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Bilas: Improving the NCAA tournament

cyclones500

cyclones500

Well-Known Member
Jan 29, 2010
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basslakebeacon.com
SIAP — Jay Bilas column from March 10.

Bilas: Making the NCAA tournament better

He makes valid points about it being unfair that power-conference bubble teams to get extra resume opportunities to improve standings in conference tournaments.

I like the spirit of his solution to it, but even that has flaws. Some good ideas, but also opens a few cans of worms, as far as league tournament competition. I'll let others bring up pros and cons of it after digesting it.

EDIT: I assume his 1-68 list is based on the Almighty BPI, judging from the ranking.
 
He brings up some good ideas. As long as he wouldnt be on the panel that decides the order, Id be up for it.
He has ISU as his #17 team in his list. So a 5 seed. Makes sense.
 
I'm guessing the committee already does this to a point but you still have to factor conference tournaments as well.

Bilas is great but is a little extreme on things. At least he's trying to improve the game tho.
 
Number one improvement I have is go back to 64 and get rid of the play in tourney....

It only went that way because of the addition of a few new conferences and auto-qualifiers and the power conferences not giving up their precious at large bids.
 
RubyClone said:
Number one improvement I have is go back to 64 and get rid of the play in tourney....

It only went that way because of the addition of a few new conferences and auto-qualifiers and the power conferences not giving up their precious at large bids.
Click to expand...

I'd like the reduction to 64, too. It would take some radical push at this point to make it happen, though, and whatever solution would have to make up for the extra TV/ticket revenue of having play-ins.
 
I completely disagree about not factoring in the tournaments. Those make things more fun when more is on the line. Its not like midmajors dont have plenty of other advantages, like being able to get credit for beating absolutely nobody (if ISU showed up to the tournament with the same # of top 50 wins as WSU or UNI they would likely be seeded much lower or not in the tournament at all)

Also, ohio state over us? What a joke.
 
cyclones500 said:
SIAP — Jay Bilas column from March 10.

Bilas: Making the NCAA tournament better

He makes valid points about it being unfair that power-conference bubble teams to get extra resume opportunities to improve standings in conference tournaments.

I like the spirit of his solution to it, but even that has flaws. Some good ideas, but also opens a few cans of worms, as far as league tournament competition. I'll let others bring up pros and cons of it after digesting it.

EDIT: I assume his 1-68 list is based on the Almighty BPI, judging from the ranking.
Click to expand...

His conference tournament complaint is dumb. So what if Texas gets a few extra tournament resume chances that Buffalo doesn't get. Texas got 11 chances in for Top 50 wins. Buffalo didn't get that many. Buffalo only got 2 chances. So maybe we should only include Texas's first 2 Top 50 RPI games in the discussion drop the other 9. That would be even more fair to Buffalo.

1. I actually don't think it would be a bad idea to make the at-large decisions prior to the conference tournaments, but I think his reasoning is stupid.

2. Letting the committee ignore tourney results except for champions would give them plenty of time to work on the bracketing.

3. Knowing the list prior to tournaments and then seeing the last at-large team drop off when an upset happened would be pretty darn exciting.
 
cyclones500 said:
I'd like the reduction to 64, too. It would take some radical push at this point to make it happen, though, and whatever solution would have to make up for the extra TV/ticket revenue of having play-ins.
Click to expand...

Yep - more likely that they'd go to 128 which I shudder at the thought of. But no way going back to 64 without some sort of radical conference realignment and reduction in auto bids.
 
One thing that might improve the idea is to not reveal the order of the field — alphabetical list of 68, then do auto-bid replacement as you go. Am I off-base on that? Would it keep his basic premise, but improve incentive and possibly "mystique" heading into selection Sunday?
 
Not sure what the point is- if you are 58-68 or so, why even be on the list, because you know you will be getting replaced? And it kind of seems silly to have the conference tournaments at that point, other than for the lucky few who secure a bid by winning it all when they weren't expected to. Seems like a poor solution to fix a problem that I don't really see.

And ISU #17. ***** please
 
I would make some of the automatic bids play on saturday before selection Sunday. That way more power conferance bubble teams make it.
 
The "conference tournaments don't count toward seeding" doesn't work if he's still giving auto bids to conference tournament champions.

Only edge of the bubble and bottom feeders would have any motivation at that point. Why would top teams risk player injury if they don't have a shot to move up a seed line (or keep from moving down)? Games can't be an exhibition on one side and not the other.

Conference tourneys either have to count, or not. And if not then don't have them.
 
If the NCAA wanted to make the tourney better and truly crown the best team in the country the winner, they would drop it back to 32 teams - no automatic bids, and hold a double elim tourney. That would result in the very same number of games as the current format. It would also give quality teams that get upset a chance to fight back into contention, while also making Cinderella teams prove their worth.

I don't buy the line that small conferences should be included just because they exist. By being a small conference, you are by definition acknowledging recruiting less skilled athletes, playing weaker schedules, and paying a lot less to maintain your program. The NCAA tourney should be an honor, not a right.

32 teams would give us 1-8 seeds, and let's face it, if you have not proven yourself to be one of the top 32 teams in the country after playing a full season, then you really have no business whining about not getting into the tourney.

None of this will ever happen since the premise of the tourney is to make money - which is why they keep expanding the size. I cant fault them on that - it is a business after all, and the current formal likely provides the most entertainment and suspense. But I would also like to see teams that have proven themselves over an entire season get their just rewards. I am not sure anyone in the world would dispute Kentucky is the hands-down best team. But what if they lost their opening round game this year? They still are the best team, and should be given the NCAA champ trophy.
 
They need to get rid of auto bids entirely. The fact that schools like Lafayette get in the tournament and schools like Texas get left out is just ridiculous.
 
JWIL4CY said:
They need to get rid of auto bids entirely. The fact that schools like Lafayette get in the tournament and schools like Texas get left out is just ridiculous.
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But with that line of thinking...might as well skip the entire season and start the tourney in December! I agree that Lafayette would get beat up by Texas...but what has Texas done to be rewarded with a tourney birth? Oh yeah...they did beat Iowa but still...mediocre at best.
 
mdk2isu said:
He brings up some good ideas. As long as he wouldnt be on the panel that decides the order, Id be up for it.
He has ISU as his #17 team in his list. So a 5 seed. Makes sense.
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Also has Ohio State as a 4 seed. Makes sense.
 
JWIL4CY said:
They need to get rid of auto bids entirely. The fact that schools like Lafayette get in the tournament and schools like Texas get left out is just ridiculous.
Click to expand...

I like them. I still wonder if some of them shouldn't let their automatic bid go to the regular season champion though. Seems a bit unfair to some schools who made it happen over a long schedule rather than just getting hot over the course of a long weekend.
 
The only thing I agree work on that article is that the committee needs more time. If selection Sunday can't become a Monday or Tuesday, then the big conference tourneys need to get done sooner. They need more than a couple hours after the last game is played on Sunday.
If mid majors need more quality opportunities, combine their conference tourneys with some major conferences. Let's see the entire Missouri valley and Big 12 in one tournament and see who comes out on top.
 
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