2016 Bracketology

[OregonShocker]

And I'm sure the ACC would love to see the bottom 27 conferences send their regular season champions to a tournament during conference tournament week, with the champion of that tournament getting an auto bid. That would free up 26 more at large bids. Almost enough to get all the P5 teams in.

Slippery slopes are slippery. I think the NCAA is already doing it wrong by forcing AQ's to participate in play-in games. IMO, they earned their spot in the tournament fair and square, the bubble teams left it up to chance.

Not only earned, but PAID. That's what's really at stake here. ALL NCAA members pay dues; why do only SOME conferences share the NCAA money from CBS for the tourney? This is the counter to the argument put up by football schools. "Since there is no playoff, why should I split the TV money MY school earned with other schools?" Follow the money.

[WSUwatcher]

Discussion with a friend this morning. What do you all think about a 96 team tournament in the following way:
1) 32 conferences. Conference winner = auto-bid. Conference tournament winner = auto-bid. If same team, then second auto-bid goes to 2nd place in their conference tournament.
2) 32 at large bids.
3) First weekend is Tues-Thurs-Saturday or Wed-Fri-Sun. With the top 32 teams getting a bye for the Tues or Wed games.

It would make week one crazy. 16 games each day for Tues to Friday.

Bad idea?

I don't like expanding the NCAA tournament; I agree with JH4P and would rather see it shrink back to 64. Play-in games are silly and have an artificial feel. If they did have to expand, though, your idea is a good one, because it would reward regular season champions, which is something I've always favored. The regular season should mean something, and especially should mean more than a few days of conference tournament play.

[OregonShocker]

Further expansion accomplishes little. If the original purpose of the play in games, as I suspect it was, was to take the heat off the selection committee, it has failed. Go back to 64.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

It's fun having national media members actively campaigning against your program. Did Marshall poop in the cbssports coffee pot at some point or something? If not, he should probably go ahead and do it now.

Palm and Gottlieb both have 2 huge logical failures

1 - They don't value a blowout win. They see a 30 point victory by WSU over a borderline top 100 NMSU team and just say, "eh, WSU won". Might as well have won by 1 in their minds. No difference. If its not a top 50 or at least clearly top 100 team, in their minds a win is just a win and it can't be impressive no matter what.

2 - They don't value wins over bad teams whatsoever. Anyone outside the top 100 is purely an opportunity to lose. Beating them isn't worth anything positive whatsoever. As last night's Minnesota win over Maryland proved, once in a while, bad teams beat good teams. A good team beating a bad team isn't something to get excited about in and of itself, but it isn't fair to refuse to give zero credit for winning just because it is what was expected. Taking a 90-95% probability on paper and actually turning it into a win should be worth something. This is why teams like WSU get underrated by Gottlieb and Palm. They see 2014 WSU and don't see 34-0, they see 8-0 plus a bunch of other games that don't count.

Honestly, I don't think they apply it specifically to WSU out of hatred for the Shox. They do it to everyone who plays an "easy" schedule. Just yesterday, Palm commented on Bob Lutz' radio show that 2013 Middle Tennessee was a "disastrous choice" by the selection committee. He cited their lack of quality wins (just 1 over the top 100) and basically blasted the committee for giving them an atlarge bid, and claimed that 2016 WSU wasn't much different with likely only 3 top 100 wins come selection sunday. Aside from the fact that Palm simply had his facts wrong (WSU will almost assuredly have 4-5 top 100 wins come selection sunday) lets look at 2013 Middle Tennessee in detail.

2013 Middle Tennessee
Record - 28-5
Of the 5 losses, 2 were against eventual NCAA 3 and 11 seeds, and 2 others were in OT
All games were D1 opponents. No D2 mixed in.
20 wins were by 10 or more
8 wins were by 20 or more
5 wins were by 30 or more
3 wins were by 40 or more
1 win was by 52
RPI - 33
KenPom - 40
Warren Nolan Rank - 10
S-Curve Rank 50

So, Mr. Palm, you are telling me that a 28-5 team ranked top 40 in RPI and KenPom and top 10 in Warren Nolan was a "disasterous choice" to be ranked as the 50th best team in the country?

[boltforge]

The regular season should mean something, and especially should mean more than a few days of conference tournament play.

That is one of the two reasons I was thinking about expanding the first week like this. The second is that the tournament is about more than just getting a winner. And having a larger mixing of the conferences on neutral floors would make the statistical rankings start to mean more. At least to me. Because conferences where they get to win or win-win (big(12-2)) vs conferences where they get to lose or lose-lose (MVC) make rankings look like a popularity contest to me.

Of course 32 hours of basketball on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday, and again on Thursday, and again on Friday ... that may just kill some fans via overload.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Before anyone gets any crazy ideas... yes, I do still think many on this board overvalue wins against bad teams. I'm just making the case that Palm and Gottlieb are too far on the other end of the spectrum.

[OregonShocker]

Palm and Gottlieb both have 2 huge logical failures

1 - They don't value a blowout win. They see a 30 point victory by WSU over a borderline top 100 NMSU team and just say, "eh, WSU won". Might as well have won by 1 in their minds. No difference. If its not a top 50 or at least clearly top 100 team, in their minds a win is just a win and it can't be impressive no matter what.

2 - They don't value wins over bad teams whatsoever. Anyone outside the top 100 is purely an opportunity to lose. Beating them isn't worth anything positive whatsoever. As last night's Minnesota win over Maryland proved, once in a while, bad teams beat good teams. A good team beating a bad team isn't something to get excited about in and of itself, but it isn't fair to refuse to give zero credit for winning just because it is what was expected. Taking a 90-95% probability on paper and actually turning it into a win should be worth something. This is why teams like WSU get underrated by Gottlieb and Palm. They see 2014 WSU and don't see 34-0, they see 8-0 plus a bunch of other games that don't count.

Honestly, I don't think they apply it specifically to WSU out of hatred for the Shox. They do it to everyone who plays an "easy" schedule. Just yesterday, Palm commented on Bob Lutz' radio show that 2013 Middle Tennessee was a "disastrous choice" by the selection committee. He cited their lack of quality wins (just 1 over the top 100) and basically blasted the committee for giving them an atlarge bid, and claimed that 2016 WSU wasn't much different with likely only 3 top 100 wins come selection sunday. Aside from the fact that Palm simply had his facts wrong (WSU will almost assuredly have 4-5 top 100 wins come selection sunday) lets look at 2013 Middle Tennessee in detail.

2013 Middle Tennessee
Record - 28-5
Of the 5 losses, 2 were against eventual NCAA 3 and 11 seeds, and 2 others were in OT
All games were D1 opponents. No D2 mixed in.
20 wins were by 10 or more
8 wins were by 20 or more
5 wins were by 30 or more
3 wins were by 40 or more
1 win was by 52
RPI - 33
KenPom - 40
Warren Nolan Rank - 10
S-Curve Rank 50

So, Mr. Palm, you are telling me that a 28-5 team ranked top 40 in RPI and KenPom and top 10 in Warren Nolan was a "disasterous choice" to be ranked as the 50th best team in the country?

I agree other than winning by one would probably bring some discount of the win.

[kochHead]

If you beat UNI by 20 on their home court and lose by 3 to UNI on your home court...then you are a loser, you suck, and it validates all other previous loses. #palmlogic101

[Shockers5150]

Shox will shut them up, as usual.

[ShockerFever]

Palm expounds on his reasoning today on cbssports.com. It's like he's been lurking here in SN. I quote below:

"And, that's how things have to be. What else could the committee do? Should they pretend those games didn't happen? Should they assume a team would have won if it played at full strength? It's pretty obvious they can't do that. Why play the game if it's going to be ignored? If that's how it's going to be, Wichita State should have just cancelled its games when Fred Van Vleet was injured since they weren't going to count anyway."

Not saying I agree with his thinking, but the article lays out why he makes the statements he does.

Here's the link to the article for any of you who care to read it: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/25488578/bracketology-teams-wont-get-much-sympathy-for-injuries-suspensions

I just want to expound on the point SB brought up. And maybe JH4P can do the dirty work. Why does a full-strength all year Gonzaga team have a better seed than an partially under-manned WSU team? I know it's only a 1 seed differential, but why isn't there as much hate on Gonzaga?

Also, why do bad losses not count as much as good wins? WSU's worst loss is 23 spots better than a current #1 seed's worst loss (and the margin of victory is also 16 points less). WSU's worst loss is exactly 100 spots better than a current #3 seed's worst loss. Sure those other teams have more good wins, but since Jerry's stickler with WSU has also been the last two losses, how come the other teams get passes for much worse losses? Because they've had more opportunities at better wins? Simple mathematics suggest even a decent team who gets more chances at quality wins (especially at home) will have more quality wins more than likely. If WSU had 6 Top 50 RPI chances on their home floor, does anyone believe they'd at least get half, likely more?

It's just a whole P5 squeeze play.

Jerry Palm is a balllicker.

[Topshock]

And I'm sure the ACC would love to see the bottom 27 conferences send their regular season champions to a tournament during conference tournament week, with the champion of that tournament getting an auto bid. That would free up 26 more at large bids. Almost enough to get all the P5 teams in.

Slippery slopes are slippery. I think the NCAA is already doing it wrong by forcing AQ's to participate in play-in games. IMO, they earned their spot in the tournament fair and square, the bubble teams left it up to chance.

So you think the 15 and 16 seeds have made the tournament better over the years?

[Topshock]

You could also say that by taking one team automatically from the bottom eight conferences would hurt the P5. It would then be impossible to give the one seeds and in most cases the two seeds what amount to a bye in the first round.

[ShockerFever]

So you think the 15 and 16 seeds have made the tournament better over the years?

Yes. The 15 and 16 seeds EARNED their way into the field by winning. Most of the 11 and 12 seed P5 schools made their way into the field doing lots of losing, and a few of them couldn't even win more in their conference than they lost.

I'm kinda stunned that a WSU fan would also be in favor of killing off the "small guy".

[ShockerFever]

I'll just throw a couple 15 seeds off the top of my head in the last 5 years that have been pretty cool, noteworthy, and made the tournament better:

Norfolk State
Florida Gulf Coast

[ShockerEngineer]

Lehigh beating Duke was pretty awesome.