Back When Only One Team per Conference Could Go to the NCAA Tournament

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Some of us are old enough to remember.

Way back then, some conferences determined who went to the NCAAT by a tournament; for the rest it was the regular season winner. Over time, every conference (?) added a tournament.

Also back in those days, there were a bunch of independent teams - not a member of any conference. Some of those got into the NCAAT, too, but I forget how that worked. It looks like the last independent was NJIT in 2015.

Thinking of that got me wondering how many regular season conference champs would have been displaced this year if the Highlander Rule ("There Can Be Only One") were still in place.

Here are a few examples this time around....

Duke would still be in but Auburn would be out.

Houston would still be in but MSU would be out.

St John's would still be in but New Mexico would be out.

Which is to say that HALF of the regular season winners in the top 6 conferences would miss the NCAAT under the old rules.

[Not trying to make some deep point here; I just thought it was interesting.]

 

[Bubspub88]

How ironic that it was the ACC that caused the expansion to include non- conference champions as at-large teams

 

[Point2Passer]

I’ve always hated that the league bid is determined by the conference tourney… especially for smaller conferences.

2.5 months of conference superiority means exponentially more than being good and lucky for one weekend. Imagine going 18-0 in your conference, but you don’t make the NCAAT because your best player gets in foul trouble in a semifinal game and you get upset by a team you handled convincingly twice already.

But I also get money is why things are where they are.

 

[gauchoheel]

I’ve always hated that the league bid is determined by the conference tourney… especially for smaller conferences.

2.5 months of conference superiority means exponentially more than being good and lucky for one weekend. Imagine going 18-0 in your conference, but you don’t make the NCAAT because your best player gets in foul trouble in a semifinal game and you get upset by a team you handled convincingly twice already.

But I also get money is why things are where they are.

Yeah, it's really stupid. A better design would make the regular season much more interest, which would mean more money too. Not sure why that isn't prioritized by anyone.

 

[Bubspub88]

I agree the regular season stretch is a better metric to determine the best team but then you open up the issue of tie-breakers. Imagine if you missed the tournament because your best player was sick and missed a game in early January, or you called heads and the coin came up tails. I would use a combination of the two, maybe reg season first and then tourny performance as tie breaker.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I agree the regular season stretch is a better metric to determine the best team but then you open up the issue of tie-breakers. Imagine if you missed the tournament because your best player was sick and missed a game in early January, or you called heads and the coin came up tails. I would use a combination of the two, maybe reg season first and then tourny performance as tie breaker.

Or . . . every conference gets 2 teams. One the regular season winner; the other the tournament winner. If the same team wins both, let the conference decide who the 2nd team is, however they want to.

Then let the committee select the rest of the teams to round out the field to 96.

How hard is that?