The lack of upsets, and way to fix the tournament

[Scoe]

People just love to complain, people complained that the regular season didn't matter now it matters more now, people complained that 8 seed UNC had to play 15 seed St Peter's in the elite 8. People complained that the Cinderella was in the sweet 16.

Having extra play in teams just defeats the purpose of conference tournaments. No matter what you do the Cinderella is going to end their season in a blowout loss like it always has its just gonna be in rd 1 now.

It's a 364 team tournament on March 1st there ya go boom end of discussion. You wanna have subtle changes in the committee fine but leave the tournament alone.

 

[Nameless]

The CFP had two non power 5 teams this year. That’s incorrect.

To his point though, because 2 "G5" teams made the field the format was immediately altered to guarantee the champion of the ACC, B1G, Big XII and SEC a bid. Every other format alteration that has been suggested over the past 5-6 years has taken well over a year to be implemented, if the suggested alteration was even implemented at all. But I'm pretty sure this was approved and implemented for 2026 within a month of the season ending.

It was such an obvious way of pushing the smaller conferences out of the picture as much as possible and no one (outside of fans of said conferences) even seemed to bat an eye.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

People just love to complain, people complained that the regular season didn't matter now it matters more now, people complained that 8 seed UNC had to play 15 seed St Peter's in the elite 8. People complained that the Cinderella was in the sweet 16.

Having extra play in teams just defeats the purpose of conference tournaments. No matter what you do the Cinderella is going to end their season in a blowout loss like it always has is just gonna be in rd 1 now.

It's a 364 team tournament on March 1st there ya boom end of discussion. You wanna have subtle changes in the committee fine but leave the tournament alone.

Am I complaining the early round games into becoming blowouts? I am simply making an observation.

 

[BarkingDog]

This article is posted over in the conference realignment board but it’s appropriate for this conversation.

The case is made that more than NIL or the transfer portal, conference realignment has killed Cinderella.

Meet the real villain behind the death of Cinderella in the NCAA tournament

If we're going to worry about the death of Cinderella, we need to correctly identify what killed her. NIL and the transfer portal are only part of the story.

sports.yahoo.com

 

[RuffRuff]

The CFP had two non power 5 teams this year. That’s incorrect.

Courtesy entries that got mauled.

 

[JB75]

Not so sure I fully agree. Not yet anyway.

Oral Roberts (2021), Saint Peter's (2022), and Princeton (2023) are all 15-seeded teams that recently made the Sweet 16. SP made the elite 8, in fact. Robert Morris lost by just 9 last year over 2 Alabama and 5 guys from....checks notes**...Siena nearly beat 1 seeded Duke before losing by 6. And we don't need to talk about Furman, do we? 14-seed Oakland beat Kentucky in 2024, and in the same year, 13-seeded Yale beat Auburn. 5 12 seeds have won since 2024.

Most of all, we just saw the second-ever 16-seed win in 2023.

Let's see what happens in 2027, 28, and 29 before making any serious claims.

I agree with this —I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not ready to fully commit to that yet. Let’s see what happens in the next 2 to 3 years.

 

[Scoe]

At the end of the day the best teams usually will end up in the sweet 16 anyways. It's fine the way it is.