Bracket Busters...

[OregonShocker]

I'd rather them get right back out there on the court and get out of the MVC for a game. Everyone in the MVC knows exactly what we run and how we run it. Playing someone outside of conference is exactly what this team needs right now imo.

Could be; but I'm not sure I'd pick NMSU for the team to "get healty" on.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

When it started, BB was a good idea with some good conferences signed on. Over time, the good conferences backed out and by the end what remained were the scheduling equivalents of atomic bombs--little reward and enormous risk.

Put me in the ranks of fans that are glad BB is over. However, I think a reimagined concept with teams from the strongest non-P5 conferences has merit. Get the MWC, BE, WCC, A10, MVC, and AAC on board and you have a pretty decent pool of teams to chose from.

[OregonShocker]

I have more faith in our current staff finding a quality match up than bracket busters. I'd hate to sacrifice a game vs. OU to make room for a BB assigned game. It used to be beneficial for Nat TV exposure, but not so much anymore.

[Awesome Sauce Malone]

the majority of the teams playing in the damn thing were super shitty upon the return game. Yeah it gave us a "good quality game" but then the next year (or 2 years in some cases) they were 200 level RPI and we couldnt do anything about it.

[proshox]

The nice thing about it was that you weren't guessing whether UNLV was going to be worth a crap. The team scheduled should help with the resume not hurt. In my opinion the whole thing would have been fixed by eliminating the return game aspect.

[Play Angry]

Bracket Buster only helped when you couldn't schedule bubble level teams in the non-con. WSU has been able to schedule up fairly well the last 2-3 years on their own. Once you eclipse the need for help in scheduling, it can hurt more than help because you're at the whim of ESPN or whomever decided on the match ups sans return games.

Agreed.

It is also important to note that the event was created (2002) during the six year period when a school's participation in exempt tournaments was limited to two times in any four season window. MTEs did not exist in their current form until 2006-07, at which time quality opponents became more accessible to non-BCS schools. Pre-2007, it was a heck of a lot tougher to even fill the slate during the years when your team could not play in an exempt tournament, and that was where the return-game concept for BB was born.

The event had regressed to an abomination by the time it was euthanized in 2013. The quality of the field was dog poop (remember, when the event was created and in its infancy, participants like Gonzaga, Memphis and Tulsa were on board) and the need for scheduling assistance had been diminished by the new MTE system. Rather than a helpful stepping stone for many teams to build their resume, the games had frequently become an excuse to eliminate otherwise deserving or borderline squads. A road game for a KenPom 40 team against a KenPom 85 team is essentially a 50/50 contest, and these were the matchups we saw all the time in the final years of the event. The KenPom 85 team is already screwed for at large purposes. The KenPom 40 team gets very minimal credit for a win in that game (increasing at-large chances by what, maybe 5-10% depending on their resume for a road win at a team barely in the top 100) but is susceptible to getting their prospects absolutely hammered in the highly possible event they lose their showcase game with everyone watching. There simply weren't enough good teams remaining in the diluted field post-2008 or 2009 (whenever the final mass exodus occurred) to justify the games, but we were stuck until the thing finally gasped its last breath.

Good riddance.