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The NCAA should be completely embarrassed that, over the past five years, the number of "mid-major" teams has shrunk from twelve to four. It isn't a factor that there aren't quality teams in the mid-major conferences; it is a factor there is a bias on the selection committee to award those spot to the power conferences (read: BCS). There is a simple way to fix the NCAA Basketball Championships, however.
1) If you don't at the minimum have a .500 record in your conference, you cannot be considered for the NCAA tournament. There are a few of the teams that were included in this year's tournament (think West Virginia is one) that would fail on this requirement. If you can't at least win half your conference games (and I am not counting the conference tournament here), you don't deserve to play for the National Championship.
2) Lock the power conferences - for arguments sake here, I am calling the power conferences the Big East, the ACC, the Big Ten, the Pac-10, the Big 12 and the SEC (and that one can fluctuate between maybe three other conferences, including Conference USA, the Mountain West and the Atlantic 10) - into a maximum of six selections.
Using the above criteria, there would have been three slots dropped by the ACC, Big East and Big Ten, opening them up to a deserving mid major school.
Some might not like limiting teams, but it is becoming more and more evident that the selection committee is not there to choose the best teams, but to choose the best BCS teams to compete in the NCAA Basketball tournament. Thus, it needs to be rectified.
1) If you don't at the minimum have a .500 record in your conference, you cannot be considered for the NCAA tournament. There are a few of the teams that were included in this year's tournament (think West Virginia is one) that would fail on this requirement. If you can't at least win half your conference games (and I am not counting the conference tournament here), you don't deserve to play for the National Championship.
2) Lock the power conferences - for arguments sake here, I am calling the power conferences the Big East, the ACC, the Big Ten, the Pac-10, the Big 12 and the SEC (and that one can fluctuate between maybe three other conferences, including Conference USA, the Mountain West and the Atlantic 10) - into a maximum of six selections.
Using the above criteria, there would have been three slots dropped by the ACC, Big East and Big Ten, opening them up to a deserving mid major school.
Some might not like limiting teams, but it is becoming more and more evident that the selection committee is not there to choose the best teams, but to choose the best BCS teams to compete in the NCAA Basketball tournament. Thus, it needs to be rectified.
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