I'm totally excited to see the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers play hard against Arizona this year, you guys. Said no one ever.

Why are we letting schools like this into the tourney:
-Coastal Carolina (RPI 208)
-Stony Brook (170)
-Wright St (166)
-Weber St (165)
-Wofford (161)
-Alabama State (RPI 256!!!)
When much-better teams are possibly getting left out:
-Cal (53)
-Minnesota (49)
-St. John's (57)
-Providence (54)
-Missouri (56)
-Florida St (58)

I mean, I'm all for rewarding a champion but reward them with an NIT bid (which they probably wouldn't have gone to anyway barring winning their conference).

Or maybe change the play-in game system to have the lower-end bubble teams play the scrub champions for seeding (lower-ranked bubble team plays lower-ranked scrub champion for 16 seed, higher-ranked bubble team plays higher-ranked scrub champion team for 12 seed).

Because a tournament is supposed to feature the best teams out there.

33 conference champions. 15 at-large. 48 total. Top 16 RPI teams get a first round bye.

Everyone has a chance until they lose. Other than, only the really good teams get in. No one can coast during the regular season because a bye is at stake and there are far fewer at large teams. First round is a real first round instead of the weird 8 team thing they have going now.


Anyway, I think that would be good for competition but not revenue because of the smaller field and lost chances for big major conference teams to secure at-large bids, so it will never happen.

I don't mind all conference champs getting in. In that way before conference tourneys begin, every team has a chance to win the NCAA tournament (except Ivy).

The fact is, those weak teams are the reward wins for teams with a strong regular season.


I also know that after watching NBA basketball regularly, to go back and watch college basketball is somewhat painful.
Less spacing, slower, and guys can be left wide open because they can't hit a basket.

Great event, but not great basketball.


[This message has been edited by Iowaggie (edited 3/11/2014 4:02p).]

I can't get too upset about the 50th best team in the country getting left out of a tournament

I can agree with you if your argument is that it should be a smaller tourney (48). But there's no point to handing out fake trophies and there's no point to letting the 256th ranked team into a tournament of 68. It's a waste of time.

At least you are giving the tournament its most competitive chance possible with a better ranking structure. You would have seen a 16 upset a 1 by now in all likelihood.

Im not sure you know what consolation means.

"You suck, but you beat a bunch of crappy teams, so in order to make you feel better about yourselves, here's a tournament invitation"

And yet we routinely see 12+ seeds win in the tourney each year, why not give them a chance?

The Cinderella aspect makes the tourney great. Look at Florida Atlantic last year. That was captivating. If you got your wish OP, a team like Florida Atlantic wouldn't have even been invited to the tournament.

And the last 4 teams left out of the tourney have the same chance of winning the tournament as the crappy teams you are complaining about....a 0% chance. So I'd rather keep it the way it is and give the smaller teams/conferences a way to get in the dance and have a Cinderella story rather than reward a mediocre big conference team like Cal, etc.

Florida Gulf Coast*

Then why not make it a play-in game with the actual bubble teams?

Right now one of the first four out is Cal, who has beaten a consensus 1 seed in Arizona this season. So saying these teams don't have the ability to beat elite teams is incorrect. They have their days much more often than the basketball welfare teams

[This message has been edited by beebeegee (edited 3/13/2014 8:52p).]

quote:

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Because a tournament is supposed to feature the best teams out there.

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It does feature the best teams. It just doesn't feature the 68 best teams, and this year's (and last year's) NBA playoffs won't feature the 16 best teams.

The NFL playoffs put the 8-7-1 Packers in over the Arizona Cardinals.

Every state HS tournament has stories of 2 great teams playing before the state tournament. One loses and goes home, one goes on.


Pretty safe to say that the top 40 teams are in this tournament.

Oh yea Florida Gulf Coast, thanks for the correction. The play in games have allowed four more bubble teams into the tournament. One of them is between actual bubble teams and the other is between two of the 16 seeds I believe. But having 68 teams instead of 64 allows 4 more bubble teams in.

I know a bubble team may have a shot to win a game or two but they have no shot at actually winning the tournament.

If you take these teams out of the tournament, you've created another FCS or 1-AA level of play.

I'm still confused about why that even exists. Just because level of sport manufactures a champion does NOT make the championship meaningful. The FCS champion is the 140th best semi-pro football team in America. How fleetingly wonderful.

At least through the tournament, FCS level basketball schools can honorably lose. The bubble teams aren't winning more than a few lucky shooting games anyway.

Sounds to me like both sides of the argument are advocating for a reduction in the total # of teams in the tourney, since so many of the current teams have no chance to win the tourney.

No I don't want a reduction in teams (other than i wish we didnt have the play in games). I was just pointing out that the "better" teams that OP wants in the tourney don't have a shot at winning it all, so the fact that some of the automatic qualifiers have no chance at winning it all shouldn't be used as a reason for them not being in the tournament.

How are the bubble in teams 11 & 12 seeds not 16 I don't understand what seeding means?

Because bubble teams "earn" their way in with in-season play (i.e. not conference championship).

The lower seeds won conference championships and are not worthy of a higher seed.