Then again, some of us loved their tourney run.
I enjoyed Northwestern State's as well.
Iowa, the bubble, and Liberty
- Thread starter iowamike21
- Start date
I enjoyed Northwestern State's as well.
Then take that up with the conferences... They control whether its the season or tournament champion.
SamBrownlee48
Well-Known Member
Getting rid of automatic qualifiers for small schools would not make the tourney any better. In fact, it would harm its image because every year there is always a small school or two that makes a run or plays spoiler.
I get that Liberty hasn't done much to deserve the invite except win the Podunk League Championship Tournament. But when we are talking about whether the Podunk champs or the bottom half of a BCS conference, it just doesn't matter that much. In that case, I think the better course is to give the little guy a chance instead of the 7th or 8th best team in the B1G who have already had multiple chances and squandered them.
I get that Liberty hasn't done much to deserve the invite except win the Podunk League Championship Tournament. But when we are talking about whether the Podunk champs or the bottom half of a BCS conference, it just doesn't matter that much. In that case, I think the better course is to give the little guy a chance instead of the 7th or 8th best team in the B1G who have already had multiple chances and squandered them.
ssckelley
Well-Known Member
As another poster said it is up to the conferences, the Ivy League still awards their bid to its regular season champ. It will never happen as these conferences need money and they do generate some TV revenue for playing these tournaments.
rodthompson
Well-Known Member
You can't have it both ways. You can't need conference tournaments to try and build your resume and then say it's not fair when an underdog wins one. Nobody here would have ever complained if Iowa had won the BTT in '02 when they didn't deserve the bid.
ameshawkeye
Well-Known Member
Yeah you could, considering the conferences control how they reward their auto-bid. They don't all have to agree.
rodthompson
Well-Known Member
So basically you want all the small conferences to reward their bid to the season winner and the big conferences to have their tournaments so they can get more teams in? Not going to happen. If small conferences are not going to be considered at all why bother even involving them in the process?
ameshawkeye
Well-Known Member
I don't "want" anything. My point is that each conference can decide what they want to do, its not one big decision. If the smaller perennial 1-bid leagues really wanted their best teams in the tournament, they would choose their regular season champions, like the Ivy League.
I'm not sure what you are even talking about with your last sentence.
Don't hate the player hate the game. That's the way the tournament's been for quite a while and it's part of what makes March Madness and the NCAA's so great.
Liberty knew they had a bad season, manned up and won the whole damn conference tournament. Maybe instead of complaining about other teams taking care of business and earning their bid the hard way, you should buy a ticket and support your team so it can do the same?
tm3308
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I can, because its apples and oranges. How you perform in a conference tourney should impact your worthiness of making the Dance. But winning 4 games in a row shouldn't get a 15-20 team in automatically. That's garbage. If they were a bubble team and knocked off a ranked team in their conference before getting beaten, that's one thing. But they were nowhere near the bubble.
Let's assume for a moment that the Big South and Big Ten both awarded their auto bids to the regular season champs.
Iowa wins 2-3 games, and gets over the hump because they picked up another quality win or two before losing. Just like we're all saying and hearing they need to do.
Liberty wins the whole thing and gets left out because a 15-20 has no business being in the tournament.
Winning a conference tournament does not mean you deserve a bid. The ONLY reason conferences choose to do that is because without that prize at the end, conference tournaments would be rendered irrelevant (and therefore wouldn't bring in the kind of money they do currently).
I'm not asking to have it both ways. If everyone gave the regular season champ the bid, teams would still have the chance to pick up a couple wins to get them over the hump in a conference tourney. But it would keep the garbage teams that don't deserve bids (Liberty) out.
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Seth53
Well-Known Member
And as BTR asked me....(BTW I happen to very much agree with the premise only a regular-season champ should get an auto bid)....what do you do in the event of a multi-team tie in the regular season? Tiebreakers to pick only one?....head to head, points scored, etc?
tm3308
Well-Known Member
That's exactly what you do. In many cases, both teams would get in anyway. I'd rather rob a 20+ win team of an auto bid through a tie breaker with another 20+ win team, than rob a 20+ win team in favor of a 20-loss team. At least then the team that gets in over you was equally as worthy.
blubberhawk
Well-Known Member
I think you mean Iowa should move the the Big 12. They could have gone about 18-2 in that p***y league.
ISU would be making plans for the NIT had they played in a real league this year.
The Big 12 won one game out of nine against the BIG this year:
Included in those losses were:
Baylor lost at home to Northwestern. (11th place in the BIG) Somehow Baylor is on the Frickin Bubble. You must be kidding.
ISU lost to Iowa by 9. ISU finishes about 9th in the BIG this year.
K-St. got blew out by Michigan
TCU lost to Northwestern by 24.
West Virginia lost to Purdue by 27
Texas got pounded by MSU
Kansas (who will win the Big 12 for infinity because the rest of the league sucks) salvaged a win against OSU but lost to MSU.
ssckelley
Well-Known Member
True but that means someone is willing to pay for it, which means there is interest in it. I am a big college basketball fan but you put a regular season game of FIU vs W Kentucky on TV I would never watch it, but I might watch FIU vs W Kentucky playing for a bid into the NCAA tournament. A 15-20 Liberty team winning their conference tournament and playing in the NCAA tournament is a neat story, I may even watch a few minutes of their first round game just to see how they do. This is what March Madness is all about, at the conference tournament level some under dog making their way in or in the NCAA tournament a VCU/Butler/George Mason getting to the Final Four. March Madness is all about the Cinderella, it is why people keep watching the games even if their team is not in it or gets knocked out.
When the NCAA expanded to 65 teams and made 2 of the lowest mid majors play in I thought it was great and I hoped to see more of that but when they expanded to 68 they matched the last 4 in, "bubble teams", against each other probably for additional TV revenue. I would rather they add more teams to the tournament but make the low majors play their way in via the 15/16 seeds. It would add more of these "bubble teams", who have proved they belong in the tournament, and could even make the 1/16 game and 2/15 game more competitive.
Well it would be nice if the tourny was actuall the BEST 68 teams, not some joker teams that got lucky at the right time.
Got to LOVE clueless Clown comments.
blubberhawk
Well-Known Member
Yup, it's funny reading comments from clown fans about the Missouri Valley Conference.
How has ISU been doing against UNI lately??
Answer: UNI has been kicking ISU's *** on a regular basis.
Seth53
Well-Known Member
Well said. I agree.
Just hope the NCAA BB world never ever ever goes the way of the FB BCS world (cheapening the entire process to the point it's ridiculous).
