Poll Should a .500 conference record be required for an at-large bid?

[ACW]

I think .500 or better should be...I don't know about REQUIRED, but if not required, then you better have a DAMN good OOCSOS.

[ShockdaWorld]

Cuse is going to get in again. And it's disgusting with the a high 80s RPI and a 2-11 record outside of the Carrier Dome. I'd probably be even more apt to vote for a rule that doesn't allow a less than .500 record outside of your own house to get in.

[im4wsu]

Syracuse getting in and making the Final Four is not a good argument.

A good argument is why have a silly arbitrary rule? 99% of the teams that don't finish above .500 in conference play aren't going to sniff the tournament.

What if we have a super conference? It's got 10 teams. All 10 crushed the best teams in America during their non-conference. They're far and away the best teams in the country, but they have to play each other in conference. By definition, some aren't going to finish above .500, but they all deserve to be in the tournament.

If you adopt the silly rule, it has the potential to prevent a good team from making the tournament. If you don't adopt the rule, the committee can still choose to leave undeserving teams out. I truly don't understand why anyone would advocate for this kind of weird line in the sand. I feel like most of the proponents must be really saying "I can't imagine a scenario in which a sub-.500 team is deserving of an at large, which is fine, but is a radically different argument.

Like the arbitrary rule that conference champions get in automatically? Like the arbitrary rule that tournament champions get in but regular-season champions may not?

On what basis should a team that has had 18 opportunities to beat teams in their conference and failed to do it more than 50% of the time deserve the right/opportunity to potentially play the same teams again and hope they get hot to win?

If the goal is to simply identify the hottest team for a x-game (currently six games) stretch or simply an "invitational tournament champion", just do away with the conferences altogether. If you don't have to go .500 or .333 or .100 in your own super conference, then the conference is meaningless anyway. With 351 teams, 190 would play in a "play-in" round and join the remaining 161 for an 8-game single-elimination tournament. The remainder of the season's schedule, if any, would be any teams that you wish to schedule for pre-tournament warm-up games.

[jdshock]

Like the arbitrary rule that conference champions get in automatically? Like the arbitrary rule that tournament champions get in but regular-season champions may not?

On what basis should a team that has had 18 opportunities to beat teams in their conference and failed to do it more than 50% of the time deserve the right/opportunity to potentially play the same teams again and hope they get hot to win?

If the goal is to simply identify the hottest team for a x-game (currently six games) stretch or simply an "invitational tournament champion", just do away with the conferences altogether. If you don't have to go .500 or .333 or .100 in your own super conference, then the conference is meaningless anyway. With 351 teams, 190 would play in a "play-in" round and join the remaining 161 for an 8-game single-elimination tournament. The remainder of the season's schedule, if any, would be any teams that you wish to schedule for pre-tournament warm-up games.

I'm not proposing adding arbitrary rules; you are. I happen to also think tournament champs getting in over regular season champs is dumb. I cannot fathom why you would think my stance is that those "arbitrary" rules are good but your proposal is silly.

You say those teams have shown over 18 teams they cannot win games, but if 18 is enough to leave you out of the tournament, what is the floor? If we don't prove that we can win a majority of our 5 toughest games, is that enough?

I'm just saying that USC and Cal aren't substantially better than Syracuse and KSU. Let's value a system where we get more objective ratings involved. Frequently, the schools like KSU and Syracuse that go 8-10 in conference are going to get left out anyway. If they don't, it's because they've objectively proven that they're a pretty good team.

Your logic is that these teams have proven that they can't win a majority of the games against great competition, therefore, they cannot win a national championship (or shouldn't be allowed to), and therefore should be left out of the tournament. But that's just so far from reality. If that were really how we wanted to seed the tournament, we'd never allow a 2nd place team into the tournament, right? If the 2nd place ACC team gets swept by the 1st place ACC team, but wins every other game, they shouldn't be allowed into the tournament since they've proven that they are obviously not the best team in the country, by definition. And if you're not willing to go that far, how do you choose your line in the sand? "X school showed that it's inferior to 5 schools, so now we can't let them in."

[im4wsu]

I'm not proposing adding arbitrary rules; you are. I happen to also think tournament champs getting in over regular season champs is dumb. I cannot fathom why you would think my stance is that those "arbitrary" rules are good but your proposal is silly.

I'm not proposing anything, nor did I accuse you of doing so. I merely stated that like the .500 evaluation being arbitrary, so are conference tournament champions. Just sayin' it, not accusing you of anything.

You say those teams have shown over 18 teams they cannot win games, but if 18 is enough to leave you out of the tournament, what is the floor? If we don't prove that we can win a majority of our 5 toughest games, is that enough?

Our five toughest games in conference? Maybe, maybe not, how about the other 13 games? I think those might have a bearing on my decision.

I'm just saying that USC and Cal aren't substantially better than Syracuse and KSU. Let's value a system where we get more objective ratings involved. Frequently, the schools like KSU and Syracuse that go 8-10 in conference are going to get left out anyway. If they don't, it's because they've objectively proven that they're a pretty good team.

Being a "pretty good" team, is that worthy of being "National Champion"? IMHO, I don't think so, but then I favor a much smaller, more exclusive tournament to determine champions.

Your logic is that these teams have proven that they can't win a majority of the games against great competition, therefore, they cannot win a national championship (or shouldn't be allowed to), and therefore should be left out of the tournament. But that's just so far from reality. If that were really how we wanted to seed the tournament, we'd never allow a 2nd place team into the tournament, right? If the 2nd place ACC team gets swept by the 1st place ACC team, but wins every other game, they shouldn't be allowed into the tournament since they've proven that they are obviously not the best team in the country, by definition. And if you're not willing to go that far, how do you choose your line in the sand? "X school showed that it's inferior to 5 schools, so now we can't let them in."

The flaw in your first statement is that all of the in-conference games are against "great competition."
Second statement is absurd, as that team would clearly be above .500 in conference. Should such a team be allowed in the tournament, it depends on the number of teams in the tournament and the performance/record/quality of all other teams eligible for the tournament. But obviously, with the 68-team igsty we have now, yes, this team is obviously in.

Your by definition, "best team" in the country? Often the "best" team is not the National Champion. The winner of the tournament is just that, the wnner of the tournament. Hopefully that will be a high quality team that has faced and defeated other high quality teams to win the tournament, but all roads are not equal and even the best teams stumble.

I'm working on how far I would go, but I would certainly draw the line that .499 in-conference record would be excluded. Yes, there may be a team that defeats the AP Nos. 1-13 out-of-conference and goes 8-10 in conference and its eight conference wins are against the top four teams in the conference and it may get left out. That's just a lot of bad luck, but's that the way the cookie crumbles. If you want in, play better.

[GottliebHater]

I think in the dominant super-conference scenario, if some of those teams didn't get in because their record was below .500, it would encourage some of those teams to break off into other conferences thereby creating more parody in college basketball.

Yeah, big 'parody' comedy fan here too. I would love to incorporate more parody into college basketball.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

This.

This rule is an imaginary hypothetical. Why don't we just try to create a system where the selection committee picks the absolute best teams, regardless of their conference affiliation? This is what the opponents of the proposal are saying.

The rule has the potential to leave out a team that deserves to be in. Without the rule, we could conceivably have a selection committee that chooses to place the best teams in the tournament, regardless of conference affiliation.

More importantly, if you really believe the selection committee has a P5 bias, what makes you think the MVC would be the beneficiary of your rule change? It would be teams like Cal that are over 500 and have no right to be in the tournament.

WSU is 4-10 the past 3 regular seasons vs KenPom's "A rated" games. Kansas State had to play 16 of their 20 Big 12 games this year in A rated games.

WSU deserved to not only be in, but to be seeded much better than 7, 11, & 10 the past 3 seasons.
KSU deserved to be in this year despite 9-11 vs Big 12 opponents.

The committee got KSU right, but WSU horribly wrong. Give me a better committee, not dumber rules.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

If you want in, play better.

I hate that statement. I hear it often when BCS honks hear an argument about why a mid-major deserved a bid. It is a weak rebuttal to accusations that a system is flawed.

If ISUr wanted in this year, play better.
If WSU wanted a better seed this year, play better.

Yuck.