These rules, or something akin to them, have guided the Selection Committee long before the recent rise of the “super conferences.” Once again I point out the situation in 2013 with the Old Big East, that resulted in 3/4 teams making the Final Four. Nobody seemed to be complaining back then.
Rocky, I’m scratching my head. TX & SC from the SEC were already #1’s. That left LSU and Vandy as the next 2 teams from the SEC. In the SEC Tournament, once Vandy had a bad loss to Ole Miss, while LSU beat up OK, that meant LSU was the 3rd best team in the SEC and Vandy was the 4th.
Are you talking about the final committee rankings?
Yes, I used the term “super-conference” in a way that led you and @oldude to conclude I was only thinking of the P4. I was thinking of the former P5 as well. This problem is older than the recent collapse of the Pac12.
Something that’s easy to overlook here is the de facto bargain between the P4 conferences and the smaller conferences. The AIAW used to hold the national championship which consisted of 16 teams, that eventually grew to 24. The NCAA took over that role in 1982, increasing the number of teams to 32, which grew to 40, then 64 and now 68 since 2022.
I don’t disagree. The sport expanded to where it was in the late 90’s from a beginning in a smaller number of schools. Some of those early powerhouses have largely fallen by the wayside. Some may rise again. But the current situation seems to be anticompetitive for currently ‘lesser’ schools and conferences. This is the rules-based manipulation I spoke of earlier. There is very little disincentive even to further consolidation. Tournament seeding rules could serve as such a disincentive. This would be only one small change among the many that would be needed to strengthen nationwide competitiveness.
They were listed as 7 in the ranking,
NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee Top 16 Ranking – March 1, 2026*
In the days of NIL, immediate transfer eligibility, player agents and big money tv deals, I don’t see how you put the genie back in the bottle. As I referenced earlier, if the P4, maybe some day P2 conferences don’t get taken care of, they’ll do the same thing the major football programs did by creating their own championship.
There's another thread which had the actual ranking that was announced last Saturday. That list would have likely taken the March 1 games into consideration.
When Lobo and Lawson were working together, I didn't detect any bias either way from either, despite being from thw two most storied programs ever.
You’re making my case for me. If we don’t lament the fact that ODU, Delta State and La Tech won’t ever have a shot at a title, then we’ve forgotten what competition is all about. I get that anti-competitive forces and influences are everywhere. But that’s no reason in itself to give in to them.
Your betting tips are bad
That list that was announced last Saturday was just an alphabetical order list of the Top 16.
edited2x
I've mentioned this number of times on the boneyard. In 2017 Kim Mulkey brought her Baylor Bears to Arizona to play the ASU Sun Devils up on the Navajo reservation. Billed as the rumble on the res it was an amazing game and it was called by Rebecca Lobo, Kara Lawson with Holly Rowe. I was able to listen to the game as it unfolded and these pros were amazing.
I guess what threw me off about the list is that one what I posted is the one that the official NCAA website still has up as the final committee ranking. Also it is Michigan St. not Michigan who got knocked out of the final 16.
Yes, but the committee announced the final top 16 last Saturday. What was posted March1 became a moot point. Thanks for catching my typo. Will fix that.
I already know that the committee announced the final 16 in alphabetical order. Thanks
So the sequence of events has no validity? That's the point I'm making here.