Time For A Tournament Transformation

For the first time since George Washington and John Adams played a game of one-on-one in the front yard, a team (Washington) wins a major conference regular season league championship - and doesn't get into the NCAA tournament.  While it is tough to argue for the Huskies inclusion based on the numbers used by the committee, it is much easier and probably intellectually right to argue that the formula, and numbers used by the committee are flawed and need to be overhauled before this all gets out of hand.  Maybe it is too late.

It wouldn't be a stretch to think that Larry Scott has some brilliant mathematician fresh out of Stanford behind the curtain working on a formula to show the current RPI/SOS/RVT100, or whatever, system is out of date and flawed.  Really, why should Oregon State's loss to Idaho in early December, or USC's terrible season impact whether Washington makes it to the NCAA tournament?

What ever happened to the idea that what you did in your league mattered?  It HAS to matter for the viability of programs spending two million a year for head coaches and maintaining large arenas.

Just because the MLB American League West champion this year is likely to be a dog, does that mean that team shouldn't be in the playoffs?  Same could be said for the NFL, NHL, or any other pro sports league on the planet.  Apply the NCAA method to the MLB playoffs, and you'd have some committee with computer rankings determining who'd be in the playoffs?  Fans wouldn't stand for that for even a second.

This is not a defense of the Pac-12, which would require a team of the most brilliant spin lawyers in America this year to make the case, but this is a defense of the regular league season, which is losing (has lost?) all importance.  Washington's win over California should count more than their win over Yahoo State, but right now no extra weight is applied to anything a team does in their league - especially when the rest of the teams in the league play like garbage in November and December and can't change their computer ranking for the next three months..  

Being a member of the six major conferences must mean something.  The new CBS NCAA basketball contract doesn't pay 11 BILLION over 14 years because of the value VCU and Iona brings.  They pay it because of Syracuse, Kentucky, North Carolina, et al..and even for teams that don't necessarily make it in the tournament every year, like Arizona and UCLA.   So why should minor and mid major conference teams get half of the spots in the tournament?  Do the rich get richer? Yes.  The rich are the ones that created the money in the first place. Allowing so many mid major and minor league teams into the tournament may be fun as we look for the random upset on the opening weekend, but it is a form of sports socialism at its finest.

NCAA basketball is creating a system where the regular season is meaningless.  Already, it is that way for most minor or mid major team in America as all that matters is winning the conference tournament.  Since when did three games in three days become more important than 30 games in three months?

Take the top half of the teams from the six major conferences and put them in, plus allow a committee to select a few wildcards.  Take the division IA teams and make them play each other to get in the big tournament.  Allow a committee to seed teams, but not select more than half of the field on some formula developed by some computer hacker in his mom's basement.  

Yes the tournament is fantastic, but the void in the previous four months is growing exponentially, especially when a team like Washington who won a major conference is left at home.   From a revenue perspective, getting that cash from the CBS contract is great, but at what cost as attendance falls off a cliff because fans finally start to wake up and realize that every game they are going to - and spending for - doesn't really matter.  

Take a page from the pro sports leagues, if the NFC West is down in any given year, too bad.. they won their division and that alone guarantees a spot in the playoffs.  It's a pretty simple, so why does the NCAA have to make it all so complicated.