The March Madness selection show was yesterday and the team that was tied for the most wins in Division I was not invited. That team might have not even scrapped your imagination last night as you gazed at the bracket when you went to print one off last night.
The team that I'm referring to is Belmont. Despite this being no surprise, it should have alarm bells making noise that the whole process is inadequate. Belmont produced a record of 26-4 this year and never had a game postponed according to ESPN.
The committee will say that they didn't play anyone decent and well that is true, they also have less opportunities to schedule a Gonzaga like Non Conference schedule. My suggestion in the past has been to increase the tournament to 80 teams and give the 11 best regular season tournament winners that
didn't win make the Field of 68 against the last 12 at large spots. Your not changing the dynamic of the filed at all and your also rewarding success to the top 9 seeds. As of now, it is almost better being a 12 seed than a 8 seed. The other play-in spot would come from the NIT Champion from the previous year which would add some meaning to a meaningless tournament. Adding teams only dilutes the playing field if your letting in 18-14 mediocre power 5 teams.
What if the mid-majors did something bold. Something that would put the basketball landscape on edge. At least 10 top mid major programs need to come together to form some sort of Elite Mid major conference. Remember Bracket Buster Weekend? We would have a entire conference of bracket buster games!
Here is a complete rough estimation of what it could look like.
Northern Iowa, Vermont, Winthrop, Loyola Chicago, Iona, Belmont, Murray State, Drake, Stephan F. Austin and FGCU.
These programs are notorious for consistently in March Madness but almost always have to win their conference tournament to get in. Most power 5 teams are scared to play these teams as it is a lose - lose proposition for the blue bloods and even legendary broadcaster Dick Vital alouded to this on Bracketology last night on ESPN.
Logistically, this is possible with most teams close together geographically between the Midwest and New York area. I don't like the likelihood of this happening however, but I think from a NET ranking standpoint it is a slam dunk idea.
The biggest thing that would determine this conferences success would be a TV deal. The American Athletic Conference hit the three point shot when that conference was created when they got TV rights from ESPN.
In theory, the American Athletic did a similar variation of my idea but for bigger schools that don't quite have Power 5 status. This would be a strictly mid major conference that could have strong RPI numbers because they wouldn't have a weak team holding the conference down.
A school like Gonzaga wouldn't need to join as they have already prefected mid-major greatness. Same goes for Wichita State in the American Athletic.
As a conference, the biggest question these commissioners should have is will my conference be good enough to get a #1 seed. If my research is correct, only 10 of the 32 conferences in the current religment have produced a #1 seed. So that asks the question, what should other 22 conferences do to make sure that every conference has the best chance possible to excel.
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