A view on lack of parity in WCBB

[Buzzyboy]

One slight adjustment would be to get rid of conference tournaments- especially for smaller conferences. That way you more likely ensure the best team gets the NCAA bid. Granted, they may get blown out too, but it could make a slight difference. It would also save a lot of wasted money.

This is another suggestion that would eliminate a team who has had a somewhat lackluster year, maybe because of injuries or something else to have any hope of making the NCAA tournament. Every kid who has worked hard should have a chance at a fairy tale ending and for some, that's as simple as playing in the NCAA tournament, with the big boys. I do agree that occasionally, it means a really good team (who has an off day) doesn't make the tournament but that is somewhat rare. You could see the joy that UConn's first round opponent had, even in a loss, to have had the opportunity to compete in the tournament and to play against players (like Stewie) who one day may be considered legendary. A great story to tell your kids and grandkids. Why should that be taken away from them?

 

[2Husky]

Outside~

I would take your concept one step further and get rid of conference tournaments altogether. All that they do is make a mockery of the Regular Season. The best team in a a conference is proven during the season.

I think regularly season champions are completely meaningless unless there is a balanced schedule, and even then with injuries and timing of games it still doesn't ensure the best team wins. The teams playing the best at end of the season will have the best shots at being champions, whether its in the conference tournament or NCAA tournament. Playing well throughout the year gives an advantage in terms of seeding, but I don't see it as a problem to give a team that suffered some bad luck by having key players injured during a difficult stretch of the season a chance at winning the conference.

 

[Buzzyboy]

Just one thing on the 'why everyone is whining now when they didn't in the 1990 with TN domination' - real answer - because no one in national media or in most parts of the country was really paying attention.

Uconn in 1995 lit up national attention and provided one of several teams that seriously challenged TN domination. TN still won their 3 in a row, but it was never easy and they never strung together the 50/70/90 game win streaks.

I think it was the timing of ESPN really getting into women's basketball and how they ran with it. It obviously worked in Geno's favor and Rebecca was a nice face to women's basketball with how eloquent she was along with her obvious basketball skills and then too, her Mom's courageous battle with breast cancer was compelling. UConn became the poster board for women's basketball and maybe that's one of the reasons that Tennessee fans resent the Huskies so much.

 

[cabbie191]

You do realize that the most popular sport in this country, the NFL, is completely structured on "parity". From the worst teams getting the top draft picks to hard salary caps to revenue sharing. Yet, in spite of all the machinations, they have the least parity in terms of results of any of the 4 major sports in this country.

One reason for this, the major reason actually, IMO - rules for parity regarding draft picks and salary caps can only go far. What often matters most is the ability of the coach to get the most out of the team through intellect, inspiration, etc.

That should sound very familiar to why UConn WCBB is so far ahead of the pack.

 

[rvwsleep]

One reason for this, the major reason actually, IMO - rules for parity regarding draft picks and salary caps can only go far. What often matters most is the ability of the coach to get the most out of the team through intellect, inspiration, etc.

That should sound very familiar to why UConn WCBB is so far ahead of the pack.

I agree. If the playing field in the NFL is as equal as the rules can make them, how do you explain why some teams are in the playoffs virtually every year and some hardly ever ? The answer is management. That includes ownership, player evaluation, development, coaching, etc. Even within the professional group of highly compensated coaches and general managers, there's a vast discrepancy between the best ones and the rest. The chasm is even wider in the world of WCBB.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Czupryn says the men embrace the lower seeds more hospitably than the women.

Number of teams from the lower 32 seeds this year that the men's bracket has "embraced": 1 - #11 seed UCLA.

Number of teams from the lower 32 seeds this year that the women's bracket has embraced: 1 - #11 seed Gonzaga.

One team for each, both #11 seeds, both even from the West Coast. Maybe a Bruin is more embraceable than a Bulldog? Don't know.

 

[iamcbs]

I think regularly season champions are completely meaningless unless there is a balanced schedule, and even then with injuries and timing of games it still doesn't ensure the best team wins. The teams playing the best at end of the season will have the best shots at being champions, whether its in the conference tournament or NCAA tournament. Playing well throughout the year gives an advantage in terms of seeding, but I don't see it as a problem to give a team that suffered some bad luck by having key players injured during a difficult stretch of the season a chance at winning the conference.

2Husky~

You didn't read my other post. My solution is to eliminate 3 out-of-conference games and put every team in the NCAA Tournament. It would only take 2 extra days to get to 64 Teams and no could complain that they were snubbed.

 

[j66kicker]

I think it was the timing of ESPN really getting into women's basketball and how they ran with it. It obviously worked in Geno's favor and Rebecca was a nice face to women's basketball with how eloquent she was along with her obvious basketball skills and then too, her Mom's courageous battle with breast cancer was compelling. UConn became the poster board for women's basketball and maybe that's one of the reasons that Tennessee fans resent the Huskies so much.

That, plus possibly it could have been kicking their *sses the first 3 times we played, 4 out of the first 5, all 4 times we've played in the NC game, etc etc.

 

[baylorprof]

My agreement to get rid of conference tourneys also applies to men, thus eliminating the Title IX conflict. It should be left up to each conference to send A (singular) champion to the tourney and then let the Committee fill out the bracket based on national norms and/or guidelines.

In Texas we have a system in high school football where each "district" (5-15 teams depending on location and size) sends its top three teams to post season play andn each district is responsible for tie-breakers. But the decision of who advances and where they are seeded is made at the local competitive level, not by some Committee trying to get half of ES(EC)PN teams in every sport's post season, even though they do not compete against each other during the mid season. Makes the midseason division champs meaningless as far as I'm concerned.

Play a damned conference schedule either round robin home and home or alternative home games every year and let the conferences send their reps. If the conference is too big to do that, then divide into two conferenes. It's an old fashioned out of date concept, but it is THE representative way of saying, "If you're a Hoosiers-type team, guess what, the odds are WAY WAY against you. But play as hard as you can and enjoy the game. Forget any sense of entitlement or "leveling" factors. Makes the Davids that much more glorious when they beat the Goliaths ( or when the Princetons would beat the Huskies).

 

[geneticrex]

You do realize that the most popular sport in this country, the NFL, is completely structured on "parity". From the worst teams getting the top draft picks to hard salary caps to revenue sharing. Yet, in spite of all the machinations, they have the least parity in terms of results of any of the 4 major sports in this country.

I stopped paying attention to the NFL when players on the losing end of the scoreboard began celebrating 1st downs and routine tackles.

 

[2Husky]

2Husky~

You didn't read my other post. My solution is to eliminate 3 out-of-conference games and put every team in the NCAA Tournament. It would only take 2 extra days to get to 64 Teams and no could complain that they were snubbed.

I did read it but only really had an opinion on the first part. I don't have a strong opinion on expanding the NCAAT at this point though I would lean against it but i could see if it was structured correctly it could work. But I don't see the need to change the NCAAT because of conferences. If teams feel they are getting snubbed by having a strong regular season and losing in their tournament they can petition the conference to change how the automatic bid is awarded. But I wonder once teams are mathematically eliminated if they would have the same motivation in games. The current NCAA tournament balances making sure the best teams are able to play for the championship, while allowing the little guys a chance to compete. Expanding the doesn't fundamentally change that but may make it less special if more than half the teams play in the tournament, like the comparison between NFL playoffs and NBA playoffs.

I wouldn't want to get rid of out of conference games to do it though, I think getting rid of conferences altogether could ultimately benefit college sports, though that is a post for another day.

 

[Monte]

When opposing coaches say that UCONN has the best players as a way of explaining why they have just been pounded by the Huskies they do a disservice to the craft of coaching as a whole.
Over the last ten years Duke, ND, Stanford, Baylor and now South Carolina have had recruiting classes considered the equal of Uconn's but have not had the same success. It is easy for opposing coaches to say that "We got some good players but we didn't get Maya Moore, or Breanna Stewart." What they don't ask of themselves is what would they have done with them if they did have them?
Baylor recruited Griner and the world expected them to march to four (or at least three) National Championships. It didn't go that way.
Notre Dame got Diggins and a great supporting cast and they have performed exceptionally well without grabbing the ring.
Stewie may now be the considered great but we all remember Geno sitting her as a freshman when we could have used her points, and as beloved as Stephanie Dolson became to us she started at Uconn as a project; (although a very talented one) but in order for her to develop into the star that she became Geno had to break her down and build her back up into an All-American.
Over the last thirty years he's done that with almost all of his great players. He devlopes talent while others often squander it.
If all that it took to win was to put talented players on the court, there would be a different National Champion every year.
College sports is about three things. Coaching, coaching, coaching.

 

[Monte]

The most important part of coaching(in my mind), is the type of player a coach recruits.
Is the player self-centered, or not? Is the player willing to sacrifice to make the team better?
A very good indication of a top recruit is, when the player says: "I want to go to Uconn to become a better player.
Most of the major coaches are fairly equal in dealing with the X's+O's on the court.

 

[UcMiami]

The issue with the NCAA tournament is that it is set up as the championship of all conferences so every conference gets an automatic bid - and it should. But that means the bottom sixteen teams in the tournament - seeds 13-16 are conference champions and it doesn't really matter whether they won their tournament or their regular season - they do not stand a chance of getting to the second weekend and usually not to the second game (has a 13 seed ever won a game?) If you cut down the tournament size without excluding conferences, then whatever number you cut out is coming from 'at large' teams which are mostly P5 teams with a few A-10, BE, and AAC teams thrown in. You are not getting a more competitive tournament, just a smaller one. And excluding in most years some pretty good teams. This year they really did not have good choices for the last two or three at large bids, but those teams were still a lot better than the 14-16 seeds. In fact having the conference tournaments most years add a couple of more mid-major teams to the field because of surprise losses by good teams which cuts down the bad P5 at large bids.

Really - the competitive games in the tournament are pretty numerous - it is just most years there are a few behemoths at the top that blow away all comers in the first two rounds. I don't think Maryland felt they had an easy game against Princeton, and KY certainly nor did TN in either of the first two rounds. Three seeds - AZSt and Louisville and OrSt?! Four seeds - Duke, UNC, Stanford and Cal?!

So ... of the top 16 seeds playing at home Uconn, Baylor, SC, FlSt breezed and Iowa and ND handled their business a little less easily - the other ten were stretched, some to the breaking point.

That seems pretty good to me. Will Uconn get pushed in the regional games like they did last year, who knows, but I doubt anyone else is betting on a sure thing in the other regionals.

 

[DobbsRover2]

But again, there will always be blow-outs in the early rounds that give writers like this guy something to point to to demean WCBB. The simple way to pretty much eliminate the issue is to add 16 teams to the NCAA Tourney while giving the top 48 teams a bye in the first round. Essentially the top two teams in each region would begin playing teams around the quality of the current 11-12 seeds, which should make for far closer games. #2 seed FSU would have begun play against a team of the caliber of Arkansas-Little Rock (which beat Texas A&M this year) instead of the Alabama State team they beat by 42.

Would hurt the quality of the NIT a bit but open up the postseason to 144 teams instead of 128 and give 16 more teams a chance to win an NCAA game.

 

[hussybulldog]

But again, there will always be blow-outs in the early rounds that give writers like this guy something to point to to demean WCBB. The simple way to pretty much eliminate the issue is to add 16 teams to the NCAA Tourney while giving the top 48 teams a bye in the first round. Essentially the top two teams in each region would begin playing teams around the quality of the current 11-12 seeds, which should make for far closer games. #2 seed FSU would have begun play against a team of the caliber of Arkansas-Little Rock (which beat Texas A&M this year) instead of the Alabama State team they beat by 42.

Would hurt the quality of the NIT a bit but open up the postseason to 144 teams instead of 128 and give 16 more teams a chance to win an NCAA game.

I don't see any needs to add another 16 teams, some the teams in the tournament are already pretty low in skill as of now!. How about the top 16 teams get two rounds bye, and

But again, there will always be blow-outs in the early rounds that give writers like this guy something to point to to demean WCBB. The simple way to pretty much eliminate the issue is to add 16 teams to the NCAA Tourney while giving the top 48 teams a bye in the first round. Essentially the top two teams in each region would begin playing teams around the quality of the current 11-12 seeds, which should make for far closer games. #2 seed FSU would have begun play against a team of the caliber of Arkansas-Little Rock (which beat Texas A&M this year) instead of the Alabama State team they beat by 42.

Would hurt the quality of the NIT a bit but open up the postseason to 144 teams instead of 128 and give 16 more teams a chance to win an NCAA game.

we do not have enough quality teams around for the tournament, and you are suggesting to invite more teams? interesting approach! Just do not see the logic behind it. The teams that survived the first round of playoffs are still 15-16 seeds at best...

 

[OldAlum]

I agree with the idea of giving the top 16 teams (1,2 seeds in each region) out of 64 a bye. The other teams play for the right to face them. It should reduce the number of blowouts without taking away any team's chance of winning. There would likely be some resistance since the top teams would have a better chance of drawing fans to those early games. But it should produce better contests.

 

[DobbsRover2]

I don't see any needs to add another 16 teams, some the teams in the tournament are already pretty low in skill as of now!. How about the top 16 teams get two rounds bye, and

we do not have enough quality teams around for the tournament, and you are suggesting to invite more teams? interesting approach! Just do not see the logic behind it. The teams that survived the first round of playoffs are still 15-16 seeds at best...

Top 16 teams are no longer playing the bottom 16 that they now get that result in the blow outs. They are mainly eliminated by playing 16 additional teams of better quality. Do you understand the difference between a team of St. Francis's ability to a a team of Arkansas-Little Rock's? The teams rated #248 like St. Francis get cleaned out in the first "play-in" round of 16 games, and the top 16 teams in the second round with 32 games are now playing teams at least in the top 100. That will likely lead to less blow outs.

 

[UcMiami]

Before we go changing the format to create more competitive games - look at who the bottom seeds are - they are all automatic bids who occasionally play a good game, but the example in the piece - Alabama St - they lost by 24 to Georgia Tech a team not in the tournament, St Francis - they went 9-9 in the NEC losing a game to CCSU by 18 (who ever that is!) - These are teams that are as likely to get blown out by a 5 or 6 seed as they are by a 1-4 seed. Or they can put up a plucky fight against a TN like Boise State did or against Duke like Albany did.

And just to be clear:
There were 32 first round games: 7 were 30+ blow outs (3 in 1/16 matches), 3 were 16+ pt easy wins, 13 were wins by 10-15 points, 9 were under 10 pt wins (2 in 8/9 matches.) So in the first round 22 of 32 games were competitive or 69%

There were 16 second round games with: 1 30+ point blow out, 4 were 16+ easy games, 5 were 10-15 pointers, and 6 were under ten points. So 11 of 16 were competitive - the same 69% once all those easy game had already been played and the hopelessly overmatched had been dispatched from the tournament.

I just don't see a problem with a 70% competitive tournament each round - that is sort of the nature of sports competition, on any given day, there will be some teams that lay an egg, some that perform brilliantly, and a bunch that are in the middle. As an example 6 of the 11 NFL playoff games this year were decided by 2+scores so not actually very competitive. Anybody complaining about a lack of competitiveness in the NFL?

 

[Bestiarius]

I always enjoy coaches who want to adjust rules to bring better teams back to the pack. Here's a thought: keep working hard to bring yourself up to the top teams.

A professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that arranged parity worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on parity. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.”

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that parity would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when the rules take all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

 

[hussybulldog]

Top 16 teams are no longer playing the bottom 16 that they now get that result in the blow outs. They are mainly eliminated by playing 16 additional teams of better quality. Do you understand the difference between a team of St. Francis's ability to a a team of Arkansas-Little Rock's? The teams rated #248 like St. Francis get cleaned out in the first "play-in" round of 16 games, and the top 16 teams in the second round with 32 games are now playing teams at least in the top 100. That will likely lead to less blow outs.

I did read and understand where you come from, the only thing I objected was the adding part 'add 16 teams to the NCAA Tourney', I just do not see the need to add another 16 weak teams into the play. Look, Temple is in the quarter final of WNIT, shall we add another 16 Temple like teams into the mix? I meant adding another 16 teams and let the bottom 32 to duke it out does weed out a bit but it does not automatically give you 16 teams of 11-12 seed caliber.

 

[DobbsRover2]

I did read and understand where you come from, the only thing I objected was the adding part 'add 16 teams to the NCAA Tourney', I just do not see the need to add another 16 weak teams into the play. Look, Temple is in the quarter final of WNIT, shall we add another 16 Temple like teams into the mix? I meant adding another 16 teams and let the bottom 32 to duke it out does weed out a bit but it does not automatically give you 16 teams of 11-12 seed caliber.

To prevent mismatches as the way things stand with the power disparities in WCBB, you have to give the top teams byes, like almost every conference does in its tourney. The current number of teams is a balanced 64 so you either have to add some teams or eliminate probably 16 teams to go back to 48 (or eliminate 8 and give only the top two seeds ror each region byes in the first round). I really can't believe there would be any chance of removing a lot of teams, and probably the only option that would be approved is to add teams. Perhaps adding 8 teams with only the half of the pods with #1 or #2 seeds would be doable.

But again, unless everyone wants to see 50-70 point beat downs of many of the bottom 8 or so seeds in the Tourney every year, some change in the number of teams and the use of byes would need to be done.

 

[hussybulldog]

To prevent mismatches as the way things stand with the power disparities in WCBB, you have to give the top teams byes, like almost every conference does in its tourney. The current number of teams is a balanced 64 so you either have to add some teams or eliminate probably 16 teams to go back to 48 (or eliminate 8 and give only the top two seeds ror each region byes in the first round). I really can't believe there would be any chance of removing a lot of teams, and probably the only option that would be approved is to add teams. Perhaps adding 8 teams with only the half of the pods with #1 or #2 seeds would be doable.

But again, unless everyone wants to see 50-70 point beat downs of many of the bottom 8 or so seeds in the Tourney every year, some change in the number of teams and the use of byes would need to be done.

Another options is having WNIT played first (Kind of like qualify rounds in WTA) the top teams in WNIT will be at-large choices for NCAA.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Before we go changing the format to create more competitive games - look at who the bottom seeds are - they are all automatic bids who occasionally play a good game, but the example in the piece - Alabama St - they lost by 24 to Georgia Tech a team not in the tournament, St Francis - they went 9-9 in the NEC losing a game to CCSU by 18 (who ever that is!) - These are teams that are as likely to get blown out by a 5 or 6 seed as they are by a 1-4 seed. Or they can put up a plucky fight against a TN like Boise State did or against Duke like Albany did.

And just to be clear:
There were 32 first round games: 7 were 30+ blow outs (3 in 1/16 matches), 3 were 16+ pt easy wins, 13 were wins by 10-15 points, 9 were under 10 pt wins (2 in 8/9 matches.) So in the first round 22 of 32 games were competitive or 69%

There were 16 second round games with: 1 30+ point blow out, 4 were 16+ easy games, 5 were 10-15 pointers, and 6 were under ten points. So 11 of 16 were competitive - the same 69% once all those easy game had already been played and the hopelessly overmatched had been dispatched from the tournament.

I just don't see a problem with a 70% competitive tournament each round - that is sort of the nature of sports competition, on any given day, there will be some teams that lay an egg, some that perform brilliantly, and a bunch that are in the middle. As an example 6 of the 11 NFL playoff games this year were decided by 2+scores so not actually very competitive. Anybody complaining about a lack of competitiveness in the NFL?

Yeah, the blow outs don't really bother me since they have been written into the tradition of the WCBB tournament and even less extensively into the MCBB tournament, and if they only bother some newbie writer and sports enthusiast who wants to dig up the usual muck to smear the WCBB, who cares? But I do think there would be a considerable difference in the size and number of the blow outs in the WCBB if the bottom teams were playing current #4 and #5 seeds than the #1 and #2 seeds. A #16 seed like Montana was able to stay within 25 of Princeton, which likely was considerably better than the #8 seed they were handed. If you could just keep some more of these games to within a 15 point halftime lead, the situation probably wouldn't look so nasty. But overall, no big deal.

 

[UcMiami]

Just another thought - St. Francis was one of the 'cannon fodder' brigade sent to Storrs as a sacrifice - does anyone really believe they would prefer to be sent to another tournament to qualify?! They were thrilled to be in Storrs in a hopeless cause because they can say they made the NCAA tournament and played a game at Gampel and were on the court with Breanna Stewart and Kaleena, and fought against a team coached by Geno! You really want to take that away from them?

And sorry for the coach of Alabama State in the piece - but ... recruit better, or move to a better conference or coach you players better, or get out of D1!!! Same for the other idiot who wants to change the game so his girls can compete.

 

[CL82]

I'm all for more parity (PLEASE!), but it should come from the bad teams getting better. Not from rule changes suggested by Karl Smesko (FGCU coach) to neutralize superior skills. It's like the 'easy' golf courses where the fairways are concave so they are forgiving of bad shots and the ball gravitates toward the middle (vs. 'good' courses where the degree of difficulty separates skilled players from hackers).

One "skill" mismatch I usually do feel badly about though is size. UCONN is so much bigger than most of the cupcake teams we play - it's like, "What's the point?" In our case our other skills are such that we can usually beat teams larger than us, but that's not the norm - especially outside the top 25 or so.

That will not be the case against Texas.

 

[meyers7]

My agreement to get rid of conference tourneys also applies to men, thus eliminating the Title IX conflict. It should be left up to each conference to send A (singular) champion to the tourney and then let the Committee fill out the bracket based on national norms and/or guidelines.

ummm, it's already like that. Most conferences just choose to send the conference tourney champion as opposed to the regular season champ. They don't have to.

 

[DobbsRover2]

ummm, it's already like that. Most conferences just choose to send the conference tourney champion as opposed to the regular season champ. They don't have to.

Right. And come to think of it, why is it that way with the small conferences that only send one team to the Tourney? Why not send your overall best team instead of the team that went 9-9 in conference and just had everything break right for in the conference tourney and is going to get beat by 60 in the NCAAT instead of the 30 that maybe the best team would get beat by. If the small conference Tourney win at least guaranteed you a game in the NIT where you might stand a chance of winning a game or two, wouldn't that be incentive enough for every team to be battling it out in their tourney to keep their season going? There are some times when a conference does get two teams into the Tourney because the top team that got upset is high enough up in the ratings, but there are many other times when the top team is sent packing to the NIT. But yeah, the winner would have to have the NIT guarantee to make a switch to regular season champion (or selected representative) work.

 

[2Husky]

Right. And come to think of it, why is it that way with the small conferences that only send one team to the Tourney? Why not send your overall best team instead of the team that went 9-9 in conference and just had everything break right for in the conference tourney and is going to get beat by 60 in the NCAAT instead of the 30 that maybe the best team would get beat by. If the small conference Tourney win at least guaranteed you a game in the NIT where you might stand a chance of winning a game or two, wouldn't that be incentive enough for every team to be battling it out in their tourney to keep their season going? There are some times when a conference does get two teams into the Tourney because the top team that got upset is high enough up in the ratings, but there are many other times when the top team is sent packing to the NIT. But yeah, the winner would have to have the NIT guarantee to make a switch to regular season champion (or selected representative) work.

I think conferences feel that their best team is their best tournament team, which is the team that wins the conference tournament. Whatever team wins the conference tournament is a proven winner in tournament settings, and arguably has the best chance in the NCAAT. And with unbalanced conference schedules and the ups and downs teams experience during a season a simple comparison of conference records is not a good measure of which team is the best. I also don't see how switching who get the automatic bid does anything about reducing blowouts in the early rounds. The parity problem needs to be solved by bad teams getting better, which will improve the overall women's game.

 

[cabbie191]

To prevent mismatches as the way things stand with the power disparities in WCBB, you have to give the top teams byes, like almost every conference does in its tourney. The current number of teams is a balanced 64 so you either have to add some teams or eliminate probably 16 teams to go back to 48 (or eliminate 8 and give only the top two seeds ror each region byes in the first round). I really can't believe there would be any chance of removing a lot of teams, and probably the only option that would be approved is to add teams. Perhaps adding 8 teams with only the half of the pods with #1 or #2 seeds would be doable.

But again, unless everyone wants to see 50-70 point beat downs of many of the bottom 8 or so seeds in the Tourney every year, some change in the number of teams and the use of byes would need to be done.

Agree that this might help keep the opening round of game scores closer, but I would think the coaches of the top ranked schools would not appreciate having to keep their teams idle as they sit out the bye weekend as their reward.