FanPost

One Change that would make the NCAA Tournament Infinitely Better

The NCAA Tournament is awesome, this is not up for debate, it is the single greatest sporting event in the world, upsets, buzzer-beaters, unknowns exploding onto the scene, rivalry games, it has it all. But, the one thing that is also not debatable, programs from outside the Power 6 (7 if you count the American) don't get a fair shake when it comes to tournament selection, ask Monmouth a couple years ago, Illinois State last year, St. Bonaventure a couple years ago, Louisiana Tech in 2014. Not only that, non Power 6 teams routinely get screwed in the seeding process, even when Wichita State got a 1 seed for being unbeaten, they got shafted and played a seriously talented and underachieving Kentucky team in the second round, a team that would go on to play for a title. So what can we learn out of all of this? That there needs to be change in how the committee deals with mid-majors.

I propose that we keep the field at 68, however, make the First Four a play-in game, which exclusively features the 4 best mid-majors that wouldn't have gotten in on resume alone, they can't be the auto-bids, they have to be at-large teams, and this play-in would only feature at-large mid-majors that couldn't make the 32 normal at-larges allowed, the bubble would be moved to the last 4 teams that wouldn't play in the play-in games, the top 2 11 seeds and bottom 2 10 seeds would become the bubble line. For example, this year, the 4 mid-majors I would put in this First Four would be: Old Dominion, St. Bonaventure, 1 of South Dakota/South Dakota St., and 1 of Murray St./Belmont. I would like to know what you guys think of this proposal, the committee would probably never go for it, but I think It would infinitely improve both college basketball, and the NCAA tourney, while also getting more national exposure to good programs that wouldn't otherwise get it. That's all I got!

FanPosts are written by your fellow readers. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or stance of the editors of Mid-Major Madness.