Auto-Bid Pulled? No Way. Expand the Field!

All right, I posted a title specifically chosen to spark discussion (an argument?). Recently, posters have raised concerns that the Big Sky could lose its basketball auto-bid because it has so many crappy teams. I have no idea where that notion came from, or even if it’s being discussed anywhere. I certainly could not find anything. (As I said on one thread … IMO, given the politics involved, that ain’t gonna happen.)

But it did get me to thinking about something that has been, and is being discussed a lot: Not reducing, but expanding the number of bids passed out for the NCAA basketball championship tournament … to 72, 80 or even 96.

The search was not as “clean” as I would have liked, mainly because so many sites want to talk about “expanding the field” for football. But I finally cleared away the clutter and found a huge number of hits about expanding the BBall field. Here are three from among many, with an interesting quote from each.
https://www.bloggingthebracket.com/...llege-basketball-future-march-madness-propose

Oh, hey! I guess it’s time to think about tournament expansion again...
… Even with expansion, men’s basketball will still send a lower percentage of teams to its postseason than any other D1-only men’s team sport that’s not football.

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http://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...t-system-hurts-teams-ncaa-tournament-chances

Coaches: New quadrant system hurts mid-majors' tourney chances
… Baylor coach Scott Drew … Drew's suggestion was to expand the field to 96 teams.
"Almost 50 percent of the teams go to a bowl game in football," Drew said. "We always talk about the kids. If you increase the number of teams, it allows more kids to experience the tournament. … "

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https://bleacherreport.com/articles...-mens-ncaa-basketball-tournament-to-72-teams

ACC to Propose Expanding Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament to 72 Teams
… Some are afraid that continuing to increase the number of teams involved will water down the tournament. On the other hand, it increases the likelihood of memorable moments.

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These are just a small sample, but it’s pretty clear that a lot of people want to expand the field. The most consistent objection I saw was that it would not benefit the mid-major conferences as much as some advocates hope. It could just allow more slots for the 8th, 9th (or lower) teams from the power conferences. And it’s hard to dispute that objection.

But if the NCAA could come up with a “formula” that would guarantee more bids for the mid-majors, I think there’d be a huge push to add more slots.

To me, there’s a simple answer … and one that would actually add value to the conference regular season: In all conferences, the winner of the regular season should get an auto-bid. For the power conferences, this is effectively true anyway – the season champ for the top conferences always gets a bid. But right now, regular season champs from the other conferences are thrown a musty bone … the minimum of a bid to the NIT. BFD. Who remembers who won the NIT last year? Or even who played in the NIT title game? (Their fans … maybe.)

This would be a non-trivial change. Over the years since 2010, an average of about 10 regular season champs from the lesser conferences have failed to win their post-season tournaments. So to keep the votes of the majors (who want their eighth-bests to get bids), they’d probably have to go all the way to 80 for an expansion. Weird as that seems, it’s doable without extending the post-season timetable. (There seems to be a lot of resistance to extending the time required.) Instead of just four play-in (“First Four”) games, you have a full slate of 16.

Yes, this approach would allow some pretty crappy teams to play in the first “round” … the “First Sixteen”? But you could match them all up, rather than forcing a team good enough for an 11-seed to play in an early game (strange, and totally unfair).

FWIW: Until I did this little survey, I had not realized that the NCAA typically allows such a high percentage of D-I programs into their championships. I happen to be in the "watered down" camp, but "participation" is clearly more important to the NCAA.

I always thought that teams had a better chance of making the tournament in basketball than football, had no idea almost 50% of bcs teams go to bowl games. Not that I would know since 90% of bowl games are terrible.

Expanding the tournament would give more kids a chance to shine, but I also don't think there are 64 good teams in the NCAA let alone 80 or 90.

And how would the money situation work? Would every round win still get that conference 1 mill? The NCAA ain't broke but I don't see that happening.

IMO, expanding the tournament would just water it all down. Sure there would be upsets, but would a small school making the round of 64 or 32 be as sweet as a mid major making the elite 8? I don't think so.

I get that people are down on the bsc (small letters) because everyone running this shit conference deserves it. But do you know how the Griz can overcome that? Keep getting better. Sports aren't supposed to be easy. If the Griz think they are a top mid major squad, go out and prove it. There is almost nothing the coach or players for the Griz can do to switch conferences or change the format, all they can do is win the big sky and prove it against the BIG programs. FTC(onference) and Go Griz.

Nobody is actually talking about the auto bid being pulled lol, I think this might stem from my Out of Conference wrap up post, where I made a Typo and said bigsky lost by and average of 126.4 points to Power 5 teams when I meant to write 26.4 and someone jokingly replied Wow if were are losing by 126 points I think we might lose our auto bid...then some people took the idea of losing the auto bid a bit more seriously or maybe they were just being factious as well lol

I like the idea of the regular conference season winner gets the auto-bid, but I think it should be kept at the current number of teams.

zero reason to expand the tournament.

grizindabox said:

zero reason to expand the tournament.

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Close but stop the press. Take all 64 teams and put them in a hat, imagine that.

grizindabox said:

zero reason to expand the tournament.

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It’s important to remember that every NCAA policy decision is made by a body made up entirely of college and university “chief executives” (mostly “Presidents,” but some have odd titles). They get advice from NCAA committees filled with school Athletic Directors and athletic department Chairs. So everyone involved has two agendas: the “health” of the NCAA and what’s best for their own institutions.

The two main reasons to expand the field are (1) greater “student-athlete participation” and (2) money (not necessarily in that order ).

One of the articles compared basketball to several other men’s sports (hockey, baseball, etc.). He found that 21.5% to 26.3% of the available schools get the “championship playoff experience” for their athletes in those sports. Applying those fractions to D-I basketball gives you 75 to 92 as the number of programs that “should” be allowed to participate.

A school AD, say from a so-called mid-major, bitches to the Prez that the current bid structure for BBall makes it nearly impossible for them to get in. The Prez’s number pops up, and he/she is sitting on the NCAA’s top policy body. (Not sure how the rotation works, but some smaller schools are bound to get a shot at some point.) That’s his/her chance to push for more chances for more schools to get the post-season “experience.”

The money side is easy: More teams means more games and more revenue to be shared. It’s not generally huge money (like in football, for some) but it’s not peanuts either. And all but the very top programs need every dime they can get.

As I said above, I’m in the “don’t water down the product” camp. However, it will not surprise me if they go to 72 within a year or two … and then to 80 not too far down the road.

Expanding the pool will have zero effect on the Big Sky, so I'm not a fan of that idea/plan moving forward to fruition........One team will still come out of the Big Sky....whether it happens to be a play-in-game or as a 13 to 16 seed......It might however get the 7th best team from the PAC 12 in.....or possibly an additional squad out of the WCC or Big West on an exceptional year.....

Go Griz
Beat SAC!

Kabooom said:

Expanding the pool will have zero effect on the Big Sky, so I'm not a fan of that idea/plan moving forward to fruition........One team will still come out of the Big Sky....whether it happens to be a play-in-game or as a 13 to 16 seed......It might however get the 7th best team from the PAC 12 in.....or possibly an additional squad out of the WCC or Big West on an exceptional year.....

Go Griz
Beat SAC!

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I think that's the only reason they haven't expanded already ... because expansion means more money. Of course, all the NCAA bigwigs like that idea. But I suspect the mid-majors have dug in their heels at the notion of all the new bids (and $$$) going exclusively (or mostly) to the power conferences. If the NCAA came up with a plan that guaranteed (or vastly improved the chances for) many more bids to the mid-majors ... they'd expand in a heartbeat. Of course, the TV folks would have to agree on more money.

That's why I like the notion I floated earlier – a guaranteed bid for the regular season conference winner. To me, they earned it. This would not change the auto-bids for the winners of the conference tournament … they earned it too, by going on a streak

Last year, fourteen 1-seeds in the thirty-two conference tournaments won through and got the automatic bid. Those 1-seeds were presumably regular-season champions or co-champions … yet less than half of them got the automatic bid.

The only consolation was that five other 1-seeds got bids anyway: Auburn, Michigan State, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Xavier. All of those teams were ranked in the AP top-25 and had RPI ranks in the top-20.

But in the end, thirteen 1-seeds (regular season champions or co-champions) failed to get a bid. That was very high, BTW, the highest year since 2010, I believe. In general the number of upsets is more like 8-10 in a year. Either way, an expansion to 80 bids would almost always allow room for these lesser-conference teams … without cutting into the bids award to the power conferences. (And in years with few upsets, give them even more).

IdaGriz01 said:

... But in the end, thirteen 1-seeds (regular season champions or co-champions) failed to get a bid. That was very high, BTW, the highest year since 2010, I believe. In general the number of upsets is more like 8-10 in a year. ...

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This statement turns out to be incorrect … 2017 was not an anomaly. It was actually nearer the norm for the past four or five years. (I went back and identified all the 1-seeds that didn’t make it.) Sadly, that leads to a – probably fatal – flaw in my notion that the regular season champs from every eligible conference should get an automatic bid.

In fact, 2013 was a huge upset year: an incredible twenty 1-seeds failed to win their conference tournaments. Seven such “losers” got bids anyway, mainly because they had RPI ranks in the top 18. But that meant that thirteen 1-seeds did not get bids. Still, an expansion to 80 slots would have made room for all but one of those teams. That would have added substantially to the number of mid-major bids. But the big boys would have got nothing new, so they would have been unhappy.

In 2014, twelve regular season champs or co-champs failed to get a bid. An expansion to 80 slots would have been just right. But, again, the big boys would have gained nothing.

Don’t know about 2015 since that year somehow disappeared from my archive. And I’m not about to go back and re-do it from scratch.

In 2016, fifteen regular season champs or co-champs lost in the conference tournament and 10 of those failed to get a bid. An expansion to 80 slots would have made room for those teams. and still left two more slots for the power conferences to fill.

The results for 2017 were like 2013, with room for all but one regular-season champ … and a strict application of the “new” auto-bid rule would have actually bumped a bubble team.

So even though the expansion to 80 would help the lesser conferences a lot, there’s nothing in it for the power conferences.

But you could easily tweak the approach a bit: Say that the losing conference tournament 1-seeds must have an RPI rank (or whatever metric you use) in the top 100, or perhaps 120.

For 2017, a cut-off at RPI 120 would have reduced the list from 13 to 8. An expansion to 80 slots would have opened up four more likely spots for the big boys … a way to “buy” their votes for the rule change. In 2016, the list would have gone down to 9 (three for the power conference teams). The 2014 list would have dropped to 8 (that number again). And 2013 would have also dropped to 8.

So winning the regular season might not guarantee a bid, but winning that and playing a stronger schedule would. I think we have a winner! Somebody call the NCAA.

The (Big) Sky is falling! The (Big) Sky is falling! I've seen this same inane hyperbole before, and, Chicken Little: have no fear!

https://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/rpi-ranking/rpi-rating-by-conf

The Big Sky is currently (as of today) ranked 25th out of 32 conferences, so we are nowhere near the chopping-block even if the NCAA did the unthinkable and axed the worst cpl conferences bids. Even the idiots at the NCAA know better than removing the underdog drama from the NCAA tourney. This is all mental masturbation. It's never gonna happen.

PS:I am all for reducing the number of teams in the Big Sky, especially losing Northern Colorado. We don't need them for any reason anymore and they are a nightmare to find a travel-partner for,