NCAA without Power 5

[EastCoastXman]

While MOR preps for his 2 week trip to FL with the family, I thought I would step up for him. I pulled the following from a Seton Hall poster with time on his hands. A little summer reading and ponder "what if" the Power 5 says Good Bye to the NCAA. This is how last year's tournament might have laid out.

There's been a lot of chatter here, understandably, about the latest round of realignment going through college football and the effects that it might ultimately have on college basketball, most specifically the NCAA Tournament. Last year 29 P5 teams made the NCAA Tournament. I decided to put together a field of 68 stripping those schools out.

The seeds are basically taken straight from the NET rankings using the S-curve through the entire field. I made a few changes based on keeping conference opponents apart prior to the Sweet 16 but other than that stayed true to the rankings. Tulane and DePaul qualified based on NET ranking but were removed because of a sub. 500 overall record.

Here's the field. An asterisk means an automatic bid (there are 27). In a hypothetical Final Four West would play South and Midwest would play East.

WEST:
Gonzaga (1) * - Wright State */Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (16) *
South Dakota State (8) * - Towson (9)
Seton Hall (4) - Northern Iowa (13)
UAB (5) - * - UNLV (12)
VCU (6) - Drake (11)
Murray State (3) * - Colgate (14) *
BYU (7) - Richmond (10) *
Loyola Chicago (2) * - Delaware (15) *

MIDWEST:
Houston (1) * - Texas Southern */Bryant (16) *
Santa Clara (8) - Missouri State (9)
Davidson (4) - St. Peter's (13) *
Marquette (5) - Cincinnati (12)
Vermont (6) * - Toledo (11)
San Diego State (3) - Longwood (14) *
Wyoming (7) - Furman (10)
San Francisco (2) - Jacksonville State (15) *

EAST:
Villanova (1) * - Norfolk State (16) *
St. Louis (8) - Fresno State (9)
Xavier (4) - UCF/Princeton (13)
Creighton (5) - Middle Tennessee (12)
North Texas (6) - Wichita State (11)
Memphis (3) - Montana State (14) *
Chattanooga (7) * - Belmont (10)
Providence (2) - Yale (15) *

SOUTH:
UConn (1) - Georgia State (16) *
Utah State (8) - St. Bonaventure (9)
Colorado State (4) - Louisiana Tech/Bradley (13)
Dayton (5) - Grand Canyon (12)
SMU (6) - Iona (11)
Boise State (3) * - Akron (14) *
St. John's (7) - New Mexico State (10) *
St. Mary's (2) - Cal State Fullerton (15) *

Top Four Seeds: Gonzaga (1), Houston (2), Villanova (3), UConn (4)
Last Four Byes: Middle Tennessee, Cincinnati, UNLV, Northern Iowa
Last Four In: UCF, Louisiana Tech, Bradley, Princeton
First Four Out: Wofford, Temple, Hofstra, Morehead State
Next Four Out: Utah Valley State, Liberty, Ohio, Buffalo

Bids By Conference:
8: Big East
7: Mountain West
6: American, Atlantic-10
5: Missouri Valley, West Coast
4: Conference USA
2: Colonial, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, Mid American, Ohio Valley, Southern, Western Athletic
1: America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Horizon, MEAC, Northeast, Patriot, Southland, Summit, Sun Belt, SWAC

[MHettel]

I mean, what’s the point? Removing the BIG 5 teams from the NCAA tourney will kill it.

There would be no appeal.

[JTG]

You're right, too much time on his hands. I don't believe however realignment shakes out, that the NCAA tournament will be affected, because David V Goliath is a big, big part of its appeal. The above isn't even an NIT field. Not sure who would watch that.

[MHettel]

I'm too lazy to check, but i wonder how many teams in the above field were ACTUAL NCAA Tourney teams? How many were NIT?

And, of the actual NCAA teams, how many were just the auto bid from crap conferences?

[hoopster68]

I'm too lazy to check, but i wonder how many teams in the above field were ACTUAL NCAA Tourney teams? How many were NIT?

And, of the actual NCAA teams, how many were just the auto bid from crap conferences?

I love that first weekend of the NCAA tourney when those teams from the "crap conferences" get to play the big boys, with sometimes surprising results.

[xudash]

I love that first weekend of the NCAA tourney when those teams from the "crap conferences" get to play the big boys, with sometimes surprising results.

That is exactly why it is very unlikely that the NCAAT as we know it will be disturbed. We've mentioned it here more than enough times: they (the mega conference players) are solving for football, not basketball. More to the point, the media partners that shell out the money for the NCAAT like it just the way it is: inclusive with the drama you noted. Take that away and demand will go down, which will take the dollar value of the media payouts for it down. The large football schools already rack up a ton of NCAA Units - attractive units at that - from the way the Dance is structured today.

The potential for a break away by the mega football conferences for all sports does not keep me up at night. What would that end up looking like anyway? Possibly up to about 40 or so schools with their own "NCAAT?" Good luck having less than passionate college basketball fans tune in for Vandy versus Illinois in Round One of a truncated tournament.

The thing to watch over time is the Big East and its movement, or not, with respect to expansion. It is not under any pressure currently to expand. It may or may not have interesting expansion candidates surface down the road. One specific comment I'll make about this: I would not want to see the Pac(n) evolve in such a manner that it finds a way to remain intact, but finds it "necessary" to invite Gonzaga into it to shore it up in some fashion. I certainly believe that all these large football schools will think in terms of all sports before they ever consider going to a hybrid model. But dramatic change can lead to panicky decision making. It's not that I am dying to have Gonzaga join the BE, it's that I want them available should they "come in handy" for such purposes down the not too distant road.