New Tournament Guidelines

[FriscoFriend]

ESPN has posted new guidelines the tournament committee will use to seed teams. There are 2 areas of change, one which could effect the Shockers and one which could effect an at-large MVC Tournament team.

(1) There will b flexibility in moving the #2 seed out of a Region if the #1 seed is in the same region. The article uses Wisconsin as an example of how that could have happened this last year as they could have had to face Kentucky in the Regional final. I see this potentially affecting the Shockers in a positive way as in recent years many of the better teams are stacked in the Midwest Region. Bottom line, if I understood the article correctly, if the Shockers were the top #2 seed and were in the same Region as the top #1 seed, the committee could move them to another Region.

(2) The other change is more complicated to explain, but basically allows the committee flexibility in moving around the teams that go to Dayton in the play-in round. On the surface I see this possibly being detrimental to the an MVC team since it's not in a power conference. I encourage any of you that are interested to read the article and form your own opinion.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/13288851/ncaa-tweaks-first-four-rule-ncaa-tournament-selection-process

Bob Hoover
Go Shocks

[Heinro]

The first rule is good. The second rule, I'm not really sure how much affect it will have. They already seeded the teams 1-68, the last 4 of which are placed in Dayton, so now they are going to take a second look at them to make sure that they seeded 60-68 right the first time? Doesn't seem to make much, if any, difference if you ask me. It is slightly concerning if you have a mid-major complex and are afraid that they seeded Ole Miss 65, then realized that they seeded ISUr 64 and just switch the two, but I really don't see that happening. To me it basically looks like a bracketing situation to help them avoid issues with other bracketing principles.

Also, at the bottom of the article the author mentions not addressing the UConn possibility. How exactly are they supposed to address that? One of the last at-large teams will get bumped out to Dayton. Simple as that; not sure what needs addressed under that scenario.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

I've never really understood why the play-in round, or first four, include the final at-large teams. If the teams are properly seeded, shouldn't the 15 seeds play the 16 seeds in the first four? Instead,you have some #11 seeds playing for their tournament lives? Why? If those #11s have been properly seeded, they are four seed lines better than the worst 8 teams in the field. This makes no sense to me.

[ShockerEngineer]

I've never really understood why the play-in round, or first four, include the final at-large teams. If the teams are properly seeded, shouldn't the 15 seeds play the 16 seeds in the first four? Instead,you have some #11 seeds playing for their tournament lives? Why? If those #11s have been properly seeded, they are four seed lines better than the worst 8 teams in the field. This makes no sense to me.

I did some research about the play in games that involve the 11-12 seed range, and the best explanation I could find was that they wanted to encourage people to watch and thought nothing but games involving 16 seeds would be too boring.

[Cdizzle]

I've never really understood why the play-in round, or first four, include the final at-large teams. If the teams are properly seeded, shouldn't the 15 seeds play the 16 seeds in the first four? Instead,you have some #11 seeds playing for their tournament lives? Why? If those #11s have been properly seeded, they are four seed lines better than the worst 8 teams in the field. This makes no sense to me.

I've never understood why teams that EARN a bid to the tourney are made to play in the play-in round.

If you only managed to go 19-12 and didn't win your league's auto-bid and you STILL somehow were gifted a bid, get in line at Greyhound for a ticket to Dayton.

Or, you know, we could just go back to 64 teams.

[Kung Wu]

This article does a much better job of explaining that now the "first four" teams can be included in the "scrubbing" process, where the committee works it's way from team #1 all the way down to team #68 (previously #64). The last four teams included in the tournament selection were automatically "first four" and could no longer be compared to other teams in the field.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2015-07-20/ncaa-adjusts-process-selecting-first-four-participants

What that says to me is, they recognize that they might have a "Ross Perot" effect going on. For example the committee could be deciding between 3 candidates for the final 64th spot, and one of the contenders is potentially siphoning votes away from the "obvious" winner, causing them to both lose and a third contender to get included in the top 64 that otherwise shouldn't be there. And without being able to review the decision on a head-to-head basis, the team that snuck into the top 64 (that shouldn't be there), can never be relegated back to where they would belong in a heads up vote.

Now it's a little more complicated than that, because they 1) vote for eight teams to join the last 8 spots (but not in order), then they 2) vote to rank the last 8 spots and the top four are seeded, the bottom for are the "first four" -- and this is where the "Ross Perot" effect could enter. After this, the teams are then "scrubbed" to make sure they are ranked (and seeded) properly. However the top 64 cannot be relegated down to the "first four" status -- so those "first four" teams never get a chance to move up. That is now fixed.

Another example of how it could happen: Let's say Team A loses to Team B three times (twice at home and once in the conference tournament), but Team A has quite a bit better record overall than Team B. When voting on eight teams at a time, it's quite possible that Team A makes position 64, while Team B sits at position 65 -- because the committee was emphasizing the Win/Loss records when they voted. But after a microscope is placed on those two teams from a head-to-head comparison, it might be awkward to agree that Team B (who beat Team A 3x this season), should be positioned lower than Team A.

As the rule stands, that microscopic comparison isn't allowed to happen with the "first four" teams. Now it is.

[wufan]

I've never understood why teams that EARN a bid to the tourney are made to play in the play-in round.

If you only managed to go 19-12 and didn't win your league's auto-bid and you STILL somehow were gifted a bid, get in line at Greyhound for a ticket to Dayton.

Or, you know, we could just go back to 64 teams.

100% agree with this! The play in teams should be the last at-large qualifiers.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

100% agree with this! The play in teams should be the last at-large qualifiers.

Except when teams win the regular season conference title, lose in the conference tourney, and then get shafted by the committee by being a last four in. When a team gets lucky and wins the conference tournament, such as what's happened in the MVC relatively frequently, why should that team have an advantage in the NCAA tournament over the team that actually wins the regular season title?

[wufan]

Except when teams win the regular season conference title, lose in the conference tourney, and then get shafted by the committee by being a last four in. When a team gets lucky and wins the conference tournament, such as what's happened in the MVC relatively frequently, why should that team have an advantage in the NCAA tournament over the team that actually wins the regular season title?

Reasonable response. Why have a conference tournament though? Why not just award it to the conference champion?

[FlyingWheat]

Reasonable response. Why have a conference tournament though? Why not just award it to the conference champion?

1. $$$$
2. By that logic, are NCAA tournament champs just ones that got lucky? why not just go to a BCS Bowl game system?

[wufan]

I think the system is set up to award the crowned conference champion without leaving out the deserving at large pool. If you weren't crowned as conference champ then you should earn your way in for an unbalanced bracket as well. To me, that's making the lowest at large seeds play in the play in game. Better yet, seed the conference champions 1-32 (or whatever it is) and the at large teams 1-32 and make them play each other based on seed. I would love to see the winner of the south land play the 7th place team from the Big 12 in the first round of the tourney.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

Reasonable response. Why have a conference tournament though? Why not just award it to the conference champion?

1. $$$$
2. By that logic, are NCAA tournament champs just ones that got lucky? why not just go to a BCS Bowl game system?

I think auto bids should go to the regular season champions. That would, of course, diminish the importance of conference tournaments, which is why it will never happen.

No, not all tournament champions (conference or NCAA) are lucky, but some are. I just think a winner take all, single elimination tournament format like the NCAA tournament needs to be as fair as possible, and rewarding conference champions and punishing at-large teams can sometimes be unfair.