Post by FLHoya on Jun 1, 2006 23:18:41 GMT -5
gigafan99 said:
I'm going to be the only one to say that I'm completely for this. I've said before the format should be the following:31 auto-bids and top 17 at-large teams are in the top 48
32 other teams make it in the following priority:
Regular-season champs=automatic bid (up to 30 additional possible since the Ivy has no tournament)
Remaining spots filled by at-larges (since some conference champs will overlap this could be 2 more or 32 more)
The first 48 await the winners of the 16 games between the other 32 in a 64-team field.
I'm not sure I like this one either. Beyond the already stated points about watering down the level of competition and extending the season at least a further weekend, I wonder about how you'd seed this thing.
Who does Duke play in the Round of 64 for instance?
Usually "play-in" means that (in your hypothetical scenario), the "play-in" round teams compete for a chance to play the highest seeded teams in the next round. But your "play-in" round pool of teams isn't 16-seed material--it's basically the lower seeded NCAA teams and "bubble teams"...more like 7-13 seed material. So what about giving Duke one of the lower seeded conference tourney winners (like Southern this year). Okay, but still...how do you decide who the winner of an opening round game between, say, Texas A&M vs. Maryland (or how 'bout Georgetown vs. Delaware State) plays in the Round of 64? Wouldn't the bracket kinda have to change shape every year depending on how many at large teams there were?
The prob. I see is that you've got the "Round of 64" pool (31 conference tourney winners + 17 best at-large) that includes teams like Duke, UConn, Nova, Memphis, UCLA, Florida, etc...but also Hampton, Montana, Northwestern State, Belmont, Penn, Southern, etc. Basically, lots of 1-4 seeds, but lots of 14-16 seeds too. The "Opening Round" pool (reg. season champs left over + remaining at large) includes about half NCAA seeds 7-13 and half NIT teams.
I think the bracket would look like one of those confusing deals the NIT had before they helped it a little with the seeding system this year...like remember how CS Fullerton had to play two games to get to McDonough but we only had to play one? And there's no real stated reason why (I mean, was Boston U really better than CSF or the other teams who had to play in the opening round?)
For the hell of it, I worked through your outline to see how this sort of thing might have worked out this year. When it came to figuring out the order of at-large teams, I went down the NCAA Tournament seeding for this year (breaking ties w/ RPI ranking) and then the NIT seeding. Without going into the entire thing, here's some interesting tidbits that came out in my "thing":
--Either 9 or 10 regular season conference champs would qualify first based on that criteria (Wichita State, LSU, Ohio State, and UConn won conferences but were in the Top 17 at-large). There's another problem, BTW--two conferences (Southern and Southland I think) have two divisions with unequal teams...and of course the winners from each division were half a game apart.
--Of those regular season champs, GW and GMU would have also gotten in at-large.
--Wichita State would be the last of the 17 at large teams getting a bye.
-Georgetown would be the second-best team in the "Other" at large pool playing in the opening round...so Hoya fans, Hoya Blue, etc., pack your bags for...HEY, where would you play these opening round games anyhow? Is it possible for Dayton and Boise to host 16 games over a weekend? I think so!! Double quadruple headers!!
--So, the "extra teams" that would be in the tournament ONLY IF the tourney was expanded to 80 as GIGA outlines:
Regular season conference champs: Farleigh Dickinson, Georgia Southern or Elon*, Western Kentucky*, Lipscomb, Northern Arizona, Manhattan, IUPUI, and Delaware State.
NIT teams: Maryland, Michigan, Cincinnati, Louisville, Missouri State, Florida State and/or Creighton*
(*Depending on how you interpret those conferences w/ two unequal divisions)
And the bubble would now look something like this:
St. Joes (18-13 RPI 43)
Miami (16-15 RPI 78)--jeebus, will they EVER get out of the "high NIT seed" rut?
Hofstra (24-6 RPI 30)
Houston (19-9 RPI 54)
South Carolina (17-15 RPI 62)
Personally, I think it'd be a little too watered down. But if it made money, the NCAA probably would find a way to ignore that.