WWRD? Part I

As much as I have criticized things lately (just lately?) you would think I would have some constructive suggestions for college basketball.  I hinted at a couple of these in my post about a possible expansion to 96 teams but I think, in fairness to the inept NCAA powers that be, there are a couple things they could do that would improve the product.

Lose the Conference Tournaments
This should not be a surprise if you read the blog entry on 96 teams but what may surprise you is that I will fully admit that the conference tournaments have not been without their own entertaining "drama."  No one who follows the game will forget the 6OT war between Syracuse and UConn last year.  The Gophers own run through most of the Big Ten tournament ("most" because they didn't show up for the 2nd half of the title game against Ohio St) this year saved their "one and done" entry into the Big Dance.  For those of us old enough to remember, there was NC State's run through North Carolina and Virginia in the ACC conference tournament in 1983 on the way to their classic upset of Houston in the NCAA title game.  And the North Carolina/Virginia title game in the 1982 ACC Tournament will always be the "Four Corners" game which brought the advent of the shot clock to college basketball after Dean Smith stalled the last twelve minutes of the game with a freshman named Michael Jordan on the court to beat Virginia.  Not very exciting but looking back, can you fathom stalling with the world's greatest basketball player on your team?  I know Virginia had Ralph Sampson but that's ridiculous!

Despite these and probably the other examples you are thinking of right now, it's time for the conference tournaments to go.  It is amazing to me that the powers that be in the NCAA continually discuss the sanctity of the regular season and how it should be protected IF (read: WHEN) the tournament expands to 96 teams when there is already something in existence that taints the regular season.  If a team can have an average regular season and still make the NCAA tournament with a good conference tournament run (see: Gophers, Minnesota) or can have a terrific regular season destroyed by an upset loss in their conference tournament (see Aggies, Utah State--25-2 regular season, ranked #22 at season end, lost in conference tournament, hello NIT) it makes you wonder what value the regular season really has.

When conferences like TSBE have absurd concepts like the double-bye (see earlier blog entry), it makes you wonder how much the conference really cares about the tournament.  When mid-major conferences have their title games scheduled a full week prior to Selection Sunday, it makes you wonder how much the NCAA cares about the conference tournaments (or the mid-major conferences for that matter).  Wait, that last one could be about money so let me amend that.  It makes you wonder how much the NCAA cares about the mid-major conferences unless they can squeeze a couple of extra bucks out of them.

The conference tournaments are a lot of Pomp, little Circumstance and a whole lot of nothing that not only invalidates the regular season in several instances every year but also taints the NCAA tournament by giving life to mediocre big schools at the expense of solid mid-major schools.  Plus, why is that teams make the tournament just because they feed off the SOS fallacy (see earlier blog entry--are you getting the hint you should be reading?) created by others in the conference just because they were able to beat them on a neutral court in a game that probably didn't matter to the "better" team because they most likely already had a spot locked up?

If you really want to come up with something that aids the selection process, you should replace the conference tournaments with a better concept.

To Be Continued--Part II:  Bracket Busters