2008 Woodie Awards
Too much emphasis on tourney
Patrick Murray
Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: Sports
With Selection Sunday just a month from this Sunday, the Miami University men's basketball team finds itself in sixth place in the Mid-American Conference. Perhaps, the good news for RedHawk fans is that their team is not in first.
For the last four seasons of MAC conference play, the regular season champion of the conference has failed to win the conference tournament. This has denied the regular season champion a place in the NCAA Tournament over that span of time, as the only representative for the MAC in those four seasons has been the team with the automatic bid-the team that wins the MAC Tournament.
To put that span of time in perspective, the last time that a MAC regular season champion played in the NCAA Tournament was in 2003 when the Central Michigan University Chippewas lost in the second round to a Duke University team featuring first-year J.J. Redick, who scored 26 points.
The current system unacceptably diminishes the importance of the regular season for the 19 conferences that did not receive any at large bids last year. For teams in these conferences, the only games in the season that have any direct effect on whether or not the team will make an NCAA Tournament appearance are the games played in the various conference tournaments. In all likelihood, no matter how good of a season many of the teams in the nation have, the question of entrance into the Big Dance is decided in one weekend. For the last four years, this has been the case for the MAC and thus for Miami.
In the long run, this is a situation that the NCAA will need to address. Increased parity and the potential for upsets of traditional power conference teams are good for the game and thus good for the NCAA.
Additionally, the administrators would clearly be enticed by the extra publicity and money that would go into an expansion of the tournament.
So, if an expansion of the NCAA Tournament is likely in the not-so-distant future, the question then becomes what is the best way to go about such an expansion. My friend and fellow radio show host Mike Cohen has suggested (with varying levels of sincerity) the most radical approach that one could take-simply letting all 300 plus Division-I teams into the tournament. This has two things going for it: 1) it gives every team a chance to win and 2) it would be incredibly exciting.
For the last four seasons of MAC conference play, the regular season champion of the conference has failed to win the conference tournament. This has denied the regular season champion a place in the NCAA Tournament over that span of time, as the only representative for the MAC in those four seasons has been the team with the automatic bid-the team that wins the MAC Tournament.
To put that span of time in perspective, the last time that a MAC regular season champion played in the NCAA Tournament was in 2003 when the Central Michigan University Chippewas lost in the second round to a Duke University team featuring first-year J.J. Redick, who scored 26 points.
The current system unacceptably diminishes the importance of the regular season for the 19 conferences that did not receive any at large bids last year. For teams in these conferences, the only games in the season that have any direct effect on whether or not the team will make an NCAA Tournament appearance are the games played in the various conference tournaments. In all likelihood, no matter how good of a season many of the teams in the nation have, the question of entrance into the Big Dance is decided in one weekend. For the last four years, this has been the case for the MAC and thus for Miami.
In the long run, this is a situation that the NCAA will need to address. Increased parity and the potential for upsets of traditional power conference teams are good for the game and thus good for the NCAA.
Additionally, the administrators would clearly be enticed by the extra publicity and money that would go into an expansion of the tournament.
So, if an expansion of the NCAA Tournament is likely in the not-so-distant future, the question then becomes what is the best way to go about such an expansion. My friend and fellow radio show host Mike Cohen has suggested (with varying levels of sincerity) the most radical approach that one could take-simply letting all 300 plus Division-I teams into the tournament. This has two things going for it: 1) it gives every team a chance to win and 2) it would be incredibly exciting.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
a26dave
Dave Moore
posted 2/16/08 @ 9:06 AM EST
The best solution is to take the winners of the best record of each conference regular season. Then the winner of the conference tournament if the school with the best regular season is defeated during the conference tournament. (Continued…)
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