xubrew
05-06-2015, 12:32 PM
Okay, when it comes to the ten (maybe 11) leagues that regularly have their first place team land inside the bubble (AAC, ACC, SEC, B10, BE, B12, P12, MWC, A10, WCC and maybe the MVC) I don't care what they do as far as their conference tournaments are concerned. In most cases, the most deserving teams don't end up needing the automatic bid to get in, so it really doesn't matter.
With everyone else, it's absurd to have the conference tournament at a predetermined site with standard seeding. The Patriot League, Northeast and Atlantic Sun are at campus sites all throughout. The America East has now gone to that...FINALLY...after several years in a row the first place team was forced to play a road game against a lower seeded team and ended up getting knocked out. Other leagues like the MAC, Southland, Big West (at least at times), the Sun Belt (finally), etc, have ladder formats instead of standard seeding, so even though the tournament isn't at campus sites, there is still some advantage to winning it.
The leagues that don't do this, like the Big South, Summit League, SoCon, and MAAC (which for two years played its tournament in a state that didn't even have a MAAC team in it), are really missing out. Three reasons.
-For starters, they rob themselves of what would be a far more intriguing regular season. In the ASun where you had three teams neck and neck down the stretch for the last two years, the regular season was hugely important because it determined who would have home court advantage.
-Secondly, the tournament itself is fantastic. Everyone commented on how great they thought the North Florida atmosphere was. Same with Saint Francis Brooklyn in the NEC. The MAAC and Big South have none of that. What should have been an electric conference final between Manhattan and Iona was played a couple hundred miles away in an arena where no one showed up.
-Third, they make it more difficult for their best team to make the NCAA Tournament. For years and years and years and years, the Sun Belt had a really good team that kept losing in the tournament. Middle Tennessee actually made it as an at-large one year, but other than that it worked against them. The year they finally did get their best team in after changing the format, Georgia State got to the round of 32. So, I'd say the change was a good thing.
So, instead of the Big South, who had seven teams tied for first place in the second half of the conference season having all these big games that would impact home court advantage, and having an exciting tournament in an electric atmosphere at campus sites, and helping their best team get there, they kind of screwed themselves.
The Big Sky and Horizon Leagues, who's tournaments and regular seasons have been really good for the last several years with multiple teams fighting for the first place spot all the way to the final game of the season, have decided to do away with that and play their tournaments at a predetermined site.
Well done. Very well done. Way to make something that was exciting and had some meaning, which was the regular season, and make it mean virtually nothing.
With everyone else, it's absurd to have the conference tournament at a predetermined site with standard seeding. The Patriot League, Northeast and Atlantic Sun are at campus sites all throughout. The America East has now gone to that...FINALLY...after several years in a row the first place team was forced to play a road game against a lower seeded team and ended up getting knocked out. Other leagues like the MAC, Southland, Big West (at least at times), the Sun Belt (finally), etc, have ladder formats instead of standard seeding, so even though the tournament isn't at campus sites, there is still some advantage to winning it.
The leagues that don't do this, like the Big South, Summit League, SoCon, and MAAC (which for two years played its tournament in a state that didn't even have a MAAC team in it), are really missing out. Three reasons.
-For starters, they rob themselves of what would be a far more intriguing regular season. In the ASun where you had three teams neck and neck down the stretch for the last two years, the regular season was hugely important because it determined who would have home court advantage.
-Secondly, the tournament itself is fantastic. Everyone commented on how great they thought the North Florida atmosphere was. Same with Saint Francis Brooklyn in the NEC. The MAAC and Big South have none of that. What should have been an electric conference final between Manhattan and Iona was played a couple hundred miles away in an arena where no one showed up.
-Third, they make it more difficult for their best team to make the NCAA Tournament. For years and years and years and years, the Sun Belt had a really good team that kept losing in the tournament. Middle Tennessee actually made it as an at-large one year, but other than that it worked against them. The year they finally did get their best team in after changing the format, Georgia State got to the round of 32. So, I'd say the change was a good thing.
So, instead of the Big South, who had seven teams tied for first place in the second half of the conference season having all these big games that would impact home court advantage, and having an exciting tournament in an electric atmosphere at campus sites, and helping their best team get there, they kind of screwed themselves.
The Big Sky and Horizon Leagues, who's tournaments and regular seasons have been really good for the last several years with multiple teams fighting for the first place spot all the way to the final game of the season, have decided to do away with that and play their tournaments at a predetermined site.
Well done. Very well done. Way to make something that was exciting and had some meaning, which was the regular season, and make it mean virtually nothing.