A view on lack of parity in WCBB

[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.

 

[DobbsRover2]

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.

Small conferences don't usually have unbalanced schedules. True, sometimes a 6-12 conference record team really is suddenly the best team in the conference for some reason, but more often they just got fired up and got the good bounces for a weekend. Was a 15-18 St. Francis that lost to 7-22 Wagner in February really the best team to send to the NCAAT for the Northeast conference instead of 22-9 Bryant? I hope not, but who knows. Again, blow outs aren't the worst

 

[DobbsRover2]

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.

Wouldn't have to be a weekend, as it could be wrapped into the first current rounds beginning earlier in the week, maybe at the higher seed's home. As it is, some teams get almost two weeks off after their last game to the first NCAAT game, so they are either idling or taking time to recover, depending on how you want to look at it. But there is room to slip games in on a Tues-Wed slot.

 

[2Husky]

Small conferences don't usually have unbalanced schedules. True, sometimes a 6-12 conference record team really is suddenly the best team in the conference for some reason, but more often they just got fired up and got the good bounces for a weekend. Was a 15-18 St. Francis that lost to 7-22 Wagner in February really the best team to send to the NCAAT for the Northeast conference instead of 22-9 Bryant? I hope not, but who knows. Again, blow outs aren't the worst

Good point. Maybe conferences should have playoff series instead of single elimination tournaments, like the NBA. They could shorten the regular conference season to accommodate it. Somehow I think that would lose some of the excitement.