early and got upset? Do you deny Xavier a bid for losing to DePaul when if they didn't play at all they'd be in? St. Mary's gained by beating BYU. Who's to say Illinois couldn't have made the Big Ten final and moved up? Why does St. Mary's get rewarded for playing their tournament early? So assume no conference tournaments happened, the regular season champions are the automatic bids.

(03-15-2020 06:55 PM)schmolik Wrote:  The only fair way to do it would be to assume no one played any conference tournaments. Is it fair that the SWAC and MEAC regular season champions get in because their tournaments got canceled but Wright State and Colgate are denied a bid because they played early and got upset? Do you deny Xavier a bid for losing to DePaul when if they didn't play at all they'd be in? St. Mary's gained by beating BYU. Who's to say Illinois couldn't have made the Big Ten final and moved up? Why does St. Mary's get rewarded for playing their tournament early? So assume no conference tournaments happened, the regular season champions are the automatic bids.

You would base it on what was done. Just like it was always done in the past. If a conference finished its conference tourney, then that is its AQ. If they didn't, then its the regular season champ. Just like in football. If there is no ccg, you take the conference determined champion. Don't know why this is such a hard concept.

Think y'all just think the pretend bracket is silly and are desperately imagining reasons why it wouldn't work. It would work just fine. Whether its worthwhile is a different question.

If all it means are contract bonuses for coaches for making the tourney, there's no real cost to the coaches who "miss out" however they do it ... because their bonus is still 0 if they do no bracket.

They might wish it was done another way, but they don't benefit from someone else not getting a bonus because there was no bracket.

Just go ahead and give it to Kansas. They were number one when everything was shutdown. College football crowned its champion that way for decades.

(03-15-2020 07:16 AM)ken d Wrote:  As part of this exercise, I also proposed to expand the tournament field from 68 to 72 teams. Bids in this proposal would be awarded as follows. The 6 power conferences, ACC, B1G, Big East, Big 12, PAC 12 and SEC would get 6 autobids and 30 at large, for a total of 36 schools. The remaining conferences would get 26 autobids and 10 at large.

In this expanded field, the four additional bids would go to Memphis, UConn, Northern Iowa and Rhode Island. The first four out from the P6 due to the limit of 30 at large bids were NC State, Arkansas, USC and Oklahoma State, who would be the #1 seeds in the NIT field.

In my proposal, I would have the bottom 16 seeded teams play the first round at the 8 sub-regional sites on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tournament units would be awarded for each of the 72 participants, plus the winners of each game in rounds 2-5. No units would be awarded for a win in Round 1 or in the Final Four. This would only increase the total units awarded from the current 128 to 132, minimizing the dilution of the value of each unit.

Make it so.

I can see the NCAA Tournament expanding to 72 teams. The first season they expanded to 68 there were 345 Division 1 men's teams so 19.7% of teams made the tournament. In 2020, there were 353 teams so 19.3% made the tournament. If you made it 72 of 353 it would be 20.4%, a larger % than 2011 but not that much larger. Maybe it doesn't need to be immediate but eventually it could be justified as more NCAA teams make the jump to D-1. Also, that % is lower than many other men's sports including baseball and hockey (https://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2018/...ss-propose)

On the other hand, I highly doubt the NCAA will agree on 6 autobids for each of the Power 6 even if it possibly could give more bids to other conferences. I'm not sure the power conferences would agree on a cap either. Anyway, how is NC State not in the field if the ACC gets 6 autobids? Wouldn't they be in the top 6 in the ACC?

I would like to see in the expanded 72 or the current 68 all of the pre round of 64 games be all at large teams and if you win an automatic bid you go right to the round of 64. If you're from the MEAC, SWAC, or NEC, you deserve the right to have a real NCAA experience vs. a Duke, Kentucky, or North Carolina, not a game in Dayton vs. another automatic qualifier no one cares about. Besides, the "First Four/First Eight" would be more watched if they were all NC State/Indiana games, very few people care if the MAAC champ plays the Summit League champ in Dayton. Then the teams who win in the "First Four/First Eight" don't get credited with a win nor an extra tournament share, the losers can keep their tournament appearance and share.