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bracket setup for the new huge conferences

HFCS

HFCS

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2010
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Was looking at a Big 10 tournament bracket and didn't realize it's set up so the top 4 teams only need 3 games to win the championship but the bottom seeds could play up to 5 games? Then middle seeds would have a 4 game path?

Would be interesting if some day a low seed tacked on a 4-1 record in the B10 tournament...how do you treat that? I mean it's 5 wins but it's still just one long weekend of play in the course of a long season. Also no clue if the games are consecutive or staggered.

Figured it'd be a standard 16 team bracket with a few empty spaces. Anyone know how the 15 team ACC is set up or if the SEC is like this too now? Would seem like a no brainer to just give the regular season champ a bye and seed the rest but who knows.
 
HFCS said:
Was looking at a Big 10 tournament bracket and didn't realize it's set up so the top 4 teams only need 3 games to win the championship but the bottom seeds could play up to 5 games? Then middle seeds would have a 4 game path?

Would be interesting if some day a low seed tacked on a 4-1 record in the B10 tournament...how do you treat that? I mean it's 5 wins but it's still just one long weekend of play in the course of a long season. Also no clue if the games are consecutive or staggered.

Figured it'd be a standard 16 team bracket with a few empty spaces. Anyone know how the 15 team ACC is set up or if the SEC is like this too now? Would seem like a no brainer to just give the regular season champ a bye and seed the rest but who knows.
Click to expand...

Did not know that. That is crazy. Five games in five days? Talk about having no legs for the championship game if a low seed actually made it that far.
 
Several are set up this way. It probably is their attempt to protect the NCAA seeding of their top teams by making sure they are playing totally exhausted foes in their tournaments. I would think it a travesty if the Big 12 went to something like that. The whole point of the tournament is to see some good basketball not one fresh team beat up a team that is on their 3rd or 4th game in as many days.
 
HFCS said:
Was looking at a Big 10 tournament bracket and didn't realize it's set up so the top 4 teams only need 3 games to win the championship but the bottom seeds could play up to 5 games? Then middle seeds would have a 4 game path?
Click to expand...

Seems like a sneaky way to get the mid-level teams a couple of wins to maybe pop the NCAA bubble while protecting the top couple of teams from early upsets.
 
I know the whole NCAA division one thing is "everyone has a chance," but I wouldn't be opposed to not letting in the bottom 4 teams in some of these conferences. I mean really, does Rutgers, Boston College, Virginia Tech, or Missouri really deserve to even have a chance in the tournament, when they only have a couple conference wins, and are well below .500 overall?
 
I imagine a team like KSU would love the idea of 3-4 games without even getting to a title game.
 
WastedTalent said:
I know the whole NCAA division one thing is "everyone has a chance," but I wouldn't be opposed to not letting in the bottom 4 teams in some of these conferences. I mean really, does Rutgers, Boston College, Virginia Tech, or Missouri really deserve to even have a chance in the tournament, when they only have a couple conference wins, and are well below .500 overall?
Click to expand...

Don't stop there. With conference tourney upsets it isn't that terribly rare to see a team representing one of the minor conferences with a losing record while their regular season champ with somewhere around 20 wins cools their heels at home.
 
VeloClone said:
Don't stop there. With conference upsets it isn't that terribly rare to see a team representing one of the minor conferences with a losing record while their regular season champ with somewhere around 20 wins cools their heels at home.
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Hey, those teams get to play in the NIT now! Making a run in that is just as cool as playing in the actual tournament...right?
 
If they wanted to the Big 10 or SEC could set up their conference tournament bracket with only the top 2 seeds getting byes, but that would require cramming 6 games in 1 day or splitting round 1 into 2 days. The bracket would look like this.

http://challonge.com/tournaments/bracket_generator?ref=7qbaHdx7HV

That comes out to be the same amount of games that the other style has, but my guess for why it's not set up like this is for money reasons. Sitting through 6 games in one day with mostly bad teams playing, then coming back the next day for 4 more games isn't the most appealing thing to many fans, it would be pretty hard to get all 6 games on TV in that 1 day while battling with other major conferences that have games going on that day too. Conference like the Big 12 have 4 games played with the first starting around 11 am and ending with a game that starts around 8 pm, so I have no idea how early some of the games would have to start or how late they would run if they tried to jam 6 into 1 day either.

tldr version, They have their tournaments set up like this because(IMO at least)
They don't want to burn out the fans by having 10 games in 2 days
Scheduling would be hell
6 first round games is too many
Ratings would suck for too many games
 
WastedTalent said:
I know the whole NCAA division one thing is "everyone has a chance," but I wouldn't be opposed to not letting in the bottom 4 teams in some of these conferences. I mean really, does Rutgers, Boston College, Virginia Tech, or Missouri really deserve to even have a chance in the tournament, when they only have a couple conference wins, and are well below .500 overall?
Click to expand...

I doubt this ever happens. Because even bad conference tourney games are better than no conference tourney games, especially when you're talking about $$$ paid to televise them.
 
Several factors already dicussed. Each conference tournament format is a balance of $ (TV and tickets), number of teams and I would assume a careful analysis of a league's anticipated need to protect its favorites for tournament seeding while aiding bubble teams.

This also can vary depending on stature of conference, where tourneys fall within the championship week schedule and profile of a league's traditionally powerful schools. Some smaller conferences advance top 2 teams to semifinal round. I think WCC is one of them.
 
WastedTalent said:
I know the whole NCAA division one thing is "everyone has a chance," but I wouldn't be opposed to not letting in the bottom 4 teams in some of these conferences. I mean really, does Rutgers, Boston College, Virginia Tech, or Missouri really deserve to even have a chance in the tournament, when they only have a couple conference wins, and are well below .500 overall?
Click to expand...

I think the B1G, ACC, and SEC could go with only putting the top 12 teams in their conference tournaments, and then the top 4 seeds would get a bye on the first day. If nothing else it might add a little drama/something to root for with the teams near the cellar, like a "Win on Senior Day and you're in the (conference) tourney" thing.

The most obvious problem with this is that fans from every school buy tickets and plan travel well in advance of the final standings (which would only be 4 days before the conference tournament starts), so it's probably unworkable.
 
CyFan61 said:
I think the B1G, ACC, and SEC could go with only putting the top 12 teams in their conference tournaments, and then the top 4 seeds would get a bye on the first day. If nothing else it might add a little drama/something to root for with the teams near the cellar, like a "Win on Senior Day and you're in the (conference) tourney" thing.

The most obvious problem with this is that fans from every school buy tickets and plan travel well in advance of the final standings (which would only be 4 days before the conference tournament starts), so it's probably unworkable.
Click to expand...

Good points -- there could be additional drama to end of regular season, as you said, to just reach the conference tourney. But the italicized part overrides it.

Example, although it's already a balanced format that doesn't affect top 4 seeds, Big 12 could go to just 8, instead of the initial round of 7/10 & 8/9. But that eliminates four fan bases for an extra day. For Tech, that could be the final game of 2014-15. For TCU, NIT could hang in the balance. The favorites in that round (likely Texas & KSU at this point) would have tournament profile/postseason hopes dependent on not losing.
 
HFCS said:
Was looking at a Big 10 tournament bracket and didn't realize it's set up so the top 4 teams only need 3 games to win the championship but the bottom seeds could play up to 5 games? Then middle seeds would have a 4 game path?

Would be interesting if some day a low seed tacked on a 4-1 record in the B10 tournament...how do you treat that? I mean it's 5 wins but it's still just one long weekend of play in the course of a long season. Also no clue if the games are consecutive or staggered.

Figured it'd be a standard 16 team bracket with a few empty spaces. Anyone know how the 15 team ACC is set up or if the SEC is like this too now? Would seem like a no brainer to just give the regular season champ a bye and seed the rest but who knows.
Click to expand...

Essentially, in the Big 10, if you don't get a top 4 seed, you probably have less than a 10% chance of winning that tourney. Teams on the first day, probably less than 1% chance of winning that tourney.
 
I think that this is a combination of wanting to protect your top seeds and wanting to have a consistent number of games each day for ease of scheduling and TV. I think the double or even triple byes are stupid. But I can see why some conference's use them.
 
Maybe we should all go back to the 12-team conferences when everything was perfect. The NCAA needs to step in and realign these conferences. Its getting ridiculous
 
WastedTalent said:
I know the whole NCAA division one thing is "everyone has a chance," but I wouldn't be opposed to not letting in the bottom 4 teams in some of these conferences. I mean really, does Rutgers, Boston College, Virginia Tech, or Missouri really deserve to even have a chance in the tournament, when they only have a couple conference wins, and are well below .500 overall?
Click to expand...

That's what makes conference tournaments fun tho. Even David gets a chance vs Goliath
 
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