(02-05-2024 09:27 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-04-2024 09:00 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-04-2024 05:56 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  If you’re talking about the group of schools that have a realistic chance of winning the national championship in either football or basketball, the P4 + Big East + a handful of other top brands (e.g. Gonzaga, San Diego State) would effectively cover them all. I would agree that a *P2* breakaway is too limiting. The top level of college football has long been around 65 or so schools and the current P4 is in line with that. The top level of college basketball has long been that power football group plus the Big East and a handful of others. As long as the breakaway includes that group, I honestly don’t think the casual sports fan (who is what matters here as opposed to the hardcore college sports fan) is going to notice as much as much as fans outside of that group want to believe.

College basketball has lot more schools than that that have a realistic shot. They just have to make the Dance and win six games in a row. A team like Purdue getting knocked out opens up an path for a team that might have had a worse matchup vs Purdue etc

The most exciting thing about March is Cinderella and the potential upset. You take that away and you’re destroying what makes the college hoops postseason as great and as popular as it is with the casual sports fans who only pays attention when it’s time to fill out a bracket.

I'm not sure if college hoops has many more schools with a realistic shot. I can't remember the last time a non-Power (P5 and Big East) won the title. I guess it was UNLV in 1990, and that was (a) a third of a century ago and (b) UNLV was a hoops colossus at that time, obviously a "power" program, like Gonzaga is now.

Before then, maybe Texas-Western in 1966?

That's why when a cinderella knocks off a highly ranked team, like a Purdue, I look ahead to see what other Power team benefits from that, will get to play the cinderella and advance farther. Because even in the cases of teams like pre- Big East Butler, they all eventually lose to a power team.

March Madness is awesome for the Cinderella runs, and I don't want anything about it changed. I agree that a tournament that only includes power conference schools will lose its magic, be much diminished, and would also lose a lot of viewers. But still, when the dust settles it is nearly always a Power team that is the champ.

If a team makes the Final 4, then they have a realistic shot to win. It's that simple. You've got to win three mini weekend tournaments in a row. If you're down to the last one, it's pretty darn realistic.

Here are the last ten tournaments:

San Diego St.
FAU
Houston
Gonzaga (twice)
Loyola
UConn (AAC)
Wichita St.

That's 80% of the tournaments and I have not included the Big East. With NIL and the transfer portal, we are seeing more and more parity in hoops. Only five guys start in hoops. Nobody is building longterm teams anymore so it's natural to have MORE teams that are competitive vs football where 22 guys are starting, not including special teams.

So if you say 22 x 69 = 1,518 starters in the P4 football leagues

1,518 / 5 = 303.6 teams putting high quality basketball players on the floor whom are able to start in D1

Granted, many of those guys might come off the bench, but we're still looking at well over 69 teams competing at the highest level.

(02-04-2024 09:59 PM)C2__ Wrote:  ... It's a Catch-22 though: the power conferences can't be compensated appropriately in basketball because they have to subsidize everyone else but if they split off from everyone else, they won't be compensated properly because they will have harmed their cash cow, which is the NCAA Tournament. ...

If the Power Conferences get 40% of the cash from the Tourney Cash Cow, after correcting the pro forma distribution for NCAA feather-bedding costs, and they would get 80% from their own tournament, the question is whether the haircut they take on their own tournament is more or less than 50%.

If it is less than a 50% haircut, then that is more money for them.

What matters here for the NCAA is how much the power conferences believe they stand to lose. If the power conferences believe that a breakaway national tournament stands to lose 30% of the value of the Tourney, they will get 80%*70% = 56% of the value of the original Tourney, as opposed to ~40% today. So if the NCAA could find a way to increase the power conference cut to 60% of the Tourney revenue, the power conferences would be better off staying inside the system.

(02-05-2024 10:34 AM)esayem Wrote:  ... If a team makes the Final 4, then they have a realistic shot to win. It's that simple. You've got to win three mini weekend tournaments in a row. If you're down to the last one, it's pretty darn realistic.

Here are the last ten tournaments:

San Diego St.
FAU
Houston
Gonzaga (twice)
Loyola
UConn (AAC)
Wichita St.

That's 80% of the tournaments and I have not included the Big East. With NIL and the transfer portal, we are seeing more and more parity in hoops. Only five guys start in hoops. Nobody is building longterm teams anymore so it's natural to have MORE teams that are competitive vs football where 22 guys are starting, not including special teams.

So if you say 22 x 69 = 1,518 starters in the P4 football leagues

1,518 / 5 = 303.6 teams putting high quality basketball players on the floor whom are able to start in D1

Granted, many of those guys might come off the bench, but we're still looking at well over 69 teams competing at the highest level.

Say a complete breakaway of the biggest football schools is 50-60, and they include the Big East, making 60-70 schools. For convenience, say 64.

Even if the power conference schools are allocated a set number of NCAA D1 schools during the regular season to pad their resumes, even 24 for the tournament is stretching it.

So the NCAA plays a 32-team National Championship tournament. When they hit the elite eight, they take a break, and the elite eight join the Premier College Basketball League Championship tournament with the 24 already in. When it gets down to the elite eight, it takes a break for the NCAA to finish its tournament. Then the PCBL championship tournament completes.

I think the next NCAA battle is going to be can the NCAA force a team to play in the NCAA tournament.

Cause if the NCAA can't force a team to play in the NCAA tournament and the SEC and B10 forms their own tournament. What's stopping them from inviting Duke, UNC (assuming they're not already i the B10/SEC), Uconn, Kansas ect to the B10/SEC tournament without alligning to them for football.

As years go by and the NCAA tournament have 0 Blue bloods and top teams, it will organically because the 2nd rate tournament.

(02-05-2024 10:51 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 10:34 AM)esayem Wrote:  ... If a team makes the Final 4, then they have a realistic shot to win. It's that simple. You've got to win three mini weekend tournaments in a row. If you're down to the last one, it's pretty darn realistic.

Here are the last ten tournaments:

San Diego St.
FAU
Houston
Gonzaga (twice)
Loyola
UConn (AAC)
Wichita St.

That's 80% of the tournaments and I have not included the Big East. With NIL and the transfer portal, we are seeing more and more parity in hoops. Only five guys start in hoops. Nobody is building longterm teams anymore so it's natural to have MORE teams that are competitive vs football where 22 guys are starting, not including special teams.

So if you say 22 x 69 = 1,518 starters in the P4 football leagues

1,518 / 5 = 303.6 teams putting high quality basketball players on the floor whom are able to start in D1

Granted, many of those guys might come off the bench, but we're still looking at well over 69 teams competing at the highest level.

Say a complete breakaway of the biggest football schools is 50-60, and they include the Big East, making 60-70 schools. For convenience, say 64.

Even if the power conference schools are allocated a set number of NCAA D1 schools during the regular season to pad their resumes, even 24 for the tournament is stretching it.

So the NCAA plays a 32-team National Championship tournament. When they hit the elite eight, they take a break, and the elite eight join the Premier College Basketball League Championship tournament with the 24 already in. When it gets down to the elite eight, it takes a break for the NCAA to finish its tournament. Then the PCBL championship tournament completes.

That's too complicated for Avg Joe Sportsfan

I see you're a soccer fan, so I understand where you're coming from. Soccer stuff/relegation is great for soccer.

In football we hear a lot of grumbling from the ADs, coaches, etc; everyone from the ground up. You never hear that in hoops. Everyone loves the Big Dance. The most likely thing to happen is larger payouts for conferences with more participants. A formula with an escalator based on the amount of members appearing.

(02-05-2024 10:56 AM)ccbfan Wrote:  I think the next NCAA battle is going to be can the NCAA force a team to play in the NCAA tournament.

Cause if the NCAA can't force a team to play in the NCAA tournament and the SEC and B10 forms their own tournament. What's stopping them from inviting Duke, UNC (assuming they're not already i the B10/SEC), Uconn, Kansas ect to the B10/SEC tournament without alligning to them for football.

As years go by and the NCAA tournament have 0 Blue bloods and top teams, it will organically because the 2nd rate tournament.

The NCAA cannot force a team to play in their tournament. That's why it's called an invitation to the Dance.

What they have is a rule which states a team is ineligible for the Dance if they accept another invitation. That's how they killed the NIT back in the day.

So many elephants, so few rooms.

(02-05-2024 11:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 10:51 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 10:34 AM)esayem Wrote:  ... If a team makes the Final 4, then they have a realistic shot to win. It's that simple. You've got to win three mini weekend tournaments in a row. If you're down to the last one, it's pretty darn realistic.

Here are the last ten tournaments:

San Diego St.
FAU
Houston
Gonzaga (twice)
Loyola
UConn (AAC)
Wichita St.

That's 80% of the tournaments and I have not included the Big East. With NIL and the transfer portal, we are seeing more and more parity in hoops. Only five guys start in hoops. Nobody is building longterm teams anymore so it's natural to have MORE teams that are competitive vs football where 22 guys are starting, not including special teams.

So if you say 22 x 69 = 1,518 starters in the P4 football leagues

1,518 / 5 = 303.6 teams putting high quality basketball players on the floor whom are able to start in D1

Granted, many of those guys might come off the bench, but we're still looking at well over 69 teams competing at the highest level.

Say a complete breakaway of the biggest football schools is 50-60, and they include the Big East, making 60-70 schools. For convenience, say 64.

Even if the power conference schools are allocated a set number of NCAA D1 schools during the regular season to pad their resumes, even 24 for the tournament is stretching it.

So the NCAA plays a 32-team National Championship tournament. When they hit the elite eight, they take a break, and the elite eight join the Premier College Basketball League Championship tournament with the 24 already in. When it gets down to the elite eight, it takes a break for the NCAA to finish its tournament. Then the PCBL championship tournament completes.

That's too complicated for Avg Joe Sportsfan

Avg Joe Sportsfan doesn't have to run it ... indeed, Avg Joe Sportsfan just knows their team is aiming to get into one of the PCBL Championship tournament.

The PCBL setting it up as a 24 team tournament, and offering the NCAA eight spots for their elite eight if they wish to take the spots, isn't something that Avg Joe Sportsfan has to worry about, and if the NCAA takes the offer, the two tier system is only something that Niche Joe Underdogfan has to worry about.

Quote: I see you're a soccer fan, so I understand where you're coming from. Soccer stuff/relegation is great for soccer.

That's just "it's not what we're used to", but what we've been used to in football is for the recruitment bag to be under the table with the schools engaging in it pretending not to be coordinating it, and what we have now is for it to be above board with schools pretending to not be coordinating it.

Quote: In football we hear a lot of grumbling from the ADs, coaches, etc; everyone from the ground up. You never hear that in hoops. Everyone loves the Big Dance. The most likely thing to happen is larger payouts for conferences with more participants. A formula with an escalator based on the amount of members appearing.

The first preference from P4 AD's is for the Tourney to continue, but for the P4 to get a bigger slice of the pie -- preferably a disproportionate share, obviously, but at the very least a slice proportionate to the media value that they bring to the Tourney.

But they have to decide whether they are going to go into the negotiations playing softball or hardball, and if they are going in playing hardball, they have to have a plan B in case the NCAA can't get it's act together to agree to an acceptable division of the media revenue.

(02-05-2024 11:02 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 10:56 AM)ccbfan Wrote:  I think the next NCAA battle is going to be can the NCAA force a team to play in the NCAA tournament.

Cause if the NCAA can't force a team to play in the NCAA tournament and the SEC and B10 forms their own tournament. What's stopping them from inviting Duke, UNC (assuming they're not already i the B10/SEC), Uconn, Kansas ect to the B10/SEC tournament without alligning to them for football.

As years go by and the NCAA tournament have 0 Blue bloods and top teams, it will organically because the 2nd rate tournament.

The NCAA cannot force a team to play in their tournament. That's why it's called an invitation to the Dance.

What they have is a rule which states a team is ineligible for the Dance if they accept another invitation. That's how they killed the NIT back in the day.

The NCAA banned a team from playing in any other tournament if they refuse an "invitation" to the NCAA tournament.

Well according to wikipedia.

"Two major changes over the course of the early 1970s led to the NCAA becoming the preeminent post-season tournament for college basketball. First, the NCAA added a rule in 1971 that banned teams who declined an invitation to the NCAA tournament from participating in other post-season tournaments. This was in response to eighth-ranked Marquette declining its invitation in 1970 and instead participating in and winning the NIT after coach Al McGuire complained about their regional placement. Since then, the NCAA tournament has clearly been the major one, with conference champions and the majority of the top-ranked teams participating."

(02-05-2024 09:18 AM)b2b Wrote:  People grossly over-estimate how much the general public is actually interested in the "little guy."

People are actually the general public interested in the little guy playing in bowl games. Especially when Boise State takes down the big guns in the P5. If they get the right coach, and the right players? They could make a run in the playoffs, and may wind up winning it all.

(02-05-2024 09:27 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-04-2024 09:00 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-04-2024 05:56 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  If you’re talking about the group of schools that have a realistic chance of winning the national championship in either football or basketball, the P4 + Big East + a handful of other top brands (e.g. Gonzaga, San Diego State) would effectively cover them all. I would agree that a *P2* breakaway is too limiting. The top level of college football has long been around 65 or so schools and the current P4 is in line with that. The top level of college basketball has long been that power football group plus the Big East and a handful of others. As long as the breakaway includes that group, I honestly don’t think the casual sports fan (who is what matters here as opposed to the hardcore college sports fan) is going to notice as much as much as fans outside of that group want to believe.

College basketball has lot more schools than that that have a realistic shot. They just have to make the Dance and win six games in a row. A team like Purdue getting knocked out opens up an path for a team that might have had a worse matchup vs Purdue etc

The most exciting thing about March is Cinderella and the potential upset. You take that away and you’re destroying what makes the college hoops postseason as great and as popular as it is with the casual sports fans who only pays attention when it’s time to fill out a bracket.

I'm not sure if college hoops has many more schools with a realistic shot. I can't remember the last time a non-Power (P5 and Big East) won the title. I guess it was UNLV in 1990, and that was (a) a third of a century ago and (b) UNLV was a hoops colossus at that time, obviously a "power" program, like Gonzaga is now.

Before then, maybe Texas-Western in 1966?

That's why when a cinderella knocks off a highly ranked team, like a Purdue, I look ahead to see what other Power team benefits from that, will get to play the cinderella and advance farther. Because even in the cases of teams like pre- Big East Butler, they all eventually lose to a power team.

March Madness is awesome for the Cinderella runs, and I don't want anything about it changed. I agree that a tournament that only includes power conference schools will lose its magic, be much diminished, and would also lose a lot of viewers. But still, when the dust settles it is nearly always a Power team that is the champ.

And I believe Texas Western was ranked #1 at the time. If not #1, they were #2 right behind UK.

Looking it up, its pretty rare to even make the title game. Outside P4 and current Big East schools, going all the way back to UTEP in 1966, its been San Diego St., Gonzaga, Memphis, UNLV, Indiana St.(Larry Bird), Jacksonville(Artis Gilmore) and Dayton.

(02-05-2024 11:29 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 11:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 10:51 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 10:34 AM)esayem Wrote:  ... If a team makes the Final 4, then they have a realistic shot to win. It's that simple. You've got to win three mini weekend tournaments in a row. If you're down to the last one, it's pretty darn realistic.

Here are the last ten tournaments:

San Diego St.
FAU
Houston
Gonzaga (twice)
Loyola
UConn (AAC)
Wichita St.

That's 80% of the tournaments and I have not included the Big East. With NIL and the transfer portal, we are seeing more and more parity in hoops. Only five guys start in hoops. Nobody is building longterm teams anymore so it's natural to have MORE teams that are competitive vs football where 22 guys are starting, not including special teams.

So if you say 22 x 69 = 1,518 starters in the P4 football leagues

1,518 / 5 = 303.6 teams putting high quality basketball players on the floor whom are able to start in D1

Granted, many of those guys might come off the bench, but we're still looking at well over 69 teams competing at the highest level.

Say a complete breakaway of the biggest football schools is 50-60, and they include the Big East, making 60-70 schools. For convenience, say 64.

Even if the power conference schools are allocated a set number of NCAA D1 schools during the regular season to pad their resumes, even 24 for the tournament is stretching it.

So the NCAA plays a 32-team National Championship tournament. When they hit the elite eight, they take a break, and the elite eight join the Premier College Basketball League Championship tournament with the 24 already in. When it gets down to the elite eight, it takes a break for the NCAA to finish its tournament. Then the PCBL championship tournament completes.

That's too complicated for Avg Joe Sportsfan

Avg Joe Sportsfan doesn't have to run it ... indeed, Avg Joe Sportsfan just knows their team is aiming to get into one of the PCBL Championship tournament.

The PCBL setting it up as a 24 team tournament, and offering the NCAA eight spots for their elite eight if they wish to take the spots, isn't something that Avg Joe Sportsfan has to worry about, and if the NCAA takes the offer, the two tier system is only something that Niche Joe Underdogfan has to worry about.

Quote: I see you're a soccer fan, so I understand where you're coming from. Soccer stuff/relegation is great for soccer.

That's just "it's not what we're used to", but what we've been used to in football is for the recruitment bag to be under the table with the schools engaging in it pretending not to be coordinating it, and what we have now is for it to be above board with schools pretending to not be coordinating it.

Quote: In football we hear a lot of grumbling from the ADs, coaches, etc; everyone from the ground up. You never hear that in hoops. Everyone loves the Big Dance. The most likely thing to happen is larger payouts for conferences with more participants. A formula with an escalator based on the amount of members appearing.

The first preference from P4 AD's is for the Tourney to continue, but for the P4 to get a bigger slice of the pie -- preferably a disproportionate share, obviously, but at the very least a slice proportionate to the media value that they bring to the Tourney.

But they have to decide whether they are going to go into the negotiations playing softball or hardball, and if they are going in playing hardball, they have to have a plan B in case the NCAA can't get it's act together to agree to an acceptable division of the media revenue.

I'm sorry, but the two tournament soccer influenced thing just isn't realistic. I give you credit for thinking outside the box, but it's just not realistic and there is no movement to do something like this.

The NCAA will distribute the revenue differently if it comes down to it. What are the small conference schools going to do, threaten to leave?

(02-05-2024 11:31 AM)ccbfan Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 11:02 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-05-2024 10:56 AM)ccbfan Wrote:  I think the next NCAA battle is going to be can the NCAA force a team to play in the NCAA tournament.

Cause if the NCAA can't force a team to play in the NCAA tournament and the SEC and B10 forms their own tournament. What's stopping them from inviting Duke, UNC (assuming they're not already i the B10/SEC), Uconn, Kansas ect to the B10/SEC tournament without alligning to them for football.

As years go by and the NCAA tournament have 0 Blue bloods and top teams, it will organically because the 2nd rate tournament.

The NCAA cannot force a team to play in their tournament. That's why it's called an invitation to the Dance.

What they have is a rule which states a team is ineligible for the Dance if they accept another invitation. That's how they killed the NIT back in the day.

The NCAA banned a team from playing in any other tournament if they refuse an "invitation" to the NCAA tournament.

Well according to wikipedia.

"Two major changes over the course of the early 1970s led to the NCAA becoming the preeminent post-season tournament for college basketball. First, the NCAA added a rule in 1971 that banned teams who declined an invitation to the NCAA tournament from participating in other post-season tournaments. This was in response to eighth-ranked Marquette declining its invitation in 1970 and instead participating in and winning the NIT after coach Al McGuire complained about their regional placement. Since then, the NCAA tournament has clearly been the major one, with conference champions and the majority of the top-ranked teams participating."

Ah, news to me. Crazy they had that kind of power. The rule I am thinking of must have been implemented earlier.

The P4 to be compensated even more? They are already given the benefit of the doubt 90% of the time with At-Large bids. Plus, the revenue distributions are based on performance. So I will add two more elephants in the room:

1. Much of the conversations above are prime examples of collusion.

2. I am rather speechless how cavalier that threat of easily "breaking away" is invoked. The non-P4 would have zero risk at that point to fight what are clear visible blatant violations of Sherman Anti-Trust. And the use of anti-trust by the states of Tennessee and Virginia for something not even close to the same impact provides that road map.

In addition, I would not be taunting others regarding the breakaway if I were the Big East. A split would be driven by football ... and to keep the MWC schools out via football focus but then turn around and coattail non-football schools? That would be a huge huge layer to salivate tort attorneys.

(02-05-2024 10:27 PM)MemTGRS Wrote:  The P4 to be compensated even more? They are already given the benefit of the doubt 90% of the time with At-Large bids. Plus, the revenue distributions are based on performance. So I will add two more elephants in the room:

1. Much of the conversations above are prime examples of collusion.

2. I am rather speechless how cavalier that threat of easily "breaking away" is invoked. The non-P4 would have zero risk at that point to fight what are clear visible blatant violations of Sherman Anti-Trust. And the use of anti-trust by the states of Tennessee and Virginia for something not even close to the same impact provides that road map.

In addition, I would not be taunting others regarding the breakaway if I were the Big East. A split would be driven by football ... and to keep the MWC schools out via football focus but then turn around and coattail non-football schools? That would be a huge huge layer to salivate tort attorneys.

Less than half of the NCAA tourney revenue is distributed. The NCAA keeps most of it to fund itself and fund championships in other sports and divisions.