Jay Bilas blog

[Da Coach]

Jay Bilas is at it again- in his blog on ESPN, he is calling for an end to the automatic bids for the NCAA tournament.-
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/blog?...matic-bids-ncb

The article is subscription, but the first couple paragraphs can be read. He argues that the automatic bids going to the conference tournament winners do more harm than good to midmajors, because they sometimes exclude good midmajor teams that get upset in the conference tournaments.
While that part may be true, IMO eliminating the auto bids would do incredible harm to the midmajor schools, as I believe it would give the big boys an easy excuse to claim as many of the post-season slots as possible at the expense of the midmajors. We would see numerous conferences excluded entirely from the NCAA tournament every year. And past history has shown that the good midmajors would lose out to crappy also-ran teams from the power conferences.

[TheAsianSensation]

Frankly, I think it would help conferences like the MVC and CAA. It would indeed help the mid-majors. And, of course, the big boys.

It's the small-majors that would get devastated.

And in the middle of typing this post, I'm wondering how Bilas and others actually define mid-major and small-major. There's no doubt it'll cripple the bottom half of D-1.

[AZ BU Fan]

Perhaps the bottom half of D-I shouldn't be D-I ...

[FlyingSpaghettiMonster]

Almost every year there are far too many teams from major conferences that make the NCAA tournament (especially the Big 10 and Big East). Eliminating auto bids would just make this worse. On the other hand maybe Northwestern could finally make it!

[real fan]

Almost every year there are far too many teams from major conferences that make the NCAA tournament (especially the Big 10 and Big East). Eliminating auto bids would just make this worse. On the other hand maybe Northwestern could finally make it!

Far too many teams do make it from the BCS conferences because of the lack of good criteria, I have said this before; no team with a .500 record or below in conference play should be allowed into the tour; do not care which conf. they are from because they have not earned their way into this tour.

[Toyota12]

.500

I agree no sub .500 conference record should be allowed in the tourney!! No matter what conference you are from!!!

[TheAsianSensation]

I should start copy-and-pasting my argument against that rule.

[tornado]

Jay Bilas is at it again- in his blog on ESPN, he is calling for an end to the automatic bids for the NCAA tournament.-
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/blog?...matic-bids-ncb

The article is subscription, but the first couple paragraphs can be read. He argues that the automatic bids going to the conference tournament winners do more harm than good to midmajors, because they sometimes exclude good midmajor teams that get upset in the conference tournaments.
While that part may be true, IMO eliminating the auto bids would do incredible harm to the midmajor schools, as I believe it would give the big boys an easy excuse to claim as many of the post-season slots as possible at the expense of the midmajors. We would see numerous conferences excluded entirely from the NCAA tournament every year. And past history has shown that the good midmajors would lose out to crappy also-ran teams from the power conferences.

but then all the BCS schools would whine and whine because they wouldn't have the easy patsies to beat the first two rounds on the NCAA Tournament...

[saluki762]

Perhaps the bottom half of D-I shouldn't be D-I ...

Word!




I know my Saluki's don't qualify right now.

[Bravesfan]

Jay Bilas is at it again- in his blog on ESPN, he is calling for an end to the automatic bids for the NCAA tournament.-
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/blog?...matic-bids-ncb

The article is subscription, but the first couple paragraphs can be read. He argues that the automatic bids going to the conference tournament winners do more harm than good to midmajors, because they sometimes exclude good midmajor teams that get upset in the conference tournaments.
While that part may be true, IMO eliminating the auto bids would do incredible harm to the midmajor schools, as I believe it would give the big boys an easy excuse to claim as many of the post-season slots as possible at the expense of the midmajors. We would see numerous conferences excluded entirely from the NCAA tournament every year. And past history has shown that the good midmajors would lose out to crappy also-ran teams from the power conferences.

The big boys still can't get over the fact that three mid majors made the Final Four over the last two years! And now they come up with a whole set of new "excuses" as to why the autobids should be eliminated. They just never stop whining!

They will be even more nervous come Monday. Why? New Mexico is just routing #11 UNLV right now by 18 points with a minute to go. New Mexico will be ranked, and so will Creighton if they can pull off the win over Long Beach State tonight. This would give three mid-major/non-BCS conferences mutiple ranked teams, with a potential for three ranked teams out of the Mountain West Conference on Monday! That would also be eight non-BCS teams ranked out of 25 (including Murray State) which may be close to a record, as would three mid-major conferences with 2 or more ranked teams each.

No wonder Jay Bilas and the rest of the national pundits are quaking in their boots these days!

[TheAsianSensation]

The big boys still can't get over the fact that three mid majors made the Final Four over the last two years! And now they come up with a whole set of new "excuses" as to why the autobids should be eliminated. They just never stop whining!

They will be even more nervous come Monday. Why? New Mexico is just routing #11 UNLV right now by 18 points with a minute to go. New Mexico will be ranked, and so will Creighton if they can pull off the win over Long Beach State tonight. This would give three mid-major/non-BCS conferences mutiple ranked teams, with a potential for three ranked teams out of the Mountain West Conference on Monday! That would also be eight non-BCS teams ranked out of 25 (including Murray State) which may be close to a record, as would three mid-major conferences with 2 or more ranked teams each.

No wonder Jay Bilas and the rest of the national pundits are quaking in their boots these days!

I don't get that sense from Bilas on this one - he's actually arguing more top mid-majors should make the tournament precisely for the reason you describe - he wants to get rid of the low-majors who can't.

[Bravesfan]

I don't get that sense from Bilas on this one - he's actually arguing more top mid-majors should make the tournament precisely for the reason you describe - he wants to get rid of the low-majors who can't.

Well, if that's the case, then it may be time to purge about 150 or so teams out of Division I, as getting rid of the autobid will kill any chance for any of these teams to make the tournament.