Should At-Large Losers (Conference Record) Get Tourney Picks?

[DobbsRover2]

A while back there was an interview on Dish-n-Swish with Charlie Creme, and the subject came up of whether teams that have losing conference records should get selected for the NCAA Tourney. If there was a .500 conference record mark as a cut-off for at-large selections, usually a few spots would be freed up for mid-majors who had strong seasons but came up a little short in their conference tourney. Do we want to see a bunch of 17-13 (7-9) P5 teams making the tourney only to once again get bounced early? Would it be better to have an underdog but still decent team like San Diego, Duquesne, or Middle Tennessee this year (currently projected out) or Tulane (currently projected in) getting the last selection spots?

Creme himself thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to pass a .500-or-better conference mark for teams for WCBB NCAA at-large pick eligibility, but he also noted that the P5 conferences would never let it happen. Last year the issue came up big time as a whopping four teams with 7-9 conference records were picked -- LSU, Georgia, Vanderbilt, and FSU -- with the first three bulging out the SEC selections, and they were given extremely good seeds at LSU #7 (Tigers were 2-8 in last 10 games), Georgia and Vanderbilt #8, and FSU #9. Along with getting the great seed, LSU was given home court games for the first two rounds which they won before heading to Louisville to be slaughtered by the Cardinals. Georgia and Vanderbilt were one-and-out, but FSU did better with a win over Iowa State in Ames, Iowa before losing to Stanford.

This year Creme thinks only one team with a losing conference record will be selected, Arkansas at a strong #38 in the Sagarin ratings but also a 6-10 conference record that would set a new low for an at-large selection. The Razorbacks are considered a likely choice because this year they actually played a decent OOC schedule with five games against teams in the top 100. There are also a large group of other teams with bad losing conference records on the bubble such as West Virginia, Washington State, Kansas State, and Michigan that Creme thinks came up too short in their tourneys to earn a shot.

Personally, I would love to see the rule passed. Every year into the future there will be a pack of teams, especially from the SEC, who have mediocre to bad conference play but will still be ushered into the tourney. It was one thing when most of these teams were playing some strong teams OOC, but now the practice is to load up with a 200+ OOC SOS and then glide to selections with home wins over a few top-half teams in their overrated conference. Let them take their mediocre season off to the NIT.

 

[mhshuskies]

I think some of the thinking is to sell tickets, especially in the early rounds. Unfortunately for the women's game, there are fewer quality teams, therefore a sharper drop-off to fill out the field. It should be the top teams regardless of league. There are certainly teams from lesser name conferences that we be left out eve though they are as good or better.

 

[Wbbfan1]

Teams with Losing Conference Records should not be awarded a tournament bid unless they have a Strong OOC Schedule. Perhaps an OOC Strength of Schedule of less than 100. Teams with losing conference records usually feast up on weak OOC Teams and they end up winning around 10-12 OOC while losing one or two. That enable these teams to get to around 20 wins and have a record that gets them consideration for a tournament bid.

 

[EricLA]

Agreed. You can't look at the just a single criteria alone and say "yes or no". But the fans of the SEC will go on and on about how they think their conference is so incredibly awesome and how at least 8 teams in that conference deserve to go dancing.

 

[DobbsRover2]

I think some of the thinking is to sell tickets, especially in the early rounds. Unfortunately for the women's game, there are fewer quality teams, therefore a sharper drop-off to fill out the field. It should be the top teams regardless of league. There are certainly teams from lesser name conferences that we be left out eve though they are as good or better.

Yeah, although it's unclear how much having a mediocre one-and-done Georgia team last year at Storrs would help sell any more tickets than a Stetson or a Wichita State with nice records last year. Obviously the committee cannot take a team's attendance average into consideration, and though it may be assumed that the P5 schools have better attendance records, there were 12 mid majors among the top 50 teams in attendance last year, and a team like Arkansas is not even among the top 50 teams this year while New Mexico is at #12. There is also the question in any case of whether home attendance equates to travelability, and obviously P5 teams with poor conference records are not getting any tournament home games under the new system. For WCBB in general it might be better to put some of these middling P5 teams in the NIT where they could pick up some more home games.

 

[VAUConnFan]

A good team is a good team. Sometimes the record does not reflect that. Sometimes a team takes time to find its stride. Sometimes a key player or two is hurt early in the season. Though not sure it is an adequate comparison, but insisting that an at large team have a minimum record for consideration is like mandatory minimum sentencing in that it does not allow leeway for mitigating circumstances.

In the end, the best 64 teams usually find their way into the tournament. Of course there are bubble teams that are left out that could probably beat a number of the automatic qualifiers. It makes for great drama come selection time.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

"Name" teams probably draw more eyes to the games on TV, plus a few more in the stands. The NCAA is about money and nothing else. I don't think Arky, at 6-10, is worthy of a bid.

 

[tomcat]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be more interested in seeing a Wichita State or a Stetson, to continue with the example cited, than dreary old Andy Landers bringing dreary old Georgia back one more time. I know you cannot do this, but adding "variety" as a qualification sometimes seems very appealing.

 

[UcMiami]

One advantage generally of P5 teams is the size of the alumni base because the schools tend to be the larger schools. That said, I think a criteria that made it very difficult for a team with a conference record worse than one game under .500 would be a good idea. There are some teams supposedly on the bubble that are a lot worse than that! If you can't play your conference at .500 you are just taking up space in the tournament.

 

[mhshuskies]

One advantage generally of P5 teams is the size of the alumni base because the schools tend to be the larger schools. That said, I think a criteria that made it very difficult for a team with a conference record worse than one game under .500 would be a good idea. There are some teams supposedly on the bubble that are a lot worse than that! If you can't play your conference at .500 you are just taking up space in the tournament.

So should the number of teams be reduced?

 

[diggerfoot]

This was one of the topics I wanted to cover during my brief stint. Thanks for setting it up!

There appears to be two main goals for "March Madness:"
1. Crown a champion
2. Make money

Granted, there may be auxiliary objectives. I'm sure increasing exposure is an objective, yet making money is one metric that can be used for that. Those two objectives (plus a hidden third), pretty much cover the reasons for the 64 team tournament. Note that one of the objectives is not to have the 64 best teams in the tournament. We know that is absolutely not the case by virtue of representing all the conferences. Having a large field, then, is more for the second objective (or hidden third). The question then becomes: is it more profitable to have losers from major conferences or winners from mid-majors round out the field. The alleged fact that the loser from a major might stand a better chance of upsetting a winner from a major is irrelevant. Unless the major loser can win the whole enchilada they are there to satisfy the second objective, and there is not a shred of evidence that a team with a losing conference record and fails to win their conference tournament (which would indicate a late blossoming) can win the whole thing. Have any even made a Final Four?

So, is the major loser or midmajor winner more profitable for the tournament? I can see both sides of the argument. The major losers will tend to have larger fan bases, but upsets by the midmajors creates more overall excitement for the tournament. Reasonable people can disagree on that point, but there enters the hidden objective: politics, always the hidden objective. As someone alluded, there may be unspoken agreements to "grease" this wheel or that.

I favor the midmajor winner, because that provides a disincentive for major teams that are not great to begin with to inflate their records with cupcakes. You play tough teams to learn how to beat tough teams. If you want a winning record in your own conference, get in the habit of playing tough teams out of conference.

 

[DobbsRover2]

I would add a third objective:

3. Put together an exciting tournament that draws eyeballs in both the stands and to the TV sets.

None of the smaller mid major champions or at-large teams will win the NCAA, though obviously a non P5 at-large team won the tourney two years ago. Some of the mid majors do go pretty far though, and they do a great job or building the Cinderella effect and making the tournament more exciting. If a team is battling for a school record say 28th win, that's a much better marker than a P5 back-of-the pack team trying to win its 18th.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I would just argue that, on the whole, WBB still has a much larger gap between most so called mid-majors and the P5 (plus BE, American and A10). So the upsets don't tend to happen on the women's side. There are exceptions, but most of them are in the tourney, often as an automatic and sometimes the rare at-large bid for a mid-major.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

I don't give much of a hot darn about the early games in the NCAA tourney, but if the NCAA was less about money and more about improving athletics across the spectrum of their membership, then they surely would lose a bunch of the hang-on losers from the P5 conferences. I am so tired of hearing "there are no nights off in the SEC" when I tune in to an SEC game that is only within 12 points because the top 3 in the SEC know how to play down and still pull it out in the end. The perennial bottom half of the ACC ... the same. But we rail against the darkness that is the NCAA, corrupted by money to become the tail wag in professional athletics. There are a pretty fair number of mid-majors who can make the bottom half of the P5 look pretty silly ... no one wants that, right?

 

[DobbsRover2]

I would just argue that, on the whole, WBB still has a much larger gap between most so called mid-majors and the P5 (plus BE, American and A10). So the upsets don't tend to happen on the women's side. There are exceptions, but most of them are in the tourney, often as an automatic and sometimes the rare at-large bid for a mid-major.

There has been a decent history of low seeded mid majors like #12 seed BYU last year going on a bit of a roll in the tourney, and even more so for the stronger mid majors who can earn seeds on the more even basis of the #7 through #11 seeds. Last year the mid majors in that range went 3-2 against P5 teams, so they can be quite a challenge for those lower end P5 teams who are getting in even with losing conference records.

 

[UcMiami]

So should the number of teams be reduced?

No, but give a few more mid-major conference winning teams spots instead of the losing P5 teams. We're only talking about two or three teams each year at the back end of the field. None of them have a real chance so rewarding the teams that have 12-3 or 11-4 records in mid-majors vs. a 7-9 P5 team would not really change the end result, and it would put more pressure on the P5 teams to actual win something rather than back into the tournament. And a team like Rutgers last year who played a tough OOC and had a winning conference record would have a better chance over some crap P5 team that got in on 'rep' for the conference.

 

[Oldbones]

New York Giants won the2011 Super Bowl despite a losing National Conference record (5-7). Just sayin'....................

 

[DobbsRover2]

Sure, and in 1967 the Baltimore Colts did not make the playoffs even with an 11-1-2 record, and on the other hand sometimes a team with a 4-12 conference record will win their tourney over a team with an 16-0 record, blowing away all the rest of the season's importance. Teams with terrible records do get into the NBA and NHL playoffs just because some mediocre teams are needed to fill out the field. We always do get the choice of setting qualification levels for championships that can screw over strong performers and give a pass to weak ones that can find a way to suddenly go on a roll.

But the NCAA tourney already has its share of teams from conferences like the SWAC and MEAC whose top teams lose most of their games OOC but who still earn a spot in the Tourney so they can be #16 seed punching bags. That's the NCAA ticket for some weak teams from small leagues. For the final bubble spots, why not celebrate the achievements of a few teams that fought the good fight to get into the bubble instead of the teams that are just content to live in it without putting out the extra effort to win half the game in their conference? Again, the P5 mediocrities still have the NIT to show they have some life in them.

 

[meyers7]

New York Giants won the2011 Super Bowl despite a losing National Conference record (5-7). Just sayin'.....

I agree, they should not have been allowed in the playoffs.