Sunday BBall Conf. Champs Thread
Final day of championships on tap.
ATLANTIC 10, 12:30, CBS: St. Joseph's 87, VCU 74 Final
SEC, 1:00, ESPN: Kentucky 82, Texas A&M 77 Final/OT
SUNBELT, 1:00, ESPN2: Arkansas-Little Rock 70, Louisiana Monroe 50 Final
B1G, 3:00, CBS: Michigan State 66, Purdue 62 Final
AMERICAN, 3:15, ESPN: Connecticut 72, Memphis 58 Final
Rooting interests: St. Joseph's (possibly knock VCU out), Arkansas-Little Rock (keep auto bid from UL-Monroe), Purdue (RPI boost), UConn (keep auto bid from Memphis and RPI boost)
Edit: didn't realize St. Joe's is projected higher than VCU. VCU loss could knock them to the bubble or out.
March 13th, 2016 at 12:59 PM ^
Conference tournaments are stupid.
No idea why mid-major conferences have them. Just give the automatic bid to your conference champion that earned it all season long as opposed to getting hot and winning a few games.
With 68 entries, there is plenty of time to firmly earn your bid and not have to worry about mid-major cinderellas. I think this aspect makes March Madness all the more fun. In sports like hockey, you may have a point with weaker conferences stealing legit bids.
That's not true. Mid major conference champions that don't win their tournament are almost certainly headed to the NIT.
Teams that win their league but not their tournament get automatic NIT bids as a safety net.
You either have to have a ridiculous record or schedule a ton of crazy non-conference games. And let's be honest, when ADs are scheduling mid-majors, they aren't looking for ones that can and will upset them.
Stop liking money? These tournaments are played on campus (either one site or higher seeds get home games), and aren't broadcast by anything other than a regional channel. There is no more money in than if the conference skipped the tournament and each team scheduled one or two more home games.
As is, the conference can get screwed when the best team gets upset, and the only team that the nation sees is the 13-21 conference tournament champ who loses by 40 in the first game.
TV runs the show and it makes great TV having the mid-major conference tournaments determine the sole NCAA bid for a conference. Much more drama than the long slow slog over the course of a season.
Nobody is going to watch a mid-major conference tournament that determines an NIT bid.
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I think the conferences do it because (a) it is exciting, and (b) if you are high mid-major (like the A-10, C-USA, usually the WCC, MVC, etc.), you expect to get multiple teams in anyway, so this gives the opportunity for you to maybe sneak in another team and get more presence on TV. But yeah, sometimes it must drive teams crazy that they win 28 games and some 12 seed gets their bid with a sub-.500 record.
it's all about the tv $$$. and it gives small conferences a better chance to get multiple teams into the big dance, meaning even more $$$.
I disagree for 3 reasons.
1) How often is Hampton vs South Carolina State or Cal State Bakersfield vs New Mexico State or Akron vs Buffalo going to be on ESPN/ESPN2 normally? If not for the conference tournament, never.
These tournaments give the teams and conferences publicity they would never get otherwise. The average basketball fan, or even some of the die hards, would never really hear or know about Hampton or CSUB or the MEAC. These conference tournaments give both the schools and conferenes air time they would never get.
And then when the games are as good as CSUB vs NMSU they can go viral and gt even more publicity. And this publicity is probably more important than anything else considering most of the schools/conferences won't win a tourney game no matter which team is sent.
2) This sort of leads into my second point, which is the conferences probably don't care which teams they send at a certain point. For a conference like the MEAC or WAC or MAC, the #1 seed probably isn't that much better than the #3 seed. In reality neither team will probably win a tourney game.
Whether a conference sends the Kenpom #100 team or #150, both teams are going to be heavy underdogs against a Kenpom top 25 team, so who cares which one goes? To win either one is going to need to play the game of their life, which is equally as likely for either team. So why not have the conference tourney and all the publicity that comes with it?
And if the #1 seed or #2 seed is that much better, and doesn't win their conference tourney, they can still get at an large bid like Monmouth or St. Mary's or Valpo might. Then your league is a 2 bid league, which is great for the league.
3) Conferences tourneys spread the NCAA tourney wealth. In a smaller conference where all the teams are generally much closer in talent level, it's much easier for any random team to win their conference tourney. Compared to a larger conference, each team in a smaller conference has a better chance of making the tourney any given year and different teams make it on a more regular basis. This is a good thing for smaller conferences.
The worst thing that could happen to a smaller conference is for the same team to dominate year in and year out, make the tourney every year, but consistently lose early in the tourney. It hurts the other teams in the conference and looks bad for the conference as a whole. Conference tourneys prevent that and allows each team a chance to make the tourney and pump some fresh faces into the tourney.
especially if they affect our chances or seedings..All the games have meaning and you are getting the best of each team and the buzzer beaters this year have been Incredible..Including our own win over Indiana...Iove the intensity
I'm talking about the mid-majors having them and how it's screwing over the team that actually is the best team in their league.
The big conferences need them for reasons A) get as many teams in as they can and B) dolla dolla bills y'all.
I don't have multiple accounts in the first place, so it's fine.
And Bob Knight was famous for not giving a shit about conference tournaments iirc. I just have never been a fan.
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A week ago it looked like all was lost...then the last second OT win over NW and the buzzer beater over BIG Ten Champs Indiana and suddenly as of this morning its looking like we are IN...all the anayslysts who said we were out have Changed and now say we are IN and suddenly what looked liked a miserable season is looking much much better...after listening to all the so called experts this morning I think were IN!....530pm seems like 5 days away right now..I am in Mexico and have to work this afternoon but I will glued to the computer watching...tic toc tic toc the minutes seem like hours...at the end of the day the ONLY thing that matters is if you make the tournament. If we can get in all is forgiven
Decided on the SEC Conference Championship for the time being, and so far the "Baby" count for Vitale is only one and he did not use it during the game. Of course, the game is barely a minute old at this juncture, but still....
No matter, Kentucky up 4-0 as we approach 18:20 left in the first half....now 4-2 on a beautiful inbound play by the Aggies.
As opposed to out-of-band management.. duh. Oh wait, an "inbound" is a basketball thing?
I particularly enjoy spending hours after the announcement of the bracket glued to my computer waiting for tip-off times to be announced, only to have them wait until Monday to tell us all when everybody actually plays.
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I'm in Vegas every year and always hoping for a noon-3 start local time. Not so early that you have to sacrifice sleep, not so late that you end up shitfaced and out of it by tip-off.
I just prefer to avoid missing 2-3 minutes of game action every time I blink and being asked to vacate the premises because of the horrible things I'm told I've shouted about Coach K's ethnic background.
SEC is not a power conference in this sport.
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They only got three bids a few years ago (2013) when Kentucky famously lost in the first round of the NIT, despite a 12-6 league record.
UPDATE: Also got three in 2014. Last year got 5, but only 2 teams won their opening round game and only UK made the Sweet Sixteen.
Considering it is now a 14 team league, and new addition Texas A&M is one of the two teams likely to make it in. Big time power shift has occurred in favor of the B1G and ACC, maybe even the Pac-12 with all the bids they are looking to pick up today and the resurgence at places like Cal, USC, Oregon St., and Utah.
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I just noticed that this site apparently doesn't observe daylight savings time. Man, I wish I could have slept an extra hour...
VCU will be on the bubble, I believe, hopefully behind us and on the outside looking in. A blowout loss right before selection can only help us.
VCU is relatively safe in the field even with a loss here though this might push them to a First Four game in Dayton.