Conference 7.286::sports_91

    
    > The NCAA will continue to squeeze the smaller conferences in favor of
    > the larger conferences.
    
    How many "smaller" conferences are there?  If the NCAA didn't squeeze
    them, they'd continue to proliferate as they have in the past,
    regardless of quality.  (Actually, didn't that minimum funding rule 
    pass this year, which will eliminate a lot of Division 1 basketball 
    teams?)
    
    > To make it interesting, they at least should seed the bottom level big
    > boy schools, like Nova, Tech and Purdue as #16's.  
    
    That would take away the advantage of holding a top seed, as there's
    not much argument that these teams are in general much tougher than
    most of the small-conference champions.
    
    I guess maybe because I'm not a college-hoops junkie, I'd prefer a
    return to the 32-team field, where smaller conference champs play off
    for a limited number of slots and larger conference losers go home.
    There's too damn many tournaments as it is, and I for one would like to
    see them get right at it on the first weekend.  I can live without the
    occasional near-upset (Georgetown-Princeton) that occurs once every
    hundred games, even though those few games have a certain romantic
    appeal...
    
    glenn
    
    

JD... I agree about Fordham, I think they got shafted. I only saw them
play once this year (I think it was against St. Francis, who is going to
the tourney). I thought they were playing some good ball.

But all in all, I thought the selection committee did a pretty good job.
In fact, quite a few `regulars' that are now on probation - Kentucky,
Missouri, Houston, Illinois - made some room for some teams that
probably wouldn't have gone (and maybe don't deserve to) - New Mexico,
for instance.

Can you imagine the team Kentucky would have had this year? Four or five
of their players left. I know Sean Kemp went pro at age 19. He might
have stayed, and almost everybody else that took off ended up with
another team that's a contender. 

Mike JN

    
    I think that the best answer would be to make it an open tournement. It
    would only take one extra week, and it would end all of the controversy
    around who gets selected and who doesn't. Take a computer ranking of
    the college teams and seed them according to that. Everyone would have
    a fair shot and no one would complain.
    
    Dennis
    

    Going from 64 to 256 teams would only take an additional weekend, would
    split the wealth all the more and would help even out the process quite
    a bit.  Would it make any difference between who would have ended up as
    the 64 teams?  Probably not much.
    
    Until the NCAA picks my alma mater, my interest is only lukewarm
    anyway.
    
    John

    Normally anything Dick Vitale says goes in one of my ears and out the
    other, but on ESPN SportsCenter last night he had a proposal that I
    feel makes sense.  Dick's proposal is that a team must have at least a
    .500 record in conference play to make the NCAA tournament, the
    reasoning being if you can't win at least half the games in your own
    conference you don't deserve to go.  Seems reasonable to me...
    
    
    py

Well, I like the idea of putting everybody in, but I might be in a
minority. What I wouldn't like is to see quality teams playing an extra
2 or 3 games within a two or three day period. I think the fatigue
factor would be very noticeable by the time the last four teams were
ready to play at tournament's end, and affect the quality of the hoops.
If they could figure out a way to spread the games out (maybe these in
lieu of conference tourneys) it would probably be good for the game, and
allow smaller schools to get some exposure and showcase their athletes.

By the way, I checked on the Kentucky players I mentioned a few notes
ago:

Besides Shawn Kemp, who went to the Supersonics, there was

Chris Mills, who transferred to Arizona (Big Ten Champs).
Eric manuel, who transferred to Oklahoma City.
Sean Sutton, who transferred to Oklahoma State (Big Eight Co-Champs).

They'd have had a better than respectable team this year.

Mike JN

    If they don't allow everybody in, which would be great fun IMO, I 
    would like to see a rule pass where no conference could send more
    than 60% of its members to the tournament.  This year, that would
    be 5 Big East and ACC teams, and 6 each from the Big 10, PAC 10,
    and SEC.
    
    That would allow a deserving team like Fordham a chance to compete.
    
    I don't want to get started on the seedings - that would take an extra
    half hour, but just let me say Georgia should be a 16th seed, Villanova
    a 13th or so, Gerogretown 11 or 12, and Wake Forest 8 or 9, at best.
    
    NAZZ 

    Nazz,
    
    I like your idea - the 60% rule.  Personally I think the last few big
    conference teams make it due to prejudice by the selection committee.
    They look at say a Georgia Tech, with an All-Hype player in Kenny
    Anderson, at 16-12, and a Fordham, with nobody anyone knows about, at
    24-7 or so.  THey say "Tech".  Why??? Cause Tech is safe.  Tech is
    known.  THe selection committee, like the rest of the NCAA committee
    and hierarchy, is gutless.  
    
    JD

	Perhaps in the Tech-Fordham comparison, it was because Tech
	played and beat Fordham earlier this year in New York.

    re .9
    
    Your last sentence said it all JD.
    
    As for the Hoyas, I think that making the Finals of the BE tourny
    helped their position immensely. 
    
    And please note what happened to them - they got the 7 seed in the
    *west*. Which means that if they beat Vandy, they will probably play
    UNLV.
    
    You can be sure that the selection committee took that into account.
    Either the Hoyas upset the Rebs, or they beat them up so much in a
    half-court game, that it will perhaps soften up the Rebs for future
    opponents.

    I think Siena could have been overlooked, but they lost close games
    to Pitt and Virginia, among others.
    
    I have no interest in a 256 field tournament.  I don't want to see
    a UNLV-UNH (for example) first round game.  Some games would be
    interesting, but not those...
    
    -Walt

Yeah but Fordam beat Seton Hall, and two other teams that are going to the
show. Like a few earlier Tech got in cause of Kenny Anderson and their
affilation with the Almost CLOSE. That's why I thought without a doubt 
last week that the Hoyas would make it requardless of how they did in the
Big East. NCAA makes a bundle off TV, TV wants the premier teams the known
players etc. Also people who go to games and buy tickets want to go for the
most part and see players they know or have seen on the boobtube.

Cut the season back to 25 games and let everyone in with the first week
matchup's being at the homecourt of the stronger team....

mike

    I don't like the idea of a tournament winner getting the bid, instead
    of the regular season champ. This really only applies to smaller
    conferences, since a big conference will get several bids. Regular
    season winners have to play well during the whole year, not just get
    hot for a week. One way to make the tournament count for something is
    to have a playoff between the RS champ and the tourney winner, if
    there's only one bid up for grabs. Besides, this would be one more way
    for the NCAA to make a little more money, so I'm sure they'd like it...
    
    I like the 60% rule. For a conference like the Big East, the last couple 
    of games would have much more emphasis, since only a couple of wins 
    separated many of the teams.
    
    Tom

    Mark me down as another who likes the 60% rule. Actually,I would like
    to see a 4 team limit per conference. In conferences like the Big East
    and ACC which have essentially meaningless tournaments(Ok they play for
    No. 1 seeds) this is how I would select the four. Regular season champ
    and runnerup,plus tourney winner and runnerup get the bids. If there
    are teams that qualify for both,you then total up the combined
    performance from the two with a higher weighting on the regular season.
    
    In the Big East Syracuse,St Johns,Seton Hall and Georgetown would have
    qualified. In the ACC it would be Duke,UNC,Wake and either NCST or UVA.
    In the SEC,you would have had LSU,Alabama and Miss State. Georgia
    wouldn't deserve it,because they weren't in the top two in either the
    tourney or regular season. The Big Ten could have had its top 4 if so
    deserving.
    
    While this method would elicit just as many howls of protest as the
    current system,I think it is fairer and more interesting. The regular
    season is a farce! The 4-team limit would make conference games a lot
    more important instead of the joke they are.
    
    I just don't see anything interesting about letting teams like
    Pitt,Villanova,and Georgia Tech get another chance when they've proven
    time and again they are not deserving of a bid. I find it so obnoxious
    to hear coaches in the big conferences claim after their 17th win that
    they should be in the tournament.
    
    You should have to earn it. I would much rather see a lot of no-name
    conference champs play than also-rans form the big conferences.
    BTW,this doesn't mean that I don't think that the also rans will
    probably beat the smaller teams. I just think the NCAA tournament
    should be a tournament of champions,not bragging rights for a selected
    few.
    
    Of course this plan makes so much more sense than what they're
    currently doing,it hasn't a prayer of ever passing.
    
    JMHO

    
    RE:  118.11
    
    	You were correct in stating that if Georgetown beats Vanderbilt
    that they will meet UNLV in second round play(providing they get by
    Montana ;^)
    
    	But hey let's give credit to Virginia, who is the 7th seed in
    the West.  Georgetown is seeded 8th.   :*)
    
    
    Jim

    THe  selection committee, like the rest of the NCAA coimmittee
    

    Truly a note to be proud of MorT.
    
    Haw!
    
    
    - ACC Chris

    >THe selection committee, like the rest of the NCAA committee
    >is gutless.
    
    What's "gutless" is the welfare moochism inherent in your annual
    whiney diatribe.  Aren't you the same fellow who declaimed antiwar
    protests as vestigial 60s hippies.  WAKE UP CALL JD !!  Social worker
    Pyschology 101 moochy-moochy main are outta style too!
    
    Tell it: The selection process weighting system bends over backwards
    to allow in a bunch a worthless nobody (pseudo) Cinderella squads at
    the direct expense of far more deserving mid-pack big-time conference
    schools.  Tech beat Carolina in Cheapel Hell, Nova knocked over several
    tip-top squads, Gougetown went most a the season without their star.
    
    Meanwhile, Fordham and Skank Peter wiled away the year munching on
    sub-Cupcakes like Little Sisters of the Poor and East Central Institute
    of Toaster Repair.
    
    I agree with Waugaman that we should pare down to the top 32 (all from
    the top conferences if need be) and slam the door on the chumps.  Going
    to the field of 64 opened a crack in the door to weepy socialists like
    John Devlin, and purty soon he and other socialists like him will have
    the studly teams spotting 15 points and playing with leg weights on to
    give the mooches "a fair chance" and "a shot" and "fairness."
    
    Bah humbug on these politically correct selection criteria the socialist
    Devlin is crying for!
    
    It was the big-time schools who got screwed in this!
    
    THROW THE BUMS OUT!
    
    Big10 Tom
                                                        

    Mr T, which big-time schools got screwed, IYNSHO?

    HawHawHaw T - I'm roolward.  Classic note.   
    
    And T - the NCAA is about as gutless an organization as you cain get. 
    A bunch of wimpy namby-pamby's whored to TV money, too afraid to admit
    mistakes, too afraid to take a stand on anything, with skewed values,
    archaic rules, and miles of bureacratic waste.
    
    
    Haw Haw Haw T-bee.  You just skart that Mighty Bob's team of Hoosiers
    might get beat again by one of them little sisters of the poor.
    
    Richmond Spiders.  California Golden Bears.  And now - Coastal
    Carolina.
    
    Hawhawhaw.
    
    JD

    Oh yeah, T, and Glenn, I'd rather see the tourney go back to 32.  And
    have the NIT mean something again.
    
    JD

>   <<< Note 118.17 by ANGLIN::SHAUGHNESSY "ACCrisp: MaleHumanAlumnusSlut" >>>
>
>    THe  selection committee, like the rest of the NCAA coimmittee
>

For the record.

I guess we're doing more cough syrup...

TTom

    
    Look at it this way.  Has the best team in the country, according to
    anyone's standard, ever been left out of the initial 64 teams in
    the tounament?
    
    I don't think so.  Pretty much all of the teams that anyone could pick
    as the "best in the country" is somewhere in that 64.  Increasing the
    feild just gives loose cannons and wild cards a "chance" and increases
    the probability that the best teams will be "upset."
    
    Is that the goal, or is the goal to crown the "best team in the
    country?"  I say we have a pretty good, not perfect, system of picking
    teams, and if we do anything, we should decrease the starting field.
    
    SEAN/BEER=LABATTS

    The way the teams get ranked and selected for NCAA glory somewhat
    ensures that the little guys stay little.  The big guns are reluctant
    to play the small schools during the regular season because they aren't
    as big a draw and it would wreak havoc on their poll position should
    they get beaten.  Many don't want to take the risk.  By opening up the
    NCAA tournament to the smaller conferences, we may not see an upset in
    the making, but rather an approach to the natural order of things.
    
    FWIW, Judy Conradt, coach of the Texas Lady Longhorns, gave just this
    reasoning when asked why Texas doesn't schedule schools like Stephen F.
    Austin.

 Jeez Mac, that exactly what Lefty said and he's got the letters to
 prove it...hahahahaaa

 John, for the record I think big name schools like Providence and
 Winsconsin got screwed. Heck you could even make a case for BC and
 Michigan if you wanted too...

 While Michigan and BC are a reach I would rate Prov and the Badgers
 amoungst the best 64 in the land...

 mike

    BC at 1-15 in the Big East and 12-16 (or thereabouts overall) got
    screwed?  Mike, have you been doing too many Sportshrooms (tm)?
    
    John

    Put me down as one who doesn't like the 60% proposal.  It reminds me
    of the Gramm-Rudman and congressional term limitation laws.  You're
    trying to protect yourself from yourself.  "I can't make a right
    decision, so I'll put something in place to do it for me".
    
    I also agree with T.  If anything, small schools are given way too many
    spots in the tourny.  The last place teams in some of the large
    conferences could probably beat the St. Weenies and Wisconsin-Green
    Bays.  
    
    Pete

    Pete,
    
    Small school spots are getting less spots.  Some conferences have lost
    automatic bids - and have to play the winner of other conferences in
    order to get a bid.   The NCAA is moving towards letting only the big
    conferences play.   Can't use 'big school' - since that implies student
    population.  Northeastern is considered a small school, yet has a
    larger student population than St. John's, Providence, BC, etc..
    
    The NCAA has created this problem.  In their never-ending greedquest
    (TM) for TV bucks, they've expanded to 64 teams - and have just about
    killed the NIT.   
    
    I'd rather the NCAA go back to 32, announce it's only for certain
    conferences (or some other criteria) - then restructure their Division
    set up - and make the NIT be a meaningful champeenship tourney for the
    smaller conferences and independents.  
    
    Would solve a lot of problems, and they'd be two exciting, meaningful
    champeenship tourneys.  Of course - the NCAA will NEVER do this, cause
    they might lose some bucks to the NIT in some markets.  
    
    Take the 64 teams that made the tourney.  Cut it down to two good
    tourneys:
    
    NCAA:			NIT:
    
    EAST
    
    UNC				Princeton
    Syracuse			Richmond
    UCLA			SO. Mississippi
    Okla. State			Northeastern
    Purdue			New Mexico
    Miss. State			Eastern Michigan
    NC State			Temple *
    Villanova			Penn State *
    
    You could do that throughout the tourney.  The * marks teams that I
    wouldn't allow in my new order NIT - unless the Atlantic 10 was
    designated a small conference.  Penn State, as part of the Big10,
    wouldn't qualify.
    
    Of course, they'd be some additions to the NIT from this year's NIT,
    and possibly a few ommissions to the NCAA, but I'd like to see
    something like it....
    
    JD

    JD -
    
    I like your idea in principle but I see some problems with the
    implementation.
    
    It would be hard to designate the Atlantic 10 as a small conference
    eligible only for the NIT since schools like Rutgers and Temple have
    shown through the years that they can compete and compete well with the
    more well known conferences.  Of course the fact that my alma mater is
    a member of that conference has absolutely nothing whatever to do with
    that.  :-)
    
    Call me a sentimentalist, but I think the Ivy League champ should be in
    the NCAA as well if for no other reason that to demonstrate that true
    student-athletes can compete on that level.
    
    Finally, if a so-called small conference has an outstanding team then
    that team should be given the opportunity to compete on the highest
    level.  A team such as East Tennessee State or the great Northeastern
    teams of the eighties has certainly shown it can compete - it may not
    win, but it is competitive.  A small conference cannot and should not
    be doomed to the second tier forever -  if it improves and gets good
    then its representative should get invited - otherwise it will never
    get good because no good players will go to a school that has no chance
    to compete for the title.
    
    Overall, I think you're on the right track but one final thought is
    that Division 1 in basketball will always be bigger than Division 1 in
    football since it's easier (ie, cheaper) to build a good basketball
    team than a good football team.
    
    John

                                  
    Keep in mind that the "NCAA" consists of none other than the member 
    schools that we are saying are getting screwed/benefited, and any are 
    free to vote for change or leave the organization if they please.  
    Any changes in the tournament format have come from the very schools 
    who stood to benefit from them.  This isn't to say that there aren't 
    big/small school voting blocs, because there are, but that greedy,
    monstrous organization known as the NCAA certainly isn't an autonomous
    corporation that is setting prey and sponging off the schools, either.  
    It *is* the schools.  If the schools can't get along in how they divvy 
    up the spoils, they themselves are responsible.
    
    glenn