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Heavyweight programs could push Cinderella out of March Madn


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#1 mweb08

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Posted 12 April 2012 - 02:03 PM

Andy Staples article: http://sportsillustr... ... =cb_bf3_a3

The dream division of Alden -- and many of the athletic directors and presidents at the top of the Division I food chain -- is a group of like-minded, similarly funded athletic departments. Alden didn't say this, but a good rule of thumb would be the current BCS automatic qualifying conferences. (Whether the Big East is included in that group would depend on the results of the league's upcoming media rights negotiation.)
That brings up a few interesting possibilities from a fan standpoint. It might mean the end of or at least a severe reduction in bodybag games for football power schools. It might mean an even more elaborate major college football playoff than the one currently being hammered out by conference leaders. It also might lead to a drastic change in one of our favorite events.
It could evict Cinderella from her March Madness castle.



#2 Chris B

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Posted 12 April 2012 - 03:41 PM

I saw Jay Bilas tweet this earlier today.

Personally, I absolutely hate it. And yes, these are selfish reasons. During the NCAA Tournament, fans want to and enjoy seeing upsets and Cinderallas (except when your own team is the one being upset, of course). It's what makes the tournament so special. Also, if what the author believes to be true is accurate, the "upper level" tournament would only feature BCS schools (i.e. those of the ACC, Big XII, B1G, SEC, Big East, and Pac 12 conferences). You will never again see the Gonzagas, Xaviers, Memphis's, VCUs, Butlers, etc. of the country playing against other top, elite teams on the nation's biggest college basketball stage.

#3 Nuclear Dish

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 03:50 PM

This actually makes a lot of sense to me. I'm so tired of the early season meaningless games between the power conference teams and the patsies, both in basketball and in football.

I also believe that it'll make it a lot harder for teams to play weak schedules and run up good records as a result. One of the biggest complaints I have with the NCAA is the hugely divergent schedules that teams play. There will be much less debate over whether a 22-8 Virginia Tech team is more worthy than an 18-12 Michigan if they've only been able to choose from 50-60 possible teams from which to play instead of 330.

And, truth be told, there really is no reason for the high revenue schools to have to bankroll with the Quinnipiacs of the world.

OK, so no more Cinderellas. I'd have been just as happy to have dook lose to South Florida in the first round as I was to have them lose to Lehigh.

"Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax..."

-Walter Sobchak


#4 Chris B

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 04:07 PM

Just for the sake of argument, Nuclear Dish, but what teams/conferences would you exclude?

In this article, it mentions that the tournament would only have teams from the BCS conferences (B1G, Pac 12, ACC, Big East, Big XII, SEC). This year, 4 non-BCS conferences (A10, Missouri Valley, CUSA, and MWC) are had better RPI ratings than the Pac 12. Why should they be excluded from the premiere basketball tournament just because they don't sponsor football? (Because really, the "BCS" label for the 6 conferences listed above is only there because those universities play a higher level of football.)

#5 Nuclear Dish

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 05:43 PM

Yeah, it's a tough call. Personally, I really loved the CASH idea that Andy Staples linked to in the article. Take the 64 highest revenue generating schools and split them into 4 16-team conferences.

Or, if that's a bit too exclusive, expand it to 80 teams and 5 conferences, or 96 teams and make it 8 12-team conferences.

But certainly no more than that.

Also, I guarantee that the Pac-12 schools will be much improved once they are in the top division and the other schools aren't. No top recruit will choose Wichita St. over Oregon St. if they are in different divisions.

"Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax..."

-Walter Sobchak


#6 mweb08

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 05:59 PM

Yeah, it's a tough call. Personally, I really loved the CASH idea that Andy Staples linked to in the article. Take the 64 highest revenue generating schools and split them into 4 16-team conferences.

Or, if that's a bit too exclusive, expand it to 80 teams and 5 conferences, or 96 teams and make it 8 12-team conferences.

But certainly no more than that.

Also, I guarantee that the Pac-12 schools will be much improved once they are in the top division and the other schools aren't. No top recruit will choose Wichita St. over Oregon St. if they are in different divisions.


Would you have the same teams in the top division in both football and basketball?

#7 Nuclear Dish

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Posted 17 April 2012 - 07:15 AM

I think the idea here is that they create a higher division for all sports. The same way that schools cannot play in more than one division currently (other than the 8 schools who were grandfathered in for a specific sport, such as Hopkins in lax and Colorado College in ice hockey), you wouldn't be able to play in Division A for basketball and Division B for football.

Unless they made this more like Division I-A (now FBS) and Division I-AA (now FCS) in the current football structure. But I don't think that's what they are talking about.

The idea here is to keep revenues exclusively among the high revenue-generating schools, and they can't do that if they still have to pay ridiculous fees for small programs to come visit (and ostensibly get creamed), nor if they have to subsidize their programs by allowing them to share in the tournament revenues.

So they make an exclusive division (instead of dropping out of the NCAA altogether, which is what they want to do, but which comes with too many headaches) that includes only 60-100 schools and keep the TV, postseason, and ticket money wrapped up amongst themselves.

"Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax..."

-Walter Sobchak


#8 mweb08

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Posted 17 April 2012 - 09:38 AM

I don't really have much issue with this idea in general, but it is problematic when we talk about schools like Georgetown and Villanova along with some schools already mentioned like Memphis and Xavier.

#9 Nuclear Dish

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Posted 17 April 2012 - 05:05 PM

I don't really have much issue with this idea in general, but it is problematic when we talk about schools like Georgetown and Villanova along with some schools already mentioned like Memphis and Xavier.


That's true. The Big East in general is problematic.

They could do something like what they did for Hopkins in lax, by making a couple exceptions for each sport. But they have to be very careful not to water down the product.

"Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax..."

-Walter Sobchak





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