This is (to use a scientific term) bullcrap. Actually, it is utter bullcrap but why complicate matters?
So much for meritocracy, or even a level playing field. The NCAA seems hell-bent on killing the goose that lays the golden egg just so it can get more and more of that consolidated ching-ching.

 

UNC and Michigan turned down the NIT last season.  Duke, Xavier, St. John's, Louisville, and Seton Hall have all recently turned down invitations.  So have Oklahoma State, Georgetown, Georgia Tech and LSU.  Maryland turned it down in 1974 when they had arguably the second best team in the country (only 1 school per conference made the NCAA's and NC State knocked off the Terps in the ACC title game), then tried to again under Gary Williams but were told they couldn't because their arena was being used.  So they promptly lost in the first round.

This move illustrates how humiliated the NCAA must be in having so many P5 schools turn down the NIT.  So they think this will be far less of a problem if you guarantee that more P5 schools get in.

It won't work.  The NIT will still be regarded as a consolation tournament and rather than admit quality mid-majors who would be excited about playing, they will settle on more 9th place P5 schools who won't give a crap about it.  The only thing I like about this move is that the NCAA will ultimately get what it deserves.
 

Amy expansion that makes it harder or near impossible to fill out brackets will destroy the tourney. People following their brackets is a huge part of why it’s become so successful.

DC Native wrote:

My preferred solution would be to divide Division I in two. The top 12 conferences would be DIa and the rest would be DIb. Each would have a 64 team tourney, and the NIT would be discontinued. The teams from the lower conferences have no shot at winning the tourney as it is today anyway, so what’s the point in including them? This would also be good for GW, as the A10 is a top 12 conference. And there would still be plenty of “cinderella” upsets.

Boooooooooooo! 

The lower conferences getting their shot to win a game or two, and often pulling it off, is what makes the NCAA tourney the best sporting even in America.

Destroying it in a money grab is as wrong as when the top soccer teams in Europe tried to break away from Champion’s league to guarantee themselves yearly entry  (which was stopped by popular uprising and the threat of British parliament getting involved).

Sagarin has the A10 ranked 11th:

https://sagarin.usatoday.com/2023-2/college-basketball-conference-ratings-2022-23/

The A10 has been ranked as high as 7th in the recent past. I don't remember the A10 ever ranking below 12th, but I could be wrong. In any case, you would want the 12 best conferences over the recent past, not just one year. The top 12 conferences in the Sagarin rankings look right to me. Perhaps you could stretch it to 14, but all the conference below that are firmly of the low majors variety, with no shot of ever winning an NCAA tourney. And in my view, every team should at least theoretically be able to win a championship.

FQ, I fully understand that tiny school upsets of major power in the early rounds of the NCAA appeals to some, but the tourney would still have plenty of upsets, and no one really believed that UMBC was gonna win it all... Also a little strange that you chose European soccer to bolster your point, since European soccer teams are actually relegated to a lower league after one bad year!

In the end, it's all just mental gymnastics of what we each think would be good. The NCAA has absolutely no creativity, and in the end their only consideration of changes is what will make them more money. That means the only changes that will ever be made are expansion, expansion, and more expansion.

DC Native wrote:

Sagarin has the A10 ranked 11th:

https://sagarin.usatoday.com/2023-2/college-basketball-conference-ratings-2022-23/

The A10 has been ranked as high as 7th in the recent past. I don't remember the A10 ever ranking below 12th, but I could be wrong. In any case, you would want the 12 best conferences over the recent past, not just one year. The top 12 conferences in the Sagarin rankings look right to me. Perhaps you could stretch it to 14, but all the conference below that are firmly of the low majors variety, with no shot of ever winning an NCAA tourney. And in my view, every team should at least theoretically be able to win a championship.

FQ, I fully understand that tiny school upsets of major power in the early rounds of the NCAA appeals to some, but the tourney would still have plenty of upsets, and no one really believed that UMBC was gonna win it all... Also a little strange that you chose European soccer to bolster your point, since European soccer teams are actually relegated to a lower league after one bad year!

In the end, it's all just mental gymnastics of what we each think would be good. The NCAA has absolutely no creativity, and in the end their only consideration of changes is what will make them more money. That means the only changes that will ever be made are expansion, expansion, and more expansion.

1).No one would care about the 10th place ACC team upsetting a 2 seed.

2) I would be 100% in favor of a pro/tel system for college hoops.

3) what you are describing is a closed system, even more closed than what we have today. European soccer thrives in large part because it’s an open system. Just ask any fan of Luton Town.

Gwmayhem wrote:

If you are of the mindset that the teams who play in the NCAA tournament ought to have a  realistic or even semi-realistic chance of winning the championship, then you're probably good with any move that further divides the P6 schools from the rest.  Like some others here, a big part of the appeal of the tournament, to me, has always been the David over Goliath type upsets.  When those 14 and 15 seeds, and even UMBC and FDU as 16 seeds, pulled off their upsets, I don't believe anyone thought for a moment that these teams could win it all.  Nevertheless, this did not diminish the enjoyment of witnessing these upsets in any way.  This is one of the rare things that makes the sport as exciting as it is.

It also gets into what the championship is supposed to represent. If you want to find out who the best team in the country is, then there's no point in having a tournament to begin with.  Just do a BCS-style system and have the top 2 teams play a best of 7 series.  Or do the College World Series model and make it double elimination.

There's been a debate in MLB about whether the expanded playoffs diminish the World Series since there's more randomness involved.  Teams like the Dodgers and Braves are getting bounced by the Dbacks and Phillies. 

Limiting the NCAA tournament to the KenPom Top 32 teams with no auto-bids would probably result in the better overall team winning more often, but as GWmayhem says, the chaos of the first four days is what makes the NCAA tournament the best college championship. 

Does Loyola Chicago get to the Final Four if Virginia or Cincinatti get two byes and don't get upset by UMBC or Nevada?

Last edited by GW0509 (10/30/2023 12:55 pm)

Free Quebec wrote:

For those who have feared the big money leagues just eventually squeezing out the A10s of the world and the mid-majors, take a look at how they just announced the NIT is changing.

Highlights:

1) no more auto bids to conference winners who lose in their conf tourneys. Too bad, the auto bids have helped revive the NIT into a fun tourney.

2) instead, auto bids will go to 2 teams each from the ACC, BE, B10, B12, PAC12, and SEC.

3) To make it worse, all 12 of those big money league teams will be guaranteed home games. No more semi-meritocracy where the top 4 seeds get home games and perhaps an opportunity to host a big money team that would never visit your gym during the season.

4) With 12 of the 16 home games going to big money teams, that leaves only 4 home games for everyone else (so any non-auto qualifiers in first four out would get a hime game, but let’s say GW ends up in the next 4 our - so like 6 spots from making the tourney, under the old rules, we’d have been a 2 seed with a home game, but under the new rules we’d potentially be busted down to a 5 seed and have to go to a mediocre BCS team on the road).

5) You no longer need a winning record to make the NIT, but of course this will only matter for the BCS teams.


It’s really a shame. The NIT used to be like this and it became bad. Then when they changed it to more of a meritocracy, it got decent again, but now they’ve decided a meritocracy doesn’t suit the BCS leagues.

https://x.com/goodmanhoops/status/1717965695961477495?s=46&t=m2xsjs4EY33TDlbMVwhKzQ

When  you look at this list,  you could argue that #1 (no auto bid to conference winners) and #5 (no longer need a winning record) are done to improve the quality of the product. On the other hand, 2-4 can exist for no other reason than financial, and that very well may weaken the product.   Should the NCAA tournament continue to expand (as there always to be rumors), the NIT will become less and less relevant than it is even now.