(03-04-2018 12:52 AM)Wedge Wrote:  The NCAA has it backwards.

NCAA tournament autobids should go to regular season conference champs, and NIT autobids should go to conference tournament winners who don't get invited to the NCAA tournament.

It's the conferences choice. Were I a small one bid conference and my tournament was lightly attended and didn't make much money I would go to the old Ivy League system of conference regular season winner. Only have a playoff game if two are tied (a problem with 3 or more at say 13-5).

But the reality is, many conference offices pay for themselves with their basketball tournaments, between gate and ESPN coverage, that there is no going back. Besides, if you are one of the usually >20 conferences whose entry will be a one and done, does it really matter regular season champ represent your conference? In a way should the worse program via tournament upset represent you, they may get you a play-in game and a chance at a 2nd credit for your conference, while the regular season champ gets an NIT bid your conference would never get.

I think the bottom 18 seeds (after the first four round) are something like 3-54 the last three years. So yes, statistically your conference is likely to win a game once every two decades -- with a play-in, that increases to once a decade if you win the lottery to get in two of those. (Speaks to better seeding recently, that the NCAA could go down to a 48 team tournament, and there would hardly be any difference in the round of 32 onward).

So while it may be desirable to see the best team from a terrible conference, in the big picture of the NCAA tournament it doesn't matter one iota. And from the conference standpoint it's too advantageous (NIT, conference tourney money to keep office funded, also chance to see all Presidents and ADs in one spot) to expect a change.