NCAA Tournament

Are you for expanding the number of automatic bids then, so that the winner of the conference regular season and the winner of the conference tournament get in? I don't have any problem with that. I don't like to see teams that grind out the regular season conference title lose the conference tournament but get snubbed for an at-large bid by the committee in favor of a team from a big conference. The number of at-large teams would increase because of teams that win both regular season and conference tourney titles, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be a substantial number.

If that's how you expand the tournament to 96, I'm Ok with that. Expanding the tournament by increasing the at-large bids does lessen the requirements to get in because teams with a weaker RPI, record, conference record would get in where they don't today. I'm not for that.

Yesterday was exciting? What games were you watching? 13 of 16 games were double-digit wins and 7 of those were by more than 20. VCU over Duke doesn't redeem a day of awful basketball.

 

Yeah, but for any Louisville fan it was exciting. And any win over Duke is a very good start! Now if Eastern KY could have just knocked off North Caroli... raying: :laugh: :laugh:

Ed

 

Now if Niagara can upset Kansas, UK will have a shot at the sweet 16!

 

Actually, I believe Arkansas had a .500 conference record, not below .500. But I could be mistaken on that, (Correct me if I am wrong.) and there is no "rule" that a sub .500 record conference record will keep one from the NCAA tourney, that I know.

Ed

 

Arkansas was 7-9 in the regular season. They went 3-1 in the tournament, so if you count tournament games, they were .500, but otherwise they werent.

 

The NCAA counts the tournament wins, as well, to determine conference records, so I was correct.

Ed

 

I think my Hogs and Stanford have shown that they did not belong.

It's a bad year to be a Razorback fan. We can't win the "big one" in ANYTHING!!!

 

Approximately 33% of Division I teams (105 out of 336) won 20 games or more. 20 wins is no guarantee that a team is good. I'm not going through every schedule of every 20 win team to see how many of them got those wins at the expense of Division II and Division III teams. However, I did put some stuff together that I think shows how the bar does indeed get lowered in order to expand to a 96 team field.

If this year's tournament field was 96, and if both regular season conference champions and conference tournament champions received automatic bids, that would have given us 45 automatic bids. For conferences that are split, like the SEC, I only gave one automatic bid for the regular season, which would have gone to Florida.

This leaves us 50 at-large bids. Of the teams that wouldn't have received an automatic bid in the 96 team tournament, 27 of those were given an at-large bid by the committee to fill out the 64 team field. Now, we have to fill out the field with 23 more teams.

Since you're hanging your hat on 20 wins, a team without 20 wins will not be selected. Here are the 23 teams listed, in order of RPI, that have at least 20 wins. And, I randomly added a few extra details for some of the teams. If you want to see these details for the rest of the teams, please feel free to look at this stuff for yourself. I used the RPI found here, and used espn.com for the rest.

Air Force: 23-8, RPI 30
Missouri State: 22-10, RPI 36
Bradley: 21-12, RPI 38
Drexel: 23-8, RPI 39, 4th in CAA
Florida State: 20-12, RPI 41, 7-9, 9th in ACC
Utah State: 23-11, RPI 43
Clemson: 21-10, RPI 45, 7-9, 8th in ACC
Alabama: 20-11, RPI 49, 7-9 in SEC, same conf. record as Ark. btw
Syracuse: 22-10, RPI 50
Oklahoma State: 22-12, RPI 51
Michigan: 21-12, RPI 54, 8-8, 8th in Big 10
Kansas State: 22-11, RPI 56
West Virginia: 22-9, RPI 57
Mississippi: 20-12, RPI 58
Appalachian State: 25-7, RPI 59
Massachusetts: 23-8, RPI 62
San Diego State: 21-10, RPI 66
Akron: 26-7, RPI 67
Hofstra: 22-9, RPI 73, 3rd in CAA
St Louis: 20-13, RPI 74, 8-8, 8th in A-10... btw why is St Louis in the A-10???
Bucknell: 22-9, RPI 77
Kent State: 21-11, RPI 86
Fresno State: 22-9, RPI 87

To get to 96, take the current 64 team field, add the teams listed above, and add the teams that won their regular season conference title, but not the conference tournament. These are Vermont, Toledo, Marist, Austin Peay, Delaware State, East Tennesse State, South Alabama, and Mississippi Valley State.

By the current criteria the selection committee uses to build the at-large pool, none of the schools I listed would have made the tournament. Since a 96 team field has to be filled somehow, and adding automatic bids didn't get the job done, the only way to fill the field is to lower the bar for entry. The RPI calculation that the committee uses wouldn't change, but something has to change to get 96 teams in. You can't say that a solid conference record gets you in, because it clearly wouldn't.

Get mad at me all you want, but I don't see how the bar wouldn't have to be lowered in order to fill a 96 team field.

I don't see a need to change something just for the sake of change.

 

I disagree with you, StevenM on Arkansas. They deserved to be in. They made it to the championship game. They beat some decent teams in the SEC tourney. I had no problem with them being in. As far as for Stanford, didn't they have an 18-12 record? How did they make it with a record like that? I think that a mid-major team was done wrong here. There were MANY mid-majors with better records than that, and they should have went ahead of Stanford.

 

I'm just a bitter Hog fan sick of losing.

Hopefully that will change soon. Heath is probably about to be fired.

 

Tom, I guess I'm one of the few who believe the big dance is for the top teams. I tried to watch some round ball this week end, on a lot of those games you would have to be a fan of a team to watch the game. That team out of Rock Hill, SC didn't look so hot yesterday. They are a very good team but not a national champion type team, what are they doing there? Let it get down to the final 8, it is great to watch most of the time. I don't enjoy seeing a team I like win or lose by a large number, its makes a bad game, much less two team I could care less about.

 

No more a strawman than this:

Now this is starting to bring some compelling evidence to the table. When I compiled all that data in my most recent post, I was surprised to find a team like Air Force, RPI of 30, wasn't invited, but the teams at 31-35 were invited. I should have noted this on Saturday, but a team with an RPI of 30 not being invited doesn't make any sense.

I saw this suggestion in a column last week.

"Expand the tournament to 72 teams, and make the worst 16 teams play each other on Tuesday."

If it would help avoid the absolute basketball disasters played last Thursday in the first round, I'd be on-board with it.

 

You built an argument that I was bound by tradition.