College Sports (Basketball)

[Second place is 1st loser]

Great. Just when the ILL are becoming a perennial 1/2 seed, the 15/16 seeds are getting better. This has Hoosier all over it.

I was going to say that. If we want to be positive about the situation, the #16 seeds and two of the #15 seeds are going to be the best of the low majors and those games vs the #1 and #2 seeds are more likely to stay competitive for a half.

Another positive would be the 12/5 and 11/6 upsets are going to be far more likely. The games involving the lower seeds COULD be more competitive.

Also, at this point, NO TEAM should EVER complain that they didn't make it. If you're #79, you've had a bad year if you're in a power conference. My hope would be that this cleans up the issue with the mid majors who had a GREAT year, but loses in the championship game of their conference tournament. If a team like that gets in over a high major that had a 9-11 conference record, you could probably get me to buy in little more.

Those are all upsides if the NCAA gets it right.

What's far more likely is that this is a TOTAL money grab by the major conferences and the a team like Indiana, who sucked, gets in only because the Big Ten would get a few more bucks by adding another team and it won't be the Missouri Valley, MAC, etc who benefit.

 

[BretMyBeachHouse]

This just protects higher seeds from getting upset by having more of them playing teams who just played a game two nights earlier, maybe even 2 games more now. The play in teams will be more tired.

I think it cuts both ways. I'd like to see an analysis, but I think some of those play in games have allowed teams to get their jitters out. So the winner enters the next game with a lot of confidence.

Probably hard to really measure. But if I had a chance as a top seed to play a team with the same rest as me or a team coming off a win, I'd take the team with the rest.

 

[Second place is 1st loser]

Let’s just let every team in and do a giant playoff through all of February and March into April.

/s

The reality is that with every conference having conference tournaments, every team is in anyway. The playoff you speak of is already in place via Championship Week. You can be 0-30 in the regular season, but if you win your conference tournament.....you're in.

The FAIR thing to do is to eliminate all conference tournaments and the champion of the regular season gets the automatic bid.

The fans would HATE that change because it's one of the best weeks of the year. That said, for those complaining about adding 8 additional teams are a bit hypocritical if you love the conference tournaments. Miami, who was undefeated, BARELY got in after they lost to Akron in the conference tournament. That situation happens every year in multiple conference and it's sold as "bid stealers", when all it really is...is the best team for 4 months getting screwed by a team that got hot for three games.

I'm one of the hypocrites. I LOVE championship week, but I don't like the 8 team addition. In both situations, teams that don't deserve to get in, get in.

 

[wc_illini]

It's laid out pretty definitively in Norlander's article: https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...e-basketball-tournaments-to-76-teams-in-2027/

ESPN (link) implies the extra games will most/all be between bubble teams: "The traditional 64-team men's team bracket would still begin Thursday and look much the same. The major difference would be more teams that qualify as traditional at-larges would have to play earlier than the 64-team bracket."

One article on The Athletic (link) shows a table implying it's still split between bubble games and lowest seed games

Another article on The Athletic (link) says it's TBD: "Which teams play in those opening-round games also still needs to be determined, but the current mix of the lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers and the final at-large selections is the preferred choice of television partners."

 

[bavanga3]

The reality is that with every conference having conference tournaments, every team is in anyway. The playoff you speak of is already in place via Championship Week. You can be 0-30 in the regular season, but if you win your conference tournament.....you're in.

The FAIR thing to do is to eliminate all conference tournaments and the champion of the regular season gets the automatic bid.

The fans would HATE that change because it's one of the best weeks of the year. That said, for those complaining about adding 8 additional teams are a bit hypocritical if you love the conference tournaments. Miami, who was undefeated, BARELY got in after they lost to Akron in the conference tournament. That situation happens every year in multiple conference and it's sold as "bid stealers", when all it really is...is the best team for 4 months getting screwed by a team that got hot for three games.

I'm one of the hypocrites. I LOVE championship week, but I don't like the 8 team addition. In both situations, teams that don't deserve to get in, get in.

Except Akron was the better team all year according to kenpom and the NET. Miami's lack of dominance against terrible teams was exposed in one game in their conference tourney.

 

[wc_illini]

Except Akron was the better team all year according to kenpom and the NET. Miami's lack of dominance against terrible teams was exposed in one game in their conference tourney.

In this case the conference tournament "worked", but a tournament is more likely to crown a worse champion than regular season win-loss record would (though with unbalanced schedules, I understand why some don't like that). I'd personally prefer the KenPom champion from each conference, but that's even less likely to happen.

 

[Second place is 1st loser]

Except Akron was the better team all year according to kenpom and the NET. Miami's lack of dominance against terrible teams was exposed in one game in their conference tourney.

Yet, Miami(OH) beat them straight up, head to head.

They went undefeated in that conference, beat Akron, yet we ignore that and default to KenPom.

When does that stop? It's issues like this that the NCAA can point at as a good reason for expansion. We ignore what happened on the court and who actually won the conference and choose an algorithm to make decisions. Why play the regular season?

 

[lstewart53x3]

Meh.

NCAA tournament size that only impacts the play-in games seems like small problems in comparison to the NBA where half of the teams are actively trying to lose games and the best players try to play in as few games as possible.

 

[wc_illini]

Yet, Miami(OH) beat them straight up, head to head.

They went undefeated in that conference, beat Akron, yet we ignore that and default to KenPom.

When does that stop? It's issues like this that the NCAA can point at as a good reason for expansion. We ignore what happened on the court and who actually won the conference and choose an algorithm to make decisions. Why play the regular season?

None of us are decision makers, and there's no chance it's going to happen, but it's not controversial to say that KenPom is more predictive of future game results (meaning it's a better representation of team ability) than win/loss record, especially when comparing teams that haven't played the same schedule.

That single head-to-head matchup tells us absolutely nothing since the home team won by 3, or about what home court advantage typically is.

 

[MikeTisdale]

I mean, it's expanding from 68 to 76 of 365 teams (20.8%). It's still the most exclusive tournament in college and professional sports, edging pretty close to baseball now (which is at 22%)

Uhh the CFP only has 12/138 teams (8.7%). They're trying to shift that to 16 (11%) or 24 (17%).

 

[MikeTisdale]

Meh.

NCAA tournament size that only impacts the play-in games seems like small problems in comparison to the NBA where half of the teams are actively trying to lose games and the best players try to play in as few games as possible.

Yea not making any of the like 10 teams who actually have a chance to win the tournament have any tougher of a path is at least an OK result of tournament expansion.

It sucks these games will just be full of sub .500 power conference teams, but mid majors are going to fall further and further behind in CBB due to NIL and lax transfer rules anyway. Definitely ruins some of the allure of filling out brackets for normies (a whole slew of 5 vs. unnamed 12 seed picks is boring), but people will adjust.

 

[lstewart53x3]

Yet, Miami(OH) beat them straight up, head to head.

They went undefeated in that conference, beat Akron, yet we ignore that and default to KenPom.

When does that stop? It's issues like this that the NCAA can point at as a good reason for expansion. We ignore what happened on the court and who actually won the conference and choose an algorithm to make decisions. Why play the regular season?

To train the algorithm.

 

[Navy_illini]

I honestly think this will cost the NCAA money long term. One of the biggest things that cause people to care about the tournament is picking your bracket. It is the biggest reason the NCAA will not consider reseeding the field for the sweet 16 or final 4.

Now to get the 12 over 5 upset you now have to pick the play in game and then the upset. It’s already hard enough to guess the upsets

 

[Scoregasm]

To train the algorithm.

 

[Illini2010-11]

I honestly think this will cost the NCAA money long term. One of the biggest things that cause people to care about the tournament is picking your bracket. It is the biggest reason the NCAA will not consider reseeding the field for the sweet 16 or final 4.

Now to get the 12 over 5 upset you now have to pick the play in game and then the upset. It’s already hard enough to guess the upsets

How would it cost them money exactly? They do not get direct proceeds from any of the bracket challenges.

No bracket challenge that I have ever seen has you selecting the winner of the play-in games. I cannot see why any bracket challenge would add in the play-in games as part of their brackets either. Most brackets have these games as "play-in" games to the field of 64. Unless the brackets gets rebranded as all teams not in the play-in games as "byes", then I doubt any of these above concerns will be an issue. I very rarely finish my brackets tweaks until 9 AM CT on Thursday morning, so none of these extra games will impact me at all.

 

[grue2]

Yet, Miami(OH) beat them straight up, head to head.

They went undefeated in that conference, beat Akron, yet we ignore that and default to KenPom.

When does that stop? It's issues like this that the NCAA can point at as a good reason for expansion. We ignore what happened on the court and who actually won the conference and choose an algorithm to make decisions. Why play the regular season?

The no thanks is based on what happened on the court. W/L only tells part of the story. There is a big difference between an unbeaten team consistently winning by 20, and one who ekes out a lot of close games against pretty weak competition; one even went to OT. Many of those Q4 games could easily have gone the other way. They get an A+ in the Rudy skill. As a team, I'll be generous and give them a D. They lost by 22 to a coasting TN team. A win over a single Q3 team (Akron) does not an NCAA tournament team make.

 

[ImGonnaBeILL]

Imagine Indiana or Auburn had made the tournament this season

Is any college basketball fan out there clamoring for these undeserving teams making the tournament and playing more bad basketball?

 

[Double Secret Probation]

What's the purpose of conference tournaments anymore???

To take money out of the pockets of basketball fans

 

[Navy_illini]

How would it cost them money exactly? They do not get direct proceeds from any of the bracket challenges.

No bracket challenge that I have ever seen has you selecting the winner of the play-in games. I cannot see why any bracket challenge would add in the play-in games as part of their brackets either. Most brackets have these games as "play-in" games to the field of 64. Unless the brackets gets rebranded as all teams not in the play-in games as "byes", then I doubt any of these above concerns will be an issue. I very rarely finish my brackets tweaks until 9 AM CT on Thursday morning, so none of these extra games will impact me at all.

As the field expands significantly so will your bracket. Yes the NCAA doesn’t directly profit off any bracket challenges. However viewership is directly tied to it.

 

[Thaillini22]

We don't want stronger low seeds. We like Cinderellas. 16's have beaten ones. 15's ~often beat twos. We like that.

 

[bavanga3]

Yet, Miami(OH) beat them straight up, head to head.

They went undefeated in that conference, beat Akron, yet we ignore that and default to KenPom.

When does that stop? It's issues like this that the NCAA can point at as a good reason for expansion. We ignore what happened on the court and who actually won the conference and choose an algorithm to make decisions. Why play the regular season?

One game doesn't determine an entire season. They also didn't go undefeated, which is why they needed an at large. Wisconsin won more BIG games than us combining the regular season and conference tourney and beat us twice, I don't think anybody claims they had the better season.
The original post suggested Akron went on a 3 game heater and wasn't close to Miami all year. Just not true. Debatable, but they were neck and neck all year. Conference tourney settled it.

 

[rtbritt]

I was going to say that. If we want to be positive about the situation, the #16 seeds and two of the #15 seeds are going to be the best of the low majors and those games vs the #1 and #2 seeds are more likely to stay competitive for a half.

Another positive would be the 12/5 and 11/6 upsets are going to be far more likely. The games involving the lower seeds COULD be more competitive.

Also, at this point, NO TEAM should EVER complain that they didn't make it. If you're #79, you've had a bad year if you're in a power conference. My hope would be that this cleans up the issue with the mid majors who had a GREAT year, but loses in the championship game of their conference tournament. If a team like that gets in over a high major that had a 9-11 conference record, you could probably get me to buy in little more.

Those are all upsides if the NCAA gets it right.

What's far more likely is that this is a TOTAL money grab by the major conferences and the a team like Indiana, who sucked, gets in only because the Big Ten would get a few more bucks by adding another team and it won't be the Missouri Valley, MAC, etc who benefit

Do you think it has worked since they expanded to 68? Or the CFP expansion?

They team vying for the final spots will always have an argument for being better than that last team in..

 

[Second place is 1st loser]

Do you think it has worked since they expanded to 68? Or the CFP expansion?

They team vying for the final spots will always have an argument for being better than that last team in..

You make a great point. You can have 142 teams and team 143 will be screaming.

 

[sulli]

It’s a bad idea full stop.

It further devalues the regular season. If you have a guy injured in January no reason to try to get him back playing since there is no threat to not make the tourney.

It’s a money grab because the NCAA makes money on the tournament and the individual teams/conferences make money on the regular season. This is the ncaa making their product more valuable at the expense of the regular season product they don’t own.

It seems to me that very few fans want this change. Like probably less than 10%.

That’s long term dumb. Playoff expansion has ruined MLB and NBA.