March Really Is Madness: Should NCAA Divide Colleg

Date: Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Last night featured the "opening game", or play-in game, for the NCAA tournament. Arkansas-Pine Bluff, at 17-15, faced off against 19-13 Winthrop. The two teams, who come from the SWAC and Big South Conference respectively, immediately showed off their lack of championship potential thanks to a sedative opening few minutes.

I tuned into the game, and within 10 minutes tuned out of it. Then came Mississippi State vs. Jacksonville State, and North Carolina vs. William and Mary for the NIT.

The NIT is supposed to pit the second tier of college basketball's finest. Yet, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, and other top schools were left out thanks to a bunch of mid-majors who shoved themselves into the tournament field through some bogus "fair" system and a bunch of technicalities.

All you have to do to make the tournament is win your conference tournament, which is a week's stretch worth of games that seemingly dilute the vigorous conference schedules that each and every basketball team must go through during the regular season.

But, it only seems "fair," I guess, to reward a "conference champion" a spot in the field of 65.

Or does it?

We all know well and good that the likes of Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, Mississippi, and other top tier conference members belong. We all know how capable those teams are.

But they get left out, and it happens every year. These tiny conferences like the Atlantic Sun, Northeast, SWAC, Summit, and others "entitlements" in the NCAA tournament are laughingly absurd.

We all know that none of these teams are capable of doing any damage. Sure, Cinderella comes around every blue moon, but the fact of the matter is that that "Cinderella Story" that we all wish to see in the NCAA tournament—one of the main reasons we might watch it—doesn't ever happen because the small schools just aren't good enough.

But let us reflect this with college football. What constitutes a Cinderella in college football? What if someone ranked No. 25 in preseason wins the national championship?

What if they start the season ranked No. 15? All college football fans can agree that that in itself would be a remarkable feat.

The 32nd team in college football, winning a national title, would be even more outstanding.

Does the 98th team ever win it in college football? No. Do we want to see that happen? Of course not.

So why can't basketball adopt a similar championship? Seeing the likes of Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, or South Florida run the table would be plenty of an "edge-of-your-seat" story, would it not?

I would prefer it be that way. And the selling fact here is that the teams stated above...

...could actually run the table.

They have at least some championship swagger to them.

So here is my proposal. No, we will not adopt a BCS system, but we could adopt something similar.

What if college basketball split the D1 teams into two divisions, just like football? Then, tournament seeding would be solely based on the top 32 teams in the "BCS" esque poll.

The poll would run through conference tournament week, and the final 32 spots in the poll would be decided at the conclusion of the conference tournaments.

That way, teams on "the bubble" could prove themselves in the conference tournaments.

And, just like the BCS in football, the bottom tier teams could still be eligible to place in the field if the voting committee felt they are worthy of the 32 spots.

This concept could also simply expand to 64 teams, or even 65, but I'm actually an advocate of decreasing the current tournament size.

The top tier conferences would get reevaluated every two years, much like some high school systems.

Presumably, the top tier would consist of:

Atlantic-10, ACC, Big XII, Big East, Big Ten, Conference USA, Mountain West, Pac-10, and the SEC.

The bottom teir would feature the other conferences.

If the smaller conference teams did not make it into the top tier poll of 32, they would still be eligible for a second tier poll of 32 which pits the best second tier teams.

These 32 teams would face off in a tournament similar to the NIT, which would be expanded to fit every team in.

Two national champions would be crowned at the end of the season, just like football. People are proud of their national titles, no matter on what level.

Conference tournaments would not dictate seeding, but simply provide more down the stretch games to determine who is hot and who is not, which would factor into the top 32 poll.

Finally, polls would mean something in basketball. RPI could still exist, and voting would be done by a select committee.

I'm currently a student at Kennesaw State, which was two wins away from claiming a spot in the NCAA tournament field despite being a mediocre team in the Atlantic Sun Conference, which currently has three teams that are not even full D1 and thus not even eligible for the tournament.

We would have gone nuts if we made it, but we might be the 250th-300th best team in college basketball.

I just feel like this would be way more fair, and nobody will be getting left out to a team that has half as many wins as them but ran the table in their conference tournament.

Anyone agree or disagree? How much do mid-major and tiny schools feed off of the major spotlight? Could the spotlight still exist through national TV contracts for both tournaments?

by Mike Foster