The lack of upsets, and way to fix the tournament | Page 3 | The Boneyard

The lack of upsets, and way to fix the tournament

nelsonmuntz said:
It is not that the seed matters. The low major champs are getting seeded appropriately. The issue is that the lower seeds, which are low majors, are essentially playing a different sport from the Top 100. There is no way for them to compete with even the middle of the pack mid-majors.
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Oh well that's the way it goes.
 
ec33 said:
Texas potentially pulling off the big upset getting your engine revved?
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All the "upsets" or near upsets, except for High Point over Wisconsin, have involved significant injuries with the favorite.

I am not sure why you are getting angry about this. I watch sports because I want to see exciting events with uncertain outcomes. You sound like the kind of guy that likes to root for the favorite and watch them win easily. Different strokes I guess.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
All the "upsets" or near upsets, except for High Point over Wisconsin, have involved significant injuries with the favorite.

I am not sure why you are getting angry about this. I watch sports because I want to see exciting events with uncertain outcomes. You sound like the kind of guy that likes to root for the favorite and watch them win easily. Different strokes I guess.
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You want more P4 teams in the tournament. This "bubble" this year -- with every candidate consistently trying to not make the tournament by making their cases for inclusion worse -- was a prime example of not expanded P4 inclusion in this tournament.

The fun is small schools doing something special, not mediocre financial powerhouses lucking their way into the sweet 16 (although seeing an undeserving SEC team knock out everyone's favorite mid-major was pretty funny).
 
ec33 said:
You want more P4 teams in the tournament. This "bubble" this year -- with every candidate consistently trying to not make the tournament by making their cases for inclusion worse -- was a prime example of not expanded P4 inclusion in this tournament.

The fun is small schools doing something special, not mediocre financial powerhouses lucking their way into the sweet 16 (although seeing an undeserving SEC team knock out everyone's favorite mid-major was pretty funny).
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I wish the reality of college basketball was different and there was not so much talent consolidation, but it is what it is. One low major made the second round, and it is not making the Sweet 16. Almost all of the rest of them got killed. This many blowouts in the first round are bad for college basketball.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
If you like watching boring blowouts, this is the tournament for you.
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That would be the NFL playoffs and the CFP playoffs. Im sure you enjoyed those.

It’s the best sports event we have. Try not to bring everyone down about it
 
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ValleyGuy said:
That would be the NFL playoffs and the CFP playoffs. Im sure you enjoyed those.

It’s the best sports event we have. Try not to bring everyone down about it
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I want to keep it a great event. When there are 20 games in the first round that are snoozers, it is bad for the sport.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I want to keep it a great event. When there are 20 games in the first round that are snoozers, it is bad for the sport.
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I agree with everyone who has posted on this kind of sad thread. Sad because the reality is the old tournament is history. Done. Before long it will morph into something like the college football playoffs with only the best teams from the power 4/5. Power 4.5. This will happen when the ratings take a significant ( $ ) drop and advertisers refuse to pony up for the first round. They’ll try to come up with solutions to include the entire “NCAA” field. But the blueprint for the solution is already staring us in the face: CFP. You can regret it all you want, but nobody, meaning nobody, is going to give up their share of the spoils much longer. It won’t surprise when they start paying the top 10 or the top 25 an extra incentive because they draw more eyeballs. Probably already doing it.
 
ec33 said:
This tournament is exhibit A in the case of why the tournament doesn't need to change and why there doesn't need to be an expansion. No "deserving teams' were omitted. The better teams are better than they used to be and the lesser teams are lesser than they used to be. No tinkering is going to change that.
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Could see a restructure in format where you have more games with evenly seeded teams playing and top seeds getting deeper byes. The current format is creating far too many blowouts that are unwatchable.
 
There are a lot of reasons for the lack of Cinderellas:

1. NIL/Portal Era - duh

2. Conference Tournaments - since 2024, we’ve seen a lot of upsets in one bid leagues where it’s possible for a 6 seed to get hot or get a favorable path to the auto bid, but can’t ride the hot streak when they are completely outmatched

3. Seeding principles - this one is more minor, but it has been brought up the committee uses analytics more to seed teams which leads to less mismatches/upset opportunities

4. Playstyle - I do think Golden was on to something with teams opting for high floor roster construction. It’s also why I think these teams crush the KenPom numbers, they are hyper efficient at terminating weaker teams. To a better team like ours, they look good but not all-time great.
 
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ValleyGuy said:
They didn’t sneak him through. These kids are more prevalent these days. HS players aren’t getting recruited as heavily. Mid majors are able to get some really good players because high majors aren’t recruiting them

Problem is they’re gone after one season. No chance to build a team that has all juniors on it that is an extremely dangerous 12 seed
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I agree with your overarching point about mid and low majors getting better talent these days. However, Wilkins definitely was an under the radar recruit. He doesn't even have a recruiting profile on 247 or Rivals, On3 appears to have made one for him retroactively but it doesn't list any schools who expressed interest in him. The only schools I can even tell were interested in him based on a brief Google search were Iona and Furman.

I also agree with you it is much harder to build around these talented pieces at lower level schools. I'm not trying to predict Wilkins will stay there for another season, as I think he is due a big payday should he enter the portal. But in trying to find any of his recruiting profiles, I came across an article as to why he committed to Furman and it appears he has a really close bond with the coaching staff. There are rare cases where talented players run it back with their previous school despite the lucrative offers to leave, and I wouldn't be absolutely flabbergasted if Wilkins decided to go back to Furman for another year.
 
gars44 said:
I agree with everyone who has posted on this kind of sad thread. Sad because the reality is the old tournament is history. Done. Before long it will morph into something like the college football playoffs with only the best teams from the power 4/5. Power 4.5. This will happen when the ratings take a significant ( $ ) drop and advertisers refuse to pony up for the first round. They’ll try to come up with solutions to include the entire “NCAA” field. But the blueprint for the solution is already staring us in the face: CFP. You can regret it all you want, but nobody, meaning nobody, is going to give up their share of the spoils much longer. It won’t surprise when they start paying the top 10 or the top 25 an extra incentive because they draw more eyeballs. Probably already doing it.
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I am with you until the end. I think the high majors will pay the low-majors more in order to go into a play-in game. They always do. The entire structure is an anti-trust violation, so when it comes to splitting the tournament pie, the low-majors actually have all the leverage.
 
gars44 said:
I agree with everyone who has posted on this kind of sad thread. Sad because the reality is the old tournament is history. Done. Before long it will morph into something like the college football playoffs with only the best teams from the power 4/5. Power 4.5. This will happen when the ratings take a significant ( $ ) drop and advertisers refuse to pony up for the first round. They’ll try to come up with solutions to include the entire “NCAA” field. But the blueprint for the solution is already staring us in the face: CFP. You can regret it all you want, but nobody, meaning nobody, is going to give up their share of the spoils much longer. It won’t surprise when they start paying the top 10 or the top 25 an extra incentive because they draw more eyeballs. Probably already doing it.
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The CFP had two non power 5 teams this year. That’s incorrect.
 
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.
 
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ValleyGuy said:
The CFP had two non power 5 teams this year. That’s incorrect.
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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.
 
Scoe said:
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.
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Am I complaining the early round games into becoming blowouts? I am simply making an observation.
 
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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.

sports.yahoo.com

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 sports.yahoo.com
 
Travelman6 said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
Outside of the West, there is a strong chance you have 1-4 in the Sweet 16. Still lots of games to play today and I’ll be honest, I’m worried we break that trend. However, we will basically be left with teams that can schedule these games as OOC games. Lots of possible B1G/SEC match ups. Isn’t that an ESPN week thing during the season??
 
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nelsonmuntz said:
I am agreeing with the pundits who think that the era of the low major upset has come to an end. This is the second year in a row where every 1 through 4 seed won its first round game, and only two of the games were within 10 points. There is no way for these low-majors to compete with the majors for talent, or even hold onto the talent they get if they happen to get lucky on a few recruits. We are just wasting games in the first two days of the tournament with mismatches, and the casual fans are getting bored by it. The upsets were what made the tournament fun, and there may be 1 or 2 teams in the bottom 16 conferences that has even a theoretical chance of beating a college basketball team that has a $10M+ payroll. NIL and the Transfer Portal has made it really hard for these low-majors to win. They aren't winning in the regular season, and they aren't winning in the postseason.

The bottom 16 seeds this year were:

LIU, Siena, Prairie View A&M, Howard, UMBC, Lehigh, Furman, Queens, Idaho, Tennessee State, Wright State, Penn, North Dakota State, Kennesaw State, Cal Baptist, Troy

Who do you want to fight for in that group? Accounting for the current play in, that is 14 teams that are mostly guaranteed to lose their first round game in a blowout. Maybe one or two has a chance at an upset with the right matchup. Do we really need 14 games to find that 1 or 2 that may put up a fight?

My proposal: The bottom 16 conference winners should have play-in games to feed 8 teams into the 64 team field. These would be the 15 and 16 seeds in the 64 team bracket. These teams get seeded for play-in games after the low major conference tournaments, and play each other on the Saturday and Sunday before Selection Sunday and then seed the winners appropriately, most likely on the 15 and 16 lines. Only the strong survive, and maybe one of them gets lucky in the first round. Keep the money the same or even make it better for the low-majors in return for giving up the marginally better seeds. And these small schools get a showcase on those two days.

The next 6 conference champs (this year: Hawaii, Akron, Hofstra, Mcneese, Northern Iowa, High Point) would get slid down to the 13/14 line, although if one of them is better than the extra at-large, seed them appropriately. This would open 4 more slots for at-large. Assume Seton Hall, San Diego State, New Mexico, Indiana at the 13/12 lines, that have a better chance of beating a 4 or 5. I won't put up a stink if you want to keep play ins for at-large, but I am not sure what the point is. Just seed in the teams into the bracket, so SMU and NC State would just get seeded as 12's rather than playing on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you go much deeper with at-large teams, it gets really close to .500 teams getting in.

The result is a better tournament that recognizes the changes in the sport, creates more chances for upsets, expands the tournament, and actually creates more opportunities for mid-majors. This gives the A10, WCC, American and MWC a reasonable shot at getting a second or third team in the dance every year.
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The tournament isn't in need of fixing.
 
I think it’s the best tournament in the world especially held annually.
Not the biggest , the World Cup is that
But the format of the World Cup with qualifiers and group play is not as exciting as one and done. However if the USMT goes to the finals ‘I might change my mind
It makes a lot of money well over a billion , when you consider its college and only encompasses the US that’s Amazing
It really is the backbone of American college sports because it pays most of the billls.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I am agreeing with the pundits who think that the era of the low major upset has come to an end. This is the second year in a row where every 1 through 4 seed won its first round game, and only two of the games were within 10 points. There is no way for these low-majors to compete with the majors for talent, or even hold onto the talent they get if they happen to get lucky on a few recruits. We are just wasting games in the first two days of the tournament with mismatches, and the casual fans are getting bored by it. The upsets were what made the tournament fun, and there may be 1 or 2 teams in the bottom 16 conferences that has even a theoretical chance of beating a college basketball team that has a $10M+ payroll. NIL and the Transfer Portal has made it really hard for these low-majors to win. They aren't winning in the regular season, and they aren't winning in the postseason.

The bottom 16 seeds this year were:

LIU, Siena, Prairie View A&M, Howard, UMBC, Lehigh, Furman, Queens, Idaho, Tennessee State, Wright State, Penn, North Dakota State, Kennesaw State, Cal Baptist, Troy

Who do you want to fight for in that group? Accounting for the current play in, that is 14 teams that are mostly guaranteed to lose their first round game in a blowout. Maybe one or two has a chance at an upset with the right matchup. Do we really need 14 games to find that 1 or 2 that may put up a fight?

My proposal: The bottom 16 conference winners should have play-in games to feed 8 teams into the 64 team field. These would be the 15 and 16 seeds in the 64 team bracket. These teams get seeded for play-in games after the low major conference tournaments, and play each other on the Saturday and Sunday before Selection Sunday and then seed the winners appropriately, most likely on the 15 and 16 lines. Only the strong survive, and maybe one of them gets lucky in the first round. Keep the money the same or even make it better for the low-majors in return for giving up the marginally better seeds. And these small schools get a showcase on those two days.

The next 6 conference champs (this year: Hawaii, Akron, Hofstra, Mcneese, Northern Iowa, High Point) would get slid down to the 13/14 line, although if one of them is better than the extra at-large, seed them appropriately. This would open 4 more slots for at-large. Assume Seton Hall, San Diego State, New Mexico, Indiana at the 13/12 lines, that have a better chance of beating a 4 or 5. I won't put up a stink if you want to keep play ins for at-large, but I am not sure what the point is. Just seed in the teams into the bracket, so SMU and NC State would just get seeded as 12's rather than playing on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you go much deeper with at-large teams, it gets really close to .500 teams getting in.

The result is a better tournament that recognizes the changes in the sport, creates more chances for upsets, expands the tournament, and actually creates more opportunities for mid-majors. This gives the A10, WCC, American and MWC a reasonable shot at getting a second or third team in the dance every year.
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The issue here is that I don't think the NCAA views this as a problem, nor do I, nor do a lot of people. Give me a couple upsets round 1 and maybe 1 in round 2 and that's all I need. This tournament outcome so far is perfect. Duke, St Johns, MSU and UCONN is much more intriguing and higher level of basketball than TCU St Johns MSU UCF right? So what's the problem.
 
There is no question that since NIL, portal, etc, non-power teams no longer have the players they used to have that provided you more opportunities for upsets. The question is, can the tournament be changed to help this? I think the answer is NO. College basketball has changed. There is no reason for the tournament to change to try and make the games more like they were. That era is gone. You could change the tournament to 32 teams. You could make an elaborate play-in system like the OP has suggested. That would have less blowouts. Should that be the main goal though? I definitely prefer simplicity.

We all know that the only thing that matters is the amount of money that can be made. Before the recent changes there has been talk for years to expand the tournament. The vast majority of fans agree this would be bad, but it's all about the $.
 
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