Long Beach State Sports : Re: What's fundamentally wrong with the NCAA:

In terms of the 1989-1990 team that more than deserved to be in the tourney. Beat teams like Purdue and Texas along with a good NMSU. Went to NIT and beat up Arizona State as after game that their coach said we belonged in the NCAA tourney.
Still upset to this day over being passed over by an average BIG10 school.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/long-beach-state/men/1990-schedule.html

LA Times story:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-20-sp-638-story.html

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Basketball and Football

After the first games of the CFP, some commentators were arguing that fans hated seeing the blow-outs so therefore, the non-power conference teams should not be there. Of course, after there were other blow-outs, the same argument was not made for those non-champion teams.

As much as I am sure that fans hate blow-outs they even more love a Cinderella story. Can any power conference team be a Cinderella story other than as a joke? “Here is a team that won only one game all year, but there are in the Big 10 so they were invited and now they might win the national championship.” Fans know this is a joke.

I get that from a money standpoint, ESPN, etc. want big names to get more fans, but I suspect that they make even more money when a non-power conference team starts winning games as that is something fans really want to see. Yes, there will be some poor games, but many of us remember when we lost the BWCT title to UNLV how that blow-out was proof that we did not belong in the NCAA Tournament. UNLV went on to win the national championship beating Duke by even more than they beat us. I was so grateful when a commentator pointed out that based on the NCAA’s logic, runner-up Duke also did not belong in the tournament.

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Great post! Just as with the football wins requirement for bowl eligibility, I would agree with you that in order to qualify for the NCAAT, a team must (1) Have an over .500 overall record against D1 teams, AND (2) Have an over .500 record within its conference. If a team with a below .500 overall or conference record plays in and wins its respective conference tournament, the conference should lose its automatic bid. This will lead to conferences eliminating conference tournaments or reducing the number of eligible teams for their conference tournaments, yielding better and more worthy post season competitors and shortening the already overly long seasons for the busy STUDENT athletes by just a little bit.

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The greed of the top teams to make sure they suck the excitement out of all things good about college sports.

I just read an article that was making the case that Miami (OH) is not a lock if they lose one game and then lose their tourney as well. They would be something like 28-1, and not get in.

Yet Auburn, who is 15-13, is in the same position.

My argument:

1)if a team can't win half it's conference games, they can't get an auto bid. "But they play a harder schedule!" Yes, and half of the conference games are at home, and they proved they can't get it done. They proved they are mediocre already. Notice the NCAA leaves out the Conference record on their Net Ratings Site. Auburn is 6-9 in the SEC.

2)Power teams that don't play/win true road games shouldn't get in either. Auburn's best win was played in a tourney, on third day in a rowagainst St John's. Who did they beat on the road in OOC? No one on the road. Now did Miami of Ohio play any truly hard road games? No, but that is because the big dawgs will never come to their house. Miami would always have to go on the road.

3)I'd be excited to see Miami (OH) in the tourney, and I think more people are like me than not.