DESIGNATED NOTE: Today’s Designated Contributor is Nico Van Thyn, our former Designated Boss, lifetime friend, recently retired scribe, Woodlawn and Louisiana Tech graduate, former SID for Centenary and executive sports editor of the Shreveport Journal, and the best in-a-fit-of-rage telephone book thrower we have ever seen. EVER!)
By NICO VAN THYN, Designated Contributor
Have some suggestions for the NCAA basketball Tournament, which fall into the “it-will-never-happen” category:
(1) Do away with the conference championship tournaments; (2) include every Division I men’s team in the Tournament — yes, all 351.
Crazy? Maybe. Fair? You decide. (We’ll come back to this if you read on.)
March Madness, indeed. We’re a little mad at the men’s tournament selection committee.
Did not think we would be making a case for Middle Tennessee State University basketball. But here it is.
The NCAA committee put it to the Blue Raiders, or if you prefer uglier terms, hosed them … screwed them. Left them out of the field of 68 teams. Left them for the (who really cares?) NIT.
Those of us who are interested in Conference USA, thanks to our ties to Louisiana Tech, and actually respect the conference, are not happy.
Never mind Middle Tennessee’s 24-7 record, the most road victories (12) in the nation, its 16-2, regular-season C-USA championship run; its RPI of 33 (ratings percentage index — the NCAA system to judge teams based on their W’s and L’s and strength of schedule).
That 33 easily should have told that NCAA committee that Middle Tennessee was in the upper half of the would-be qualifiers.
But … no respect.
Because it lost in the C-USA winner-take-all (automatic NCAA spot) tournament — to Southern Miss, in overtime, no less), the Blue Raiders were left out. They had won 11 games in a row prior to that.
But the NCAA committee picked two “majors” with big reputations — Oklahoma, which tied for sixth in the Big 12 (with an 8-10 conference record), and Syracuse, which tied for 10th in the ACC.
For years, the NCAA committee members always told us that RPI mattered a lot. So did a team’s last 10 games. Sure. That’s why Oklahoma — 14-2 record in mid-January, and 4-11 in the last eight weeks — steamed into the Tournament. Bunk.
Some of us live in Big 12 territory and think OU’s Lon Kruger is one of the best coaches in the country and one of the best guys. And, the Sooners have the hot-shot freshman guard Trae Young, who leads the country in scoring (27.4 points a game) and assists (8.8).
But, really, you think the Sooners would beat Middle Tennessee head-up?
The Blue Raiders, in the NCAAs, took care of Michigan State — in a No. 15 seed-beating-No. 2 scenario — two years ago and Minnesota last year. So it’s a proven program.
We endorse a Facebook post earlier in the week by Jamie Eagles (whose late father, Tommy Joe, coached La. Tech in the NCAAs a few times three decades ago). Jamie suggested that the mid- to lower-major conferences do away with their postseason tournament (which general produce little revenue) and let the regular-season champion receive the NCAA automatic bid.
(That would have worked for Louisiana Tech twice in recent years when Mike White coached regular-season champs, but the Bulldogs did not win the conference tournament.)
So back to the thoughts at the top: Take the week now used for conference tournaments and instead make the first week of the NCAA Tournament … with all 351 teams — in 32 conferences — involved. Divide the first stage into eight regionals (so 43 or 44 teams in each regional), and make those as geographically close as possible.
For instance, mixed the SEC with the Southland and the SWAC and the Sun Belt.
Stay true to geographical regions. Give first-round byes to regular-season champions. Set up five-man seedings/pairings committees for each region). Play each region down to eight teams … thus 64 final teams. Distribute the payouts to the teams by the number of rounds they advance (so everyone at least gets a cut of the whole pie).
Keep the NCAA Tournament selection committee as it is now, and let those people seed the 64 teams and set up the pairings, as they do now.
Just as happens now, distribute the payouts to the teams by the number of rounds they advance (so everyone at least gets a financial cut).
You’ll still have some dissatisfactions with the seedings and the pairings. But at least, those final 64 will be decided by games, not the whims of the big-conference power brokers.
Put the decisions on the playing floor, not in a conference selection room. Let the Middle Tennessees and Louisiana Techs earn their respect.
