Sheesh, that game.
On the one hand, we set basketball back about fifty years when we got stuck in the First Four and then put in a more than respectable showing against ND in Brooklyn. On the other hand, those looked like two terrible teams that didn’t need to be in this tournament. Sure looked like two of the committee’s last picks are just bad teams. Ugly game.
Feels like the First Four is already losing whatever luster it had. At least for me personally, it was fun when it first started, getting to see teams battling it out to make the tournament. The appetizer I would say.
Maybe it’s just this year, but for two close games it seemed like yawners as a fan.
I hear you, not sure if it’s just the teams or the format not being new anymore. It certainly was more exciting, say, that year when Dayton was in the First Four. I thought it was massively unfair, but it was still pretty darn exciting.
I find it ridiculous that 16 seeds are included in the First Four. They won their conference to earn a bid to the NCAA tourney and then one of them will go home after playing in a small arena in front of 2000 fans against some other random ass team.
Apparently the first four was started with the creation of new conferences (and thus more auto bids being required). So they didn’t want to reduce the number of at larges, so that resulted in the play in.
In that context, I think it makes sense.
Completely agree, those kids on the 15 & 16 line deserve the REAL dance. I concede it’s nice that they’re given one extra night in the spotlight, since normally even above average b-ball fans have never seen them play. But I think all conference tourney winners deserve a shot at Goliath.
If they insist on these play-in games, I’d rather see the “first four out” and “last four in” battle it out.
Seems like when they increased it to 68 teams it would’ve been the perfect time to stop putting auto bids in the first four.
I agree. The First Four isn’t really the tournament, in my opinion. It is an opportunity “play in” to the tournament. The First Four isn’t the “Big Dance,” it’s a rather little dance for the opportunity to get into the “Big Dance.” Now, do these teams BELONG in the tournament? I don’t know, but IF by winning their conference’s auto bid the NCAA believes they should be included in the tournament, then the invitation really ought to be to the “Big Dance” not the little one, the “play in.” I agree with “Chip” above, the “play in” should involve the “last four out” vs. the “last four in.”
I don’t mind all the D-1 conferences being represented, but I’d rather the committee decide on the representative from all the one-bid conferences. It’ll never happen, though, since their tournament championship games are the only time these teams have a chance to be on national TV prior to the Big Dance.
My ideal scenario is that the regular season champ gets the automatic bid. They deserve it more than the single elimination tournament champion. I don’t think the mid majors have the severe schedule imbalance we deal with because there’s not 14 teams in mid major conferences. Most can play a true home and away round robin schedule. So the regular season champ is probably going to be a better team than whoever wins the conference tourney. Better mid major teams in the tournament should be more upsets.
Tourney champs should get the auto bid to the NIT. It would absolutely hurt the hoopla around conference tourneys. Which means it’ll never happen.
They can do that if they want to. Ivy League used to always do that.
I believe each conference determines who gets its autobid. Also, while I agree that all autobids should get to play Thursday or Friday, one benefit of the current method is that upsets are more likely because you have better teams at the low seed lines – i.e., two teams that would have been 15 seeds are now 16 seeds, two teams that would have been 14 seeds are now 15 seeds, etc.
But they’d probably be more likely to beat a 2 seed than a 1 seed. If there were no play ins featuring 16 seeds, a bunch of seeds would bump up a seed, meaning they’d be more likely to upset others in the first round
Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re saying. Maybe I was confusing by writing “low seed lines”? The current system, which has four 16-seeds play in the First Four, means that seeds 16 through 12 will be better – because you’ve taken out two of the worst two teams and replaced them with better teams – which makes it more likely that they will upset the teams seeded 1 through 5.
Ok, that’s got to be my worst bracket ever.
Slept in to deal with a sudden deep chest cough and a stomach bug (yay) and just made the picks in a stupor, realizing I had ten minutes to tip, lol.
I swear to goodness, I’ve been 99th percentile plus 2 of the last 3 years and top 14k in the country when Duke won the NC. I’m guessing lots of us end up near that high, though (at least the 99+), judging from what I read at mgoblog after last year’s tournament. I do have the screen caps to prove that 2 of the last 3 years have been good. We’ll see how this stupor bracket does.
We haven’t really discussed UVA’s loss of Hunter, have we? I’m sick over it. Well, I’m sick, but that makes me feel sicker. What a loss. He brought something completely unique to that team. I really thought they could do some damage for once, but he may be too hard to replace. I wish he were in this tournament. They deserve a chance to bring their whole team after their season.
You’re right it’s so much fairer, but as much as champ week is about the money, it’s also totally freaking bonkers and pretty awesome. Great for us, not fair to the kids, I suppose.
The league tournaments are revenue streams and are here for the long haul. Not sure what they accomplish by beating the hell out of each other a week before the real tournament. I’m glad Michigan won the last two but it doesn’t seem to carry any weight with the committee. I suppose it does offer the option to improve the seating…but also hurts teams!
Is it my imagination or does Trae Young walk about a mile without getting called for a travel?
I don’t know that a conference tournament is a fair system to determine who gets an automatic bid, but I’m also not so sure that basing it off the regular season is better. Take this season in the Big Ten, did MSU, with playing Michigan, Purdue and OSU only one time (including two of the three at home) really deserve the automatic bid? If scheduling could align (IE - Everyone plays twice) I would agree that the regular season champion should get priority. Also, I think the smaller tournaments where it’s win or get in have done a nice job giving a heavy advantage to the top regular season teams to compensate for this. The Horizon this year had a pretty cool way of giving the top teams an advantage. So I get the point but it’s hard when schedules aren’t apples to apples, and ultimately we’re a tournament based society. A tournament to determine the automatic bid is really no better than a single elimination, 68 team tournament to determine a national champion, but I think we can all agree it’s pretty damn entertaining that way.
Gonzaga in a big time battle. Uncg’s guards are abusing the zags guards off the bounce.