Championship Tournament Format Change

Recently, there has been a lot of speculation as to the NCAA Basketball Tournament expanding to 96 teams.  Currently there are 64 teams in the tournament, and this format has been wildly successful.  People fill out their tournament brackets for office pools.  Some even take a day off of work or fly to Vegas for the first few days of the tourney.  One of the biggest unnofficial reasons given for expanding the tournement is to make coaching jobs more secure.  The coaching carousel starts as soon as the tournament bracket is completed.  Who would fire a coach who has made the big dance?

I actually think expanding the field will increase coach firings.  If a team from a power conference doesn’t make the field of 96 (almost a third of all DI teams) for 2 seasons in a row, will a coach keep his job?

But that’s not the point of this post.  The real point is, if the NCAA is going to expand the tournament, they should do it the right way.  Don’t reward more mediocre teams from major conferences while regular season champs sit at home.

Before the at-large teams are selected, there should be 2 major criteria for teams to qualify for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

1. Conference Tournament Champions get in.  They get in under the current format, and this should not change.
2. Regular Season Conference Champions get in.  This is different than the current tournament.

How would this plan have worked out if the 2010 tournament had 96 teams:

Assuming the same 65 teams got into the tournament as under the current format, and the regular season conference champions all got in, that would be 71 teams.  So the selection committee would have to pick 25 more teams to play in the tournament.  If they went by Real Time RPI, the next 25 teams would be:

Now that’s a 96 team tournament I would like to see.  Unfortunately, what will happen is that of the remaining 25 teams, 20 will be from major conferences and only 5 more mid majors would get in.

1-7-10 Vortex Player Ratings

Heading into Summit League play this weekend, here are the player ratings.

First 5

Second 5

Honorable Mention

1-6-10 Mens Summit League Preview

Thursday, January 7

Oakland @ Oral Roberts — Has to be considered the top game of the week. Two top teams with premier players facing off in Tulsa.

IPFW @ Centenary — One of these two Summit League teams will get their second league win of the season.

SDSU @ UMKC — South Dakota State has its best conference record since joining the Summit, but has epically struggled on the road.

NDSU @ Southern Utah — Last year’s regular season and tournament champ will face a team without a conference win so far this year.

Saturday, January 9

NDSU @ Iowa State –  SDSU beat Iowa State last year.  Can North Dakota State defeat the Cyclones this year?

SDSU @ Southern Utah — Another opportunity to establish road wins for SDSU, who has not performed well in opposing Summit League arenas.

WIU @ IUPUI — Western Illinois is in last place in the league.  IUPUI is 3-1 with a tough loss to Oakland.  A Leatherneck win would be surprising.

Oakland @ Centenary — Does Centenary have an answer for Keith Benson?  If they do, they compete.  If not, it could get ugly.

IPFW @ Oral Roberts — Will ORU have any gas left in the tank after facing a salty Oakland team on Thursday?