NCAA Tourney is fun, but...

C

CAARHawk

Banned
It's a silly way to determine the best team and it kind of cheapens the game. Basketball is just too easily influenced by one night of poor shooting, unfamiliarity with a gimmicky system, or questionable officiating.

The NBA system is so much better for determining the best team and it isn't even close. College hoops' post-season is good for betting and the excitiement of both a chance of upset and single-elimination.
 




It takes six games to win. Each team faces different styles in those games. The best team normally wins. No problem with NCAA champion. Logically, one has to say it's better than the way the football championship is decided.

The NBA sucks although the latter rounds in the playoffs can be entertaining at times even though its playoffs are drawn out over 37 weeks.
 


The NCAA tournament is an outstanding way to determine a championship. You have to win six consecutive games against quality opponents. There are no nights off. There are no tomorrows. If you lose a game because of one bad call then you should have played better and not be in a position for one call to kill your chances. It is absolutely the best championship event in sport.
 


Determining the "best team" in any sports league is fuzzy, at best. The very fact that playoffs are at the end the season tells you that you're not necessarily going to get the best team, you're going to get the team that is playing the best at the end of the season (sometimes those are the same things, sometimes they aren't).

So, you already know going in that you're not going to have a perfect system for deciding "the best".

Best of 5 or best of 7 probably gives you a little better correlation between playoff winner & best team, but logistically that is basically impossible to pull off at the collegiate level.

At the end of the day, is the best team in America always going to be crowned champion? Heck no. Sometimes it'll happen that way, other times not. But for me, as a fan/viewer, I've learned to accept the fun of watching the tournament and enjoying all the crazy upsets is worth more to me than making sure the best team wins the championship.
 


DuffMan said:
The NCAA tournament is an outstanding way to determine a championship. You have to win six consecutive games against quality opponents. There are no nights off. There are no tomorrows. If you lose a game because of one bad call then you should have played better and not be in a position for one call to kill your chances. It is absolutely the best championship event in sport.
Click to expand...

I think "quality opponents" is open to interpretation. Your greater point - that you have to win 6 in a row - is the key here.
 


DuffMan said:
The NCAA tournament is an outstanding way to determine a championship. You have to win six consecutive games against quality opponents. There are no nights off. There are no tomorrows. If you lose a game because of one bad call then you should have played better and not be in a position for one call to kill your chances. It is absolutely the best championship event in sport.
Click to expand...

It's the most entertaining. Not the best. The NBA, MLB, and NHL have the best system.
 


I still enjoy the NCAA tournament and its win or go home style. My issue with it is the overall quality of play has fallen so far over the past 20-25 years, its unrecognizable from what it once was. I miss the days when Final 4 teams were filled with future NBA players.

Its lose or go home style means the best teams don't always win the championship or even make it to the Final 4 but that is the name of the game. Everyone has a fighter's chance.

But I do agree with the original poster that the NBA has a better method of determining the best team. Upsets may happen for 1 game but the better team recovers and goes on to win the series (last year's NBA finals).
 


Xerxes said:
I still enjoy the NCAA tournament and its win or go home style. My issue with it is the overall quality of play has fallen so far over the past 20-25 years, its unrecognizable from what it once was. I miss the days when Final 4 teams were filled with future NBA players.

Its lose or go home style means the best teams don't always win the championship or even make it to the Final 4 but that is the name of the game. Everyone has a fighter's chance.

But I do agree with the original poster that the NBA has a better method of determining the best team. Upsets may happen for 1 game but the better team recovers and goes on to win the series (last year's NBA finals).
Click to expand...

I agree & disagree at the same time. While I also miss getting to see a sneak peak at this year's NBA draft, I don't know if you can say the "overall quality of play has fallen so far". I think you're still seeing really high quality ball, it's just not being played by quite the same talent level. But it's not as though you are watching a bunch of schmucks who can't convert a 3 on 2 or are dribbling off their feet, etc.

Maybe we are both saying the same thing, but I'm just saying I don't mind it as much...?

While I can understand it from a business perspective, I do miss seeing the best players in the world filtering through the NCAA ranks...I still think college ball is a lot of fun though, because it's still very competitive as the impact of the NBA affects all teams equally.
 


It's a tournament and the winner is the "tournament champion" . I think that is lost in the frenzy. If the tournament went back to only conference champions as qualifiers in a double elimination format you might overcome what the topic covers. In one way that did happen. I do not remember the years anymore, but when two Big Ten teams tied for the league title they determined the NCAA qualifier with a playoff game. I seem to remember Iowa and Ohio State tied and met with OSU winning.

The one thing that strikes me most is that teams made up of juniors and seniors are doing better. Michigan is the outlier here, but looking at Syracuse and Wichita State rosters they would be older than most Big Ten teams. Indiana's and OSU's youth caught up with them in the elite 8 games.
 






There is no perfect system. The NHL is probably the best because if you take a second off in that sport you will get your head taken off. It is the most unbiased sport on the planet and one in which "home ice" really has no bearing.

The NCAA tournament is a great sporting event because everything is on the line every time teams step on the court. Some can play without hesitation, but others don't. I love the tournament because it provides entertainment, it stinks that I wait for it so long and come and go so quickly.

The best teams don't always win, not in any sport. There were many years in the NBA that they best teams didn't win, but the outcomes were determined by officiating, it is just part of sports. The teams with the best records are not always the best teams, we all know this, if that were the case then postseason would just be a formality and teams like the Seattle Mariners, who set the record for wins in a season, wouldn't get swept by the Yankees in the first round and crumble into a pile of dog crap since. Competition is something that doesn't always yield predictable results, otherwise the brackets would be easy to predict.
 


tm3308 said:
It's the most entertaining. Not the best. The NBA, MLB, and NHL have the best system.
Click to expand...

LOL, the NBA and NHL post seasons are designed to make revenue not determine the best team. That's why half the league gets into the post season and all the series are multiple games. The NCAA tournament is essence a six game playoff series featuring 68 teams and all games are sudden death. It's simple and awesome.

Aren't you supposed to be a sportswriter?
 


DuffMan said:
LOL, the NBA and NHL post seasons are designed to make revenue not determine the best team. That's why half the league gets into the post season and all the series are multiple games. The NCAA tournament is essence a six game playoff series featuring 68 teams and all games are sudden death. It's simple and awesome.

Aren't you supposed to be a sportswriter?
Click to expand...

It is absolutely designed to maximize revenue. See the NBA moving 1st round playoff series from best of 5 to best of 7 a few years back and having the NBA finals a 2-3-2 home format over the much more equal 2-2-1-1-1 format used prior to the finals.

However the best of 7 format takes upsets out of the equation and forces teams to truly prove which one is better.
 


DuffMan said:
LOL, the NBA and NHL post seasons are designed to make revenue not determine the best team. That's why half the league gets into the post season and all the series are multiple games. The NCAA tournament is essence a six game playoff series featuring 68 teams and all games are sudden death. It's simple and awesome.

Aren't you supposed to be a sportswriter?
Click to expand...

NHL playoffs are by far the best postseason in all of sports. In a best of 7 series, the best team will prevail. An underdog my win a series in the beginning, but they're not going win 4 of them. I feel that the NBA is one round too long, but in the end a team in either league will have to win 16 games to be crowned champion.
 




The NBA playoffs determine the best team. The NCAA tournament is an entertaining event that produces a lot of revenue for the NCAA, it doesn't determine who is the best team.
 


hawkfan33 said:
The NBA playoffs determine the best team. The NCAA tournament is an entertaining event that produces a lot of revenue for the NCAA, it doesn't determine who is the best team.
Click to expand...

They both do. A team that wins 6 games in a row in a single elimination tournament is clearly the best in the field.

Likewise, a team in the NHL or NBA that wins 4 best of 7 series in a row is the best in that league.
 


ShadasRevenge said:
They both do. A team that wins 6 games in a row in a single elimination tournament is clearly the best in the field.

Likewise, a team in the NHL or NBA that wins 4 best of 7 series in a row is the best in that league.
Click to expand...

No a single elimination tournament certainly does not prove who is clearly the best.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.


Latest posts

Share this page






Top