Get rid of the tournament

KeyWestParrot · Post by **KeyWestParrot** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:46 am

I have always maintained that a post-season tournament for the MAC is a bad idea. Since the MAC only gets one automatic bid I feel that the tournament really hurts them. If the regular season champ received an automatic bid and the winner of the tournament would receive a second bid than I wouldn't be against the tournament.

Imagine if Toledo, who wasn't a very good team this year, would have gotten hot and ended up winning the tournament. They would have been the representative of the MAC at the NCAA's. I think it is crazy to entertain the notion that this scenario would be good for the MAC.

Doesn't it make more sense that the winner of the east and the winner of the west play a one game championship with the winner going to the NCAA's. Would sure put more emphasis on the regular season.

eRichFalcon · Post by **eRichFalcon** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:27 am

I understand what you say but I don't necessarily agree with it. I feel like basketball is a very streaky sport, and whoever happens to be hot the week before the big tournament will probably be the team in the best position to represent us.

Yes we would all be furious if Toledo had gotten that one bid this year, but if the positions were reversed and BG had a bad year, wouldn't we be elated at the chance to go and prove we were better than we had played?

I feel like over 90% of the time the team that goes from a 1-bid conference is worthy, if not the very best. How could any one team even lay a claim to being the very best this year? Five different teams had pretty similarly decent, if not great years, and lo and behold one of those teams is representing us in the tournament.

If it ain't broke...

orangeandbrown · Post by **orangeandbrown** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:56 pm

Also, the MAC doesn't play a true round robin schedule, which means you need a tournament. What if there was one strong team in the West this year, and they took the easy route to a 14-2 record. Would that be fair? Most sports (including professionals) use a tournament or playoffs to determine a champion, and it makes sense in the MAC, too, IMO.

BGGrad01 · Post by **BGGrad01** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 4:02 pm

Sour grapes post here - what about a "plus one" game at the end of a conference tournament? We hear it every year around the BCS where there would be a final game to determine the national champion. In the MAC's (and other 1 bid conferences) case, it would be the conference tournament champion (if different than the regular season champ) against the regular season champ in a winner take all game. This would reward the conference tourney champ for getting hot at the right time, but also give the regular season champ a shot if that team happened to get knocked off in the tournament.

I am not in favor of the above plan, but it would provide a reward for playing well in the regular season. It would have also worked out quite well for BGSU this weekend.

h2oville rocket · Post by **h2oville rocket** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 6:13 pm

I hate tournaments but they make sense from the standpoint that a team that is hot early but cools off and is on the downslide won't make the NCAAs and b an automatic out. Also addresses the team that has a star player who carries them through the regular season but gets a season ending injury and the team is average without him or hr. But mostly its about the Benjamins.

BgWaRrIoR · Post by **BgWaRrIoR** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 7:28 pm

BGGrad01 wrote:Sour grapes post here - what about a "plus one" game at the end of a conference tournament? We hear it every year around the BCS where there would be a final game to determine the national champion. In the MAC's (and other 1 bid conferences) case, it would be the conference tournament champion (if different than the regular season champ) against the regular season champ in a winner take all game. This would reward the conference tourney champ for getting hot at the right time, but also give the regular season champ a shot if that team happened to get knocked off in the tournament.

I am not in favor of the above plan, but it would provide a reward for playing well in the regular season. It would have also worked out quite well for BGSU this weekend.

I like this idea. It makes the regular season rewarding as well as the tourney. All I know is it sure as hall sucks to have such a great regular season all for null.

BGorDeath · Post by **BGorDeath** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:12 pm

I do not care for the post season conference tournaments. All they do is reward some mediocre teams while pushing out deserving teams. Additionally, they fly in the face of why there is not a football tourney. To win the Big Least, you need to when 5 games in a row, then 6 more for the NCAA. Teams that are guaranteed a birth in the NCAA take it off because it does not matter because they already have their bid, UNC is the case in point this year.

The tournaments are just another way the money grubbing conferences to cash in another time. Empty seats at sites that where only some of the alumni can get to on days they can't attend. How many empty seats did you see on ESPN this week? Lots.

Stick to the top 64. Reward a conference champion. I know this will never happen. Too much money to be made.

h2oville rocket · Post by **h2oville rocket** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:18 pm

BgWaRrIoR wrote:All I know is it sure as hall sucks to have such a great regular season all for null.

BG has had several seasons since 1968 that might qualify as great. This wasn't one. The years when Daniels played and the team won over twenty might qulaify- I think they won 24 one year and made the finals and got bumped from the NCAA. This was an OK year in the weakest MAC in many, many years.

Bleeding Orange · Post by **Bleeding Orange** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 9:15 pm

h2oville rocket wrote:
BgWaRrIoR wrote:All I know is it sure as hall sucks to have such a great regular season all for null.
BG has had several seasons since 1968 that might qualify as great. This wasn't one. The years when Daniels played and the team won over twenty might qulaify- I think they won 24 one year and made the finals and got bumped from the NCAA. This was an OK year in the weakest MAC in many, many years.

Objectively, you are correct. But, for BG fans, this was a great season, simply because none of us expected anything even remotely resembling a conference championship out of this team. Given pre-season predictions, and even tempered mid-season expectations based on a generally poor OOC performance, the turnaround this team made was stunning to behold.

I never like these conversations about the merits of conference tournaments, though. They never come up before the fact, and it usually is only brought up after things don't work out the way some may want them to. The only way this conversation could be interesting at all is if people were talking about this topic two weeks ago.