I read where ESPN’s head basketball analyst Jay Bilas says there’s nothing for bubble teams to complain about, and that the message is clear to teams on the bubble: “If you want to get in next year, schedule tougher non-conference opponents.” Well, you tool, MS State beat Depaul, Old Dominion, and UCLA in non-conference play, and lost by 1 point to a damn good Richmond team. But, it turns out that traditionally tough Depaul and UCLA had lousy RPIs this year, so that didn’t help.

Then this corrupt committee puts in the CAL Bears and ND (2 committee members were alumni of those schools. And bumped FL ahead of MSU. These guys should be castrated. Then the seeding and the bracket selections for the teams that did make it are the worst ever. This method of selection is broken and needs to be fixed. Just let the mafia take over the whole thing; it has lost it’s integrity. I have lost all faith in the process. GTHNCAA!

Another idea is to award tournament slots based strictly on the strength of each conference with the automatic bids for conference tournament winners still in place. Then, let the computer do the seeding for the chosen teams.

Let’s take an example (with the math): Say this year the Big 10 was the 5th best conference (based on RPI of .5578, but could use another ranking system).. the top team RPI in the Big 10 is .6228. and the bottom is .4852. Let’s assume the the bottom RPI of an tournament team is .57 RPI. The 50 percentile mark could be assumed to be .5578 and the 100 percentile mark assumed to be .6228. So, we can estimate the percentage of teams that fall above .57 RPI. (.57-.5578)/(.6228-.5578) = 18.77%, translated to 1.1877*50% = 59.4% of the teams do not belong in the NCAAs so that translates to 40.6% * 11 = 4 teams.

So, here is how the conferences fare with this method in number of tournament teams assuming .57 base RPI (including auto-bids)
Big 12: 7 bids
Big East: 9 bids
ACC: 6 bids
SEC: 5 bids
Big 10: 4 bids
Mountain West: 3 bids
Atlantic 10: 5 bids
Pac 10: 3 bids
Missouri Valley: 3 bids
WAC: 2 bids
CUSA: 2 bids
Colonial: 2 bids
West Coast: 2 bids

Now, there are still 18 additional conferences with automatic bids, so that would put us at at least 71 teams. However, .57 was somewhat pulled out of a hat, so this can be adjusted up to perhaps .58 or s to squeeze out some more bids. Using .5752 is just enough to squeeze the Big East down to 8 seeds, but doesn’t affect most other major conferences. Obviously, conferences with no teams rated higher than the target RPI will get no at-large bids. On request, I will find the exact RPI mean and do the calculations. There should probably be some tweaks to the math so that conferences with a single excellent team (like Butler) don’t get an extra NCAA tournament bid. The solution is to require that the conference champ must have a loss in conference to count as the top RPI for the conference, otherwise the next highest team counts as top RPI in conference.
Anyway, I believe I’ve demonstrated that it is possible to fairly reliably approximate how many bids each conference should get based solely on the RPI numbers already evaluated by the committee. I would love for each conference to choose their best teams to send to the tourney to fill the appointed slots rather than have a national committee do it.

I also believe a computer should do the seeding after the field is already decided and all regular season games are complete. Reward the top 4 RPI-rated conferences by giving each conference champion a #1 seed (conference has the option whether to use the regular season or tournament champ). I believe initial seedings should be based only on games between tournament teams using a computer system similar to the colley matrix rankings. After initial seeding, the computer could have rules for where each team plays, calculating the best location for the most likely scenarios that would minimize the distance each team has to travel, favoring higher seeded teams.

Yeah.. this is an elaborate and far-fetched idea, but we got the BCS, didn’t we?
It would take the guess work out of determining actual teams to make the field as it could be projected and calculated all season long with absolutely no bias whatsoever. If I was a coach, I would love this, because towards the end of the season, I could similate exactly what needed to happen for my team to make the postseason.

Richmond vs St Mary’s
Richmond/St mary’s vs Villanova (I count out Rober Morris completely)

Tennesee vs San Diego State
Tenn/San Diego State vs Georgetown (again, I count out Ohio)

What location has a better slate of games?
New Orleans, Buffalo, Spokane? I don’t think so!

Here is my personal list of 1st round games that are potential upsets :

Tenn/SD State
Oklahoma State/Ga Tech
Gonzaga/Florida St*
Marquette/Washington
Cal/Louisville*
Notre Dame/Old Dominion
Richmond/St. Mary’s
N Iowa/UNLV*
Clemson/Missouri

*I suppose I shouldn’t include #8 vs #9 games as those generally go without saying.

There may be a few upsets that fall outside of the list, but I bet there aren’t many.

In general, I would be in favor of shrinking the field back to 64 by taking an at-large bid away, however.

I actually don’t think Kansas has that difficult a road to the championship. They would love to play Michigan State and stomp them. On the other hand, Georgetown and Maryland are both good teams, but Kansas should still not have too much problem with them. There are good teams in the Midwest bracket, but just not that many. Kansas should coast to the final four.

I actually think Kentucky has the toughest road. Texas should beat Wake Forest, but who knows which team will show up? Texas can be a tough team to face on the second day, especially if (a big if) Pittman shows up. But, Rick Barnes’ teams seem to do well the first weekend. Then, Kentucky may have to play Temple and West Virginia or New Mexico. West Virginia was good enough this year for a #1 seed, and New Mexico is a legit #3 seed (I’m not sure Pitt, Baylor, or Georgetown shouldn’t all be #4 seeds).

I believe the South bracket has the best teams overall, but the seeding is very good, so there may not be many upsets.

IMO, the most underseeded teams in each bracket:
East: Temple, Washington
South: St. Mary’s
West: Butler
Midwest: N Iowa, Tennessee, San Diego St

IMO, the most OVERseeded teams in each bracket (I’m excluding anything below a 12 seed):
East: Marquette
South: Notre Dame
West: Florida, Minnesota (hard to call these overseeded at 10 & 11 but pretty consistent bracket overall)
Midwest: Ohio State, Maryland, Michigan State, Oklahoma State

One caveat….. Ohio State did play well in conference and at the end of the year, but I’m not sure that should translate into a #2 seed, regardless of injuries. The same can be said for Michigan State in an overall mediocre year for the Big 10. I’m also somewhat with the guy that thinks Purdue is better than a #4 seed.

I agree with the guy lamenting the fact that Mississippi State should have made it in… at least over Minnesota. In the SEC tourney, the proved they belong by beating Vandy and Florida before barely losing to Kentucky. — Yet Vanderbilt still got overseeded, having split with Miss St, losing the tournament game.

I’ve got a fun idea (that would never happen) for the NCAA tourney: Let the fans vote on two challenge games to take place midweek (Tuesday) after the selection committee is finished. Have a vote: The first vote would pick two teams that missed the field as fan favorites. The 2nd team would get to play (on the road) the last at-large team selected by the committee for a right to take their seed. The 1st team would get to play the 2nd to last at-large team selected (on the road) for a right to take their seed. This would gin up a ton of fan interest and get fans more involved in the process. It would also make sure that two teams that maybe should have made the tourney still get a chance when the committee misses.

Duke didn’t. They were placed as a higher 1 seed because the committee thought Syracuse, a team that only goes 7 deep, might have lost their starting center. It now looks like he won’t play in the first weekend.

“Duke may have to go through both Texas A&M and Baylor in Houston to make the Final Four, not exactly an easy road for a supposed #1 seed.”

Yeah, that’s pretty bad. But it’ll seem downright friendly compared to what’ll happen if BYU makes it to Salt Lake City.

“Big East is not overrepresented at all.”

Yeah, their representation was about right. But they were badly overseeded. Villanova a 2? Pittsburgh a 3? Notre Dame a 6? Really?

I have to wonder how minuscule the odds are that KU would have the precise three teams they have lost to in the last 35 games in their regional bracket. Do you think it was intentional and does it benefit or hurt KU?