Bubble Watch 2/10/23

[stever20]

I don't love the idea of expanding the tournament, but I would like a system somewhat like UEFA Champions League qualification that would award a predetermined number of bids to each conference and then let the conferences decide how to allocate them.

Let a conference ranking system through OOC play determine the number of bids each league gets and go from there.

So for example, let's say that as the 3rd ranked conference the Big East gets 6 bids. The conference can them determine that they'll award those bids to the BET champion and the top 5 regular season finishers. If the BET champion comes from the top 5, resulting in a double qualification, that extra bid would go to 6th place.

It would create an atmosphere of "bubble" teams at this point in the season knowing what they need to do rather than hoping the selection committee likes them in an apples to oranges comparison against teams from other leagues.

Seeding would still be determined by the committee and I'd even let them make at-large "wildcard" selections for the last 4 in/play-in games.

I disagree with this big time. Teams get bids, confrerences don't. Like this year the Big East might have due to OOC only had 4 bids. Your thing would lead to more real undeserving teams making the tournament.

[Hall2012]

Perhaps, but expanding the tournament adds "undeserving" teams as well. My guess is the results wouldn't actually be all that different from the current system. You'd just get the team the started slow and put it together in conference play making the tournament over the team that got some big Q1 wins in November then fell apart in February.

And yes, "teams get bids, not conferences" but conference play is a near zero-sum game (or theoretically should be, implicit bias is the only thing that prevents it), so OOC results place an unofficial cap on how many bids a confidence can realistically get anyway.

[stever20]

Perhaps, but expanding the tournament adds "undeserving" teams as well. My guess is the results wouldn't actually be all that different from the current system. You'd just get the team the started slow and put it together in conference play making the tournament over the team that got some big Q1 wins in November then fell apart in February.

And yes, "teams get bids, not conferences" but conference play is a near zero-sum game (or theoretically should be, implicit bias is the only thing that prevents it), so OOC results place an unofficial cap on how many bids a confidence can realistically get anyway.

I mean like this year with your thing and still only 68. Big East lets say gets 5 bids. One of those 5 teams wins the BET, and the league gets a 6th bid? I don't think so. And if they did, why should a bad 16-17 win Seton Hall or Nova team make it?

[Hall2012]

Perhaps, but expanding the tournament adds "undeserving" teams as well. My guess is the results wouldn't actually be all that different from the current system. You'd just get the team the started slow and put it together in conference play making the tournament over the team that got some big Q1 wins in November then fell apart in February.

And yes, "teams get bids, not conferences" but conference play is a near zero-sum game (or theoretically should be, implicit bias is the only thing that prevents it), so OOC results place an unofficial cap on how many bids a confidence can realistically get anyway.

I mean like this year with your thing and still only 68. Big East lets say gets 5 bids. One of those 5 teams wins the BET, and the league gets a 6th bid? I don't think so. And if they did, why should a bad 16-17 win Seton Hall or Nova team make it?

Maybe that's not who gets it. Maybe they decide it goes the unqualified team with the highest NET. Maybe it's the unqualified team who advances the farthest in the BET. Who really knows if either of them is actually any better or worse than the 10th place Big Ten team the committee would give it to instead? All the teams we're talking about for those final few bids are severely flawed anyway. I'm just looking for way to get them earned on the court rather than given in a board room. You feel snubbed? Well you had a chance to win that bid and you lost. Personally, I'd rather miss the tournament that way than because a group of men in a conference room decided they think some random team we never played is a hair better than we are.

[stever20]

Perhaps, but expanding the tournament adds "undeserving" teams as well. My guess is the results wouldn't actually be all that different from the current system. You'd just get the team the started slow and put it together in conference play making the tournament over the team that got some big Q1 wins in November then fell apart in February.

And yes, "teams get bids, not conferences" but conference play is a near zero-sum game (or theoretically should be, implicit bias is the only thing that prevents it), so OOC results place an unofficial cap on how many bids a confidence can realistically get anyway.

I mean like this year with your thing and still only 68. Big East lets say gets 5 bids. One of those 5 teams wins the BET, and the league gets a 6th bid? I don't think so. And if they did, why should a bad 16-17 win Seton Hall or Nova team make it?

Maybe that's not who gets it. Maybe they decide it goes the unqualified team with the highest NET. Maybe it's the unqualified team who advances the farthest in the BET. Who really knows if either of them is actually any better or worse than the 10th place Big Ten team the committee would give it to instead? All the teams we're talking about for those final few bids are severely flawed anyway. I'm just looking for way to get them earned on the court rather than given in a board room. You feel snubbed? Well you had a chance to win that bid and you lost. Personally, I'd rather miss the tournament that way than because a group of men in a conference room decided they think some random team we never played is a hair better than we are.

Or maybe they don't do the extra bid at all, that would make far more sense. One of the 5 teams win the BET, you're set. Only way get a 6th bid is if someone else won the BET.

I'd be afraid doing that would sap a lot of the juice from the conference tournaments realistically.

And realistically, I don't think the selection process is going to change.

[Hall2012]

Oh, I agree it won't realistically change. Just thinking about how something like that would change the landscape. I don't know if you watch European soccer at all, but the race for a league's final champions league bid is often just as tense and exciting, if not moreso, as the one for the league title.

I don't think conference tournaments would change too much since bid thieves already aren't that common. What it would do though, is imagine if the Big East did have a guaranteed 6 bids. Now you look at the schedule and see that 2/28 SHU-Nova game and see that it could end up being a legitimate play-in game. Or suppose the league only gets 5 bids... now (should the BE choose to award them based on league standings), UConn isn't safe. Though they'd be a leading candidate for one of the committee's 4 wildcards and precisely the type of situation I'd propose having those for.