How are TCU fans feeling toward the end of their first MWC year?Originally Posted by TopCoog
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How are TCU fans feeling toward the end of their first MWC year?
I figure, if TCU leaves, MWC would have to invite someone else. Losing TCU would put MWC at 8...believe me, they've been watching what the BE has to do at 8. My guess is they would invite UTEP to keep a Texas presence. In that situation, TCU goes back to CUSA and we stay where we are. MWC could invite BSU/Fresno/Hawaii, but I think UTEP would probably be at the top of the list. However, I don't think it's very likely that TCU is going to come back to CUSA before change occurs in the BE.
Time is your friend. Impulse is your enemy. -John Bogle
Back when the MWC formed and the play-in game was added, I assume there was discussion about the reason for that mandate. Anybody remember anything from that discussion? Is there any good reason for this or is it just an arbitrary number?
I am not a fan of the play-in game. I just don't see why it is needed.
And I think TCU is happy at the moment. Remember when we won the WAC our first year in? Winning is a pretty good distraction.
I think it is obvious that the big NCAA schools don't want the number of available at-large berths to slip below what is available today. To keep the number of at-large berths from dwindling, they will force the apparent weakest automatic qualifiers to participate in play-in games.
Screw that, man. They should just go to a 128-team format.
Well, yeah, I think we all know the real reason, I am looking for stated reasons. I can't imagine what the defense is.
Also, I think this goes back to the question of "what is the NCAA?" I think we need to ask this question more often. I don't think the NCAA should change their rules for no reason other than to help out one school (or group of schools) necessarily, but it seems that at many points their policies lack common sense. Their job is to help student athletes (and part of that is keeping things fair by making rules and enforcing them), but I wish they would step back and think sometimes.
If there is some "real" mandate on the books somewhere that says the NCAA basketball tournament absolutly must have 34 at-large teams, then that rule has no justification and should be changed (until it is changed let the last two at-large teams "play=in"). If there is not such a rule - the play-in game should go. Either way, somewhere there should exist some reasoning explaining the current policy.
The history of the 34 at-large bids dates back to at least 1988. Here's a look back in history note from the NCAA News...
10 years ago: The Division I Men's Basketball Committee recommends to the Executive Committee that the Division I Men's Basketball Championship continue with a 64-team bracket consisting of not more than 30 automatic qualifiers and not fewer than 34 at-large teams through the 1998 championship. The basketball committee's recommendation to extend a 1984 Executive Committee moratorium placed on tournament expansion through 1990 includes the added stipulations regarding automatic qualifiers and at-large berths. According to Cedric W. Dempsey, director of athletics at the University of Arizona and incoming committee chair, the committee also will continue to refine criteria used in selecting the 30 conference champions that automatically qualify for the field. (The NCAA News, August 3, 1988)
Why? Because. . .
A fact that no longer applies. They went with 34 because they had 30 conferences. No reason to stick to that now is there? I wonder if anything was said about this when the MWC formed. Surely someone questioned this gap in logic?
I really sort of understand the logic on why they put those controls in place in the late '80's when this tourney started becoming such a high $$$ affair. It was a rule in place to stop abuses of the system.
Imagine, let's say a group of eight Division 2 schools all got together and decided to start a Division 1 conference one day. Getting that one unit guaranteed now would surely be worth the move any way you slice it.
I think without that rule, you'd be looking at well over 50 conferences littering Div. 1 basketball right now!
Right, and when the MWC teams split they had a pretty tough process to go through. And I think there are some other rules that specify the ways to form a new conference (5 schools playing each other for 5 years or whatever it is). And when you have a new conference come along and get "legal" and authorized and get an auto-bid then you should drop an at-large spot to make room.
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