B1G/NCAA basketball

[AlabamAlum]

Top 100 may be too much too soon. How about this:

If you are in the bottom 50% of NET (which is 182nd and below) AND have a losing record, you get an auto bid to the NIT and the NCAA bid goes to the best overall team in that shitball conference despite the weekend result.

That way we are still rewarding the horrible teams who played a decent set of weekend games in their conference tourney without penalizing the team that played well all year and stumbled in a single game in the conference tourney.

[AlabamAlum]

No they have a in with the win the tournament and get it. It's a great rule that has served the tournament greatly over the years as FDU showed. I can see how an Alabama fan doesn't give a crap about the little conferences. That's on brand.

You do not understand my point. And that’s on brand for you.

I love good teams from the small conferences. What I dislike is the conference tourney auto bid. I especially dislike a three-day weekend rewarding a 20+ loss team in the bottom 20% of NET by taking an NCAA bid from much more overall deserving team just because the shitball, bottom-scraper had one decent weekend.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Hey you got something against shitball bottom-scrapers?

hater

[froot loops]

Your point was to eliminate the auto bid because Texas Southern won their tournament and it made.you mad.

[AlabamAlum]

You’re a moron.

Texas Southern was an apt example of what I hate: Bottom scraping teams with losing records taking a spot from the much more deserving teams simply because they had a decent weekend. It diminishes the season and places all importance on the conference tourney. It didn’t make me mad; It’s just silly.

And, froot, do you get the sense that you’re changing my mind? I certainly don’t get the impression that I’m talking sense into you. I think you’re a bit of a script monkey if memory serves. Maybe you can write a quick program that will issue a “fuck off” post if either of us engage any further in this fool’s errand.

[froot loops]

It's been at 64 teams for a long time. I think the 68 number is weird the 4 game in the first Tuesday have no rhyme or reason. The amount of talent and teams along the exposure has grown in the last 40 years. They could afford to put it up to 96 teams.

[Whitley]

I wonder if AA would be upset if a team, say Nebraska, got hot and won the Big Ten tourney and got the auto bid. I suspect he would be okay with it since it is a P5 team.

[AlabamAlum]

I wonder if AA would be upset if a team, say Nebraska, got hot and won the Big Ten tourney and got the auto bid. I suspect he would be okay with it since it is a P5 team.

If Nebraska is a shitball team with a losing record? Absolutely not.

[AlabamAlum]

I don’t know how else to say I hate the conference tourney auto bid. I never said I only hate the small conference, bottom tier auto bids. I am for doing away with them all, SEC, BigTen, whatever.

But if in the interest of inclusion, we have to include a team from the conference dregs of college basketball, I would much prefer it given to the best overall team of said conference - not the best team that one final weekend.

[Whitley]

I don’t know how else to say I hate the conference tourney auto bid. I never said I only hate the small conference, bottom tier auto bids. I am for doing away with them all, SEC, BigTen, whatever.

But if in the interest of inclusion, we have to include a team from the conference dregs of college basketball, I would much prefer it given to the best overall team of said conference - not the best team that one final weekend.

So you have a problem mid major and lower conferences getting any automatic bid at all?

[THE_WIZARD_]

Well if you don't like shitball teams getting in...just eliminate the conference tourneys...and take the top 68 teams based on a ratings system. Fuck it.

[Mike]

That would be ideal.

[AlabamAlum]

So you have a problem mid major and lower conferences getting any automatic bid at all?

Thus was all answered by me upstream. But here goes my final basketball screed this season:

I do not like auto bids for any conference - not just lower conferences and mid-majors, but any of them. I prefer a strict meritocracy. We just don’t have enough parity deep across the 32 conferences in NCAA BB to give guaranteed spots to all 32 teams for winning a single weekend tourney. For example, I would take action that most major conference’s bottom dwellers would beat the SWAC, American East, the MEAC, or the Southland conferences champion this year. And in years where those conference’s one luke warm team loses the tourney, it becomes even more obvious.

I think the best teams should get these limited spots.

We can’t get that toothpaste back in the tube, though. The best I can hope for is that they expand the tourney or the conferences forgo the tourney auto-bid and go with a more meritocracitous “best overall” selection for the recipient of their conference’s autobid. The former is likely. The latter is not. The conference offices make money from the conference tourneys. They won’t willingly give that up.

Look, I understand that not everyone agrees with me on this. The romanticized notion of inclusion for all and the grand fairytale of a basketball Cinderella makes us say “Prairie View could win!” or “Idaho State will upset Kansas!” and on rare occasions they might, but the numbers are beyond horrible for these teams and take spots from teams that are much more deserving and that would have much better numbers against the various basketball Goliaths in the tourney.

And this is all I’ve got to say about that.

[THE_WIZARD_]

You sound agitated. Try more fiber.

[Mike]

AA, how would you determine the "best" teams? Would there be some sort of quantitative analysis involved? Because we know those west coast universities don't like math.

Also, putting toothpaste back in the tube is surprisingly simple. Please try it and let me know how it went later today.