1 of 1- jf
- Buff & Blue Club
Offline - Registered: 11/14/2019
- Posts: 2,332
How's This Working For You/Us?
This is probably a better topic for the end of our season, hopefully by winning the Crown tournament,
though wouldn't bet on it. It was inspired by the thoughtful discussions of posters here about the criteria
for NCAA (and NIT) selection. The Atlantic 10, as usual, seems to be several beats too slow to understand what is needed to game the system now, as some smart posters have pointed out. We're all used to the corrupt
Selection Sunday system, but it's become even more bizarre and biased than usual (UNC, for example).
We're on a comparative roll for our lowered expectations. And even if we weren't, all of us continue our devotion to GW and college basketball possibly out of habit as much as anything else.
But the screwed up, changing, highly vulnerable to gaming and bias of the NCAA against
non-power schools (even more than in the past) makes it harder for us and many schools to see
a path toward even being in the tourney.
Throw in the portal's ever changing rosters, NCAA rules and NIL madness-- and it's even more difficult to find any lodestar or touch point that allows some sort of rational path toward continue fan loyalty.
It's working for a fraction of colleges in America with big pockets and possibly little scruples, but this destruction of a fan base may not be a good long-term thing for university athletic and loyal fans/graduates.
- Gwmayhem
- Buff & Blue Club
Offline
- Registered: 7/22/2019
- Posts: 2,864
Re: How's This Working For You/Us?
The carrot that continues to be dangled in front of us (at least for the time being) is the automatic bid for winning the conference tournament. As long as this is maintained, I will happily take the GW fan journey each year since hope is still being offered. Take this away by creating a "minor league" where GW solely competes among low to mid level programs and this entire dynamic changes.
Your points are well taken. I was outraged by the notion that a loss in the A10 final would probably have sent a more than deserving VCU team to the NIT. Am glad it did not come down to this because I really would have lost my shit. It's one thing to manipulate a system so that it becomes far more difficult for a conference like ours to receive at large bids. It is a bit different though to hide behind this notion when making such a wrong decision as to leave a worthy team out because of the conference they play in. As appalled as West Virginia may be, they lost 13 games, have a Net of 51, a KenPom of 53, were 6-10 in Q1 games and 10-13 in Q1 and 2 games. With a loss on Sunday, VCU would have lost 7 games, would have moved slightly off of their current rankings of 31 for NET and 30 on KenPom, and would have been 2-1 in Q1 games and 8-6 in Q1 and Q2 games. VCU would have been a clear choice over WVU or UNC who as the world knows by now went 1-12 in Q1 games. This would have been rationalized with the old "VCU did not play enough quality teams", a penalty which would have largely been due to VCU's inability to schedule Q1 games through no fault of their own.