(03-19-2014 04:58 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 11:20 AM)john01992 Wrote:  Here is what I have come up with so far:

i made a graph showing what is the least amount of rounds a team needs to advance through to get to a s16, e8, FF, etc.



the point in this graph is to show which types of accomplishments should be equal.

according to this graph getting to the elite 8 in 1985-2013 counts the same as winning the national championship in the 40s because it takes the same amount of wins to get there.

the color code represents the 3 distinct era's of the tournament.

the bright green is when it was an 8 team tourny and shared the spotlight with the NIT.

The blue is 1951-1975 era when only 1 team per conference could play. this is the era where it was hard to get a bid, but easy to advance.

the Red is the 1975-present era where it is easy to get a bid, but much harder to advance.

Great graph! Thanks for putting the work into it.

I think there's some grey that isn't accounted for.

First, the NCAA winner was not necessarily the national champion back in the 1940's. Those with the strongest claim to such a title would be those who played the extra Red Cross exhibition game against the NIT champs during WWII. There's also the CCNY team that played in and won both tournaments in 1950. That certainly involved extra games.

Second, during the 1951-74 era, not everyone played the same number of games. Some regions had as many as 7 teams while another might have as few as 4, which meant an extra game for a lot of teams.

Third, it wasn't so easy to get into the tournament in 1975. I think only runners up were allowed in originally. There was certainly a lot easier access as the tournament expanded to 40, 48, 64, and 68 but there was also one less game for the teams getting the first round byes.

Just for what it's worth.

good points.

i made the graph using the bare minimum. in other words what is the fewest amount of games a team needs to win in order to advance to the e8, ff, etc.

if you notice i highlighted it in 3 colors. each color represents a distinct different era in the tourny that has varying levels of difficulty.

determining the difficulty level by era is is where i am having problem.

how much harder was the 39-50 era compared to the 51-74 era? on top of that where does 51-74 compare to with 1975-2013?

(03-19-2014 05:31 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 04:00 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  What has changed is the difficulty of getting to the Final Four once you're in the tournament. It's harder today once you're in the tournament. However, in earlier years, it was much harder to get in the tournament, particularly for power conference teams (which until the mid-70s was Big-10, Big 8, Pac-8, ACC, MVC, and SEC)

The net result is that a Final Four banner was just as difficult to obtain in the 50s as it is today.

Yep, and that's the point those who keep harping about how much "deeper" the event is today keep missing.

You can't win the tourney if you aren't in it, and before 75 it was a lot harder to get in it.

hence the point with the color coding. the graph gives a look in at how the accomplishments by era compare in terms of wins without factoring in the difficulty.

(03-19-2014 12:15 PM)jgkojak Wrote:  I think we are forgetting that if the ONLY way you make the tourney is to win your conf tournament -

1) Joel Embiid plays for KS during B12 tourney instead of sitting
2) That dominant 2012 KY team probably plays its ass off and wins SEC Tourney
3) You could say if you can't win a conf tourney with these high stakes, why should you be nat. champ? Of course, the fairer way would be to have let the conf reg season winner get the bid

Arguably the greatest team of all-time, 1996 Kentucky (with at least 6 future NBA players), would have missed the NCAA Tournament without at-large bids present. They picked the best/worst time to have their worst game of the season against Eric Dampier and Miss. State in the SEC Tournament Championship game. They very nearly got a rematch too in the NCG.

(03-19-2014 06:37 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 04:58 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 11:20 AM)john01992 Wrote:  Here is what I have come up with so far:

i made a graph showing what is the least amount of rounds a team needs to advance through to get to a s16, e8, FF, etc.



the point in this graph is to show which types of accomplishments should be equal.

according to this graph getting to the elite 8 in 1985-2013 counts the same as winning the national championship in the 40s because it takes the same amount of wins to get there.

the color code represents the 3 distinct era's of the tournament.

the bright green is when it was an 8 team tourny and shared the spotlight with the NIT.

The blue is 1951-1975 era when only 1 team per conference could play. this is the era where it was hard to get a bid, but easy to advance.

the Red is the 1975-present era where it is easy to get a bid, but much harder to advance.

Great graph! Thanks for putting the work into it.

I think there's some grey that isn't accounted for.

First, the NCAA winner was not necessarily the national champion back in the 1940's. Those with the strongest claim to such a title would be those who played the extra Red Cross exhibition game against the NIT champs during WWII. There's also the CCNY team that played in and won both tournaments in 1950. That certainly involved extra games.

Second, during the 1951-74 era, not everyone played the same number of games. Some regions had as many as 7 teams while another might have as few as 4, which meant an extra game for a lot of teams.

Third, it wasn't so easy to get into the tournament in 1975. I think only runners up were allowed in originally. There was certainly a lot easier access as the tournament expanded to 40, 48, 64, and 68 but there was also one less game for the teams getting the first round byes.

Just for what it's worth.

good points.

i made the graph using the bare minimum. in other words what is the fewest amount of games a team needs to win in order to advance to the e8, ff, etc.

if you notice i highlighted it in 3 colors. each color represents a distinct different era in the tourny that has varying levels of difficulty.

determining the difficulty level by era is is where i am having problem.

how much harder was the 39-50 era compared to the 51-74 era? on top of that where does 51-74 compare to with 1975-2013?

I think this is the most difficult era in which to win the tournament for a couple of reasons:

1. Mathematically you have to win more games. Especially in a single elimination tournament, it's harder to win it all when you have to win 6 than when you have to win only 3 or 4.

2. Half of the best teams were in the other tournament. Even after the expansion of the NCAA tournament, there were still top 10 teams going to the NIT almost annually. One could make a good argument that the NIT champs were the best teams in 1953 and 1954. The 1960 Bradley team that won the NIT was a tremendous team. Probably not as good as Ohio State, but we never got a chance to find out.

3. Depth of talent. Not only is their more talent today, but stricter scholarship limits make sure that it is more spread around and the elimination of discrimination makes sure that everyone who is good enough gets to play. I would compare college basketball of 40, 50, 60, & 75 years ago to women's college basketball over the past 30 years. The competitiveness is getting better just as it did on the men's side, but there still isn't enough depth to prevent the dominance of programs like UConn and Tennessee. You just don't see that on the men's side. It just isn't possible today to see the kind of dominance in the tournament that we saw with UCLA. But even before them, Kentucky won 4 titles + an NIT in 13 years of the post-war era. Could anyone see a team winning 5 tournament titles in 13 years these days? UConn and Duke each won 3 in that span over the past couple of decades, Indiana 3 in 13 before that. But that's as close as anyone's gotten.

very good point with the womens BB comparison. just 3 years ago all the 1 & 2 seeds advanced to the e8 in their tourny.

this is one of the reasons why IMO older accomplishments should be weighted less.

(03-19-2014 07:28 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  But even before them, Kentucky won 4 titles + an NIT in 13 years of the post-war era. Could anyone see a team winning 5 tournament titles in 13 years these days? UConn and Duke each won 3 in that span over the past couple of decades, Indiana 3 in 13 before that. But that's as close as anyone's gotten.

Easily, Duke could have won that many over that time span (1999, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2010 either did so or should have). Kentucky was an OT away from a 3-peat in the late 90's and had some near misses before that. But with players not staying even three years now days, it is close to impossible unlike previous eras.

(03-19-2014 07:57 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 07:28 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  But even before them, Kentucky won 4 titles + an NIT in 13 years of the post-war era. Could anyone see a team winning 5 tournament titles in 13 years these days? UConn and Duke each won 3 in that span over the past couple of decades, Indiana 3 in 13 before that. But that's as close as anyone's gotten.

Easily, Duke could have won that many over that time span (1999, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2010 either did so or should have). Kentucky was an OT away from a 3-peat in the late 90's and had some near misses before that. But with players not staying even three years now days, it is close to impossible unlike previous eras.

I think this is key...If your players are that good to win championship after championship then they probably won't be playing at the NCAA level for very long nowadays.

(03-19-2014 07:57 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 07:28 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  But even before them, Kentucky won 4 titles + an NIT in 13 years of the post-war era. Could anyone see a team winning 5 tournament titles in 13 years these days? UConn and Duke each won 3 in that span over the past couple of decades, Indiana 3 in 13 before that. But that's as close as anyone's gotten.

Easily, Duke could have won that many over that time span (1999, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2010 either did so or should have). Kentucky was an OT away from a 3-peat in the late 90's and had some near misses before that. But with players not staying even three years now days, it is close to impossible unlike previous eras.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda . . . But didn't.

Kentucky should have won more in the post war era too. Went to the NIT finals in 1947 but lost in the finals by 4 points. Ranked #1 in the country in 1954, but no title.

There's nothing new about losing close games. Or winning them. Duke could easily have failed in their drive to one of the titles they did win if Christian Laettner hadn't made his big shot against Kentucky. You can't take the wins that got a title for granted and then say that there were other years when a team shoulda won. That's exactly why it's so much harder today when 6 wins are required. More chances for something to go wrong - as often happens.

so here is the earlier graph with an added points system:


if you notice I added a "tourny bid" section to compensate for the fact that it was harder to make the tourny in different era's



this image shows how many points each accomplishment in each year is worth. make sure to click on the picture if you can't read it.

so if you get to the sweet 16 then you add the points for a tourny bid + sweet 16. if you win a NC then you add: tourny bid + sweet 16 + elite 8 + final four + runner up + championship.

the 3rd place gets added separately and something i haven't put much thought into yet.

looking for your feedback: is the points system fair in terms of disparity between the 3 era's???

I think the pre-war years should be eliminated entirely. We are comparing apples to oranges if we include them. In those days, the NCAA was the second most important post season tournament. The NIT was clearly superior. So much so, that many of the best teams simply declined NCAA invitations due to lack of interest. Some schools played in both tournaments.

And not to make light of UCLA's accomplishments, but they had another advantage besides just having fewer teams in the tourney. During that run, regionals were truly regional. They only had to get past other western teams to get to the FF at a time when the predominance of outstanding teams were in the east and midwest. Sometimes they only had to play one ranked team to get in. Today, the best teams are (theoretically) spread out evenly over the four regions.

(03-20-2014 10:03 AM)ken d Wrote:  I think the pre-war years should be eliminated entirely. We are comparing apples to oranges if we include them. In those days, the NCAA was the second most important post season tournament. The NIT was clearly superior. So much so, that many of the best teams simply declined NCAA invitations due to lack of interest. Some schools played in both tournaments.

And not to make light of UCLA's accomplishments, but they had another advantage besides just having fewer teams in the tourney. During that run, regionals were truly regional. They only had to get past other western teams to get to the FF at a time when the predominance of outstanding teams were in the east and midwest. Sometimes they only had to play one ranked team to get in. Today, the best teams are (theoretically) spread out evenly over the four regions.

Great point that most people ignore. not only did they only have to play 2 games to get out of their regional but they were guaranteed to meet the winner of the old Midwest regional in the Final Four. The Midwest region was by far the weakest basketball region year in and year out with the only exceptions being when an independent like Houston had a good year.

The Missouri Valley conference was by far the best basketball league in that region. Why? Because the Southwest Conference and The Big 8 were football conferences that didn't care about basketball. The region was a joke.

Classic example was 1965 when Wichita State went to the Final Four when not a single team in the Midwest region was ranked - including WSU. Fans who check back on teams who made the Final Four will point to that Final four as an indicator of WSU's success while ignoring the NIT winners of that era. In 1965, St. John's had to face #8 Villanova in the championship game to win the NIT. Much more significant accomplishment in my book than breezing through a region with no competition.

While UCLA was facing a series of cupcakes to get to the championship game, the East and the Mideast regions were typically loaded. It wasn't unusual to find top teams matched up against each other in the regional semis as occurred with Indiana vs Marquette in 1973 when both programs were powerhouses at the time. I think that game was one of the events that provoked a re-look at the tournament and led to the revisions that were put in place a couple of year later.

(03-16-2014 01:33 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 01:28 PM)john01992 Wrote:  -Prior to 1975, only one team per conference could be in the NCAA tournament

This is the most important factor, by far, and this is the point when reaching the final four or winning the national title became much more difficult. Before 1975, there were many years in which some of the 10 best teams were not in the NCAA field merely because they were not conference tournament champs. The field became much deeper, and much more difficult to advance in, after that rule was eliminated.

You have to look at the other side of this. When only conference champions were allowed, it was MUCH harder to get in. In essence while the NCAA tournament field was "only" 8-24 in those years, the effective field was the ENTIRE Division 1, because whether your league used a conference tournament or regular season champ to get in, you HAD to win that to get into the tournament. Many of those years when the better teams weren't in the tournament? that was because someone knocked them out before they got there. No different than a 1,2, or 3 seed losing in the first two rounds today to inferior teams. That doesn't take away from what teams in the "other" brackets do does it?

Edit: I see this has been addressed

(03-19-2014 08:33 PM)john01992 Wrote:  so here is the earlier graph with an added points system:


if you notice I added a "tourny bid" section to compensate for the fact that it was harder to make the tourny in different era's



this image shows how many points each accomplishment in each year is worth. make sure to click on the picture if you can't read it.

so if you get to the sweet 16 then you add the points for a tourny bid + sweet 16. if you win a NC then you add: tourny bid + sweet 16 + elite 8 + final four + runner up + championship.

the 3rd place gets added separately and something i haven't put much thought into yet.

looking for your feedback: is the points system fair in terms of disparity between the 3 era's???

I love the charts and graphics, but IMO you WAY underestimate the difficulty of getting in to the pre-1975 tournament. The gap between that (50 points to 10 for getting in now) is far too small relative to your other gaps.

E.g., by your system, it's 4x harder to get from the round of 64 to the sweet 16 today than it was more difficult to get into the tournament back then compared to now. But recall that in 1974, it was possible for the #3 team to not make the tournament!

(03-20-2014 02:20 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 08:33 PM)john01992 Wrote:  so here is the earlier graph with an added points system:


if you notice I added a "tourny bid" section to compensate for the fact that it was harder to make the tourny in different era's



this image shows how many points each accomplishment in each year is worth. make sure to click on the picture if you can't read it.

so if you get to the sweet 16 then you add the points for a tourny bid + sweet 16. if you win a NC then you add: tourny bid + sweet 16 + elite 8 + final four + runner up + championship.

the 3rd place gets added separately and something i haven't put much thought into yet.

looking for your feedback: is the points system fair in terms of disparity between the 3 era's???

I love the charts and graphics, but IMO you WAY underestimate the difficulty of getting in to the pre-1975 tournament. The gap between that (50 points to 10 for getting in now) is far too small relative to your other gaps.

E.g., by your system, it's 4x harder to get from the round of 64 to the sweet 16 today than it was more difficult to get into the tournament back then compared to now. But recall that in 1974, it was possible for the #3 team to not make the tournament!

yeah thats why i posted it and trying to get feedback from you guys.

this is for a ranking system that will measure ALL d1 teams. making the tourny was both incredibly easy and incredibly difficult depending on where they were geographically. one thing i noticed is that so many western teams racked up numerous tourny bids pre 1975.

wyoming got 9 tourny bids pre 1975. in 7 of those tournys they had a first round exit

if i make this era of the tourny too easy you will have dozens of western teams like wyoming jumping the rankings being much higher than they should.

(03-20-2014 10:03 AM)ken d Wrote:  I think the pre-war years should be eliminated entirely. We are comparing apples to oranges if we include them. In those days, the NCAA was the second most important post season tournament. The NIT was clearly superior. So much so, that many of the best teams simply declined NCAA invitations due to lack of interest. Some schools played in both tournaments.

Other than revisionist history, in no way, shape, or form was the NIT "superior" to the NCAA past the first couple of years. By ANY metric, look at the fields of the two in any given year, and the NCAA was the clear superior one. Now there were some individual teams in the NIT that were better than some teams in the NCAA, but that happens RIGHT NOW. Unless you think for example Albany is better than SMU or Minnesota. That does not make it better. And yes some teams did choose the NIT over the NCAA, but that was about region. Neither tournament was as big then as they are now, but as is true today, the NIT played the final in Madison Square Garden in New York: the NCAA was at various sites, often in the Midwest, if you were located in the NE, then the NIT could be better for you. But that did not make it a better tournament.

It is almost always fans of a team who won an NIT in the 50's or 60's who try to make this case (my own fanbase included). It simply does not hold water.

(03-20-2014 02:35 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(03-20-2014 10:03 AM)ken d Wrote:  I think the pre-war years should be eliminated entirely. We are comparing apples to oranges if we include them. In those days, the NCAA was the second most important post season tournament. The NIT was clearly superior. So much so, that many of the best teams simply declined NCAA invitations due to lack of interest. Some schools played in both tournaments.

Other than revisionist history, in no way, shape, or form was the NIT "superior" to the NCAA past the first couple of years. By ANY metric, look at the fields of the two in any given year, and the NCAA was the clear superior one. Now there were some individual teams in the NIT that were better than some teams in the NCAA, but that happens RIGHT NOW. Unless you think for example Albany is better than SMU or Minnesota. That does not make it better. And yes some teams did choose the NIT over the NCAA, but that was about region. Neither tournament was as big then as they are now, but as is true today, the NIT played the final in Madison Square Garden in New York: the NCAA was at various sites, often in the Midwest, if you were located in the NE, then the NIT could be better for you. But that did not make it a better tournament.

It is almost always fans of a team who won an NIT in the 50's or 60's who try to make this case (my own fanbase included). It simply does not hold water.

I don't think Princeton ever won the NIT. They did make the Final Four of the NCAA, though, courtesy of one Bill (Dollar Bill) Bradley.

“ In the 1940's, when the N.C.A.A. tournament was less than 10 years old, the National Invitation Tournament, a saturnalia held in New York at Madison Square Garden by The Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association, was the most glamorous of the post-season tournaments and generally had the better teams. The winner of the National Invitation Tournament was regarded as more of a national champion than the actual, titular, national champion, or winner of the N.C.A.A. tournament. ”

—A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton[4]

(03-20-2014 10:36 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(03-20-2014 10:03 AM)ken d Wrote:  I think the pre-war years should be eliminated entirely. We are comparing apples to oranges if we include them. In those days, the NCAA was the second most important post season tournament. The NIT was clearly superior. So much so, that many of the best teams simply declined NCAA invitations due to lack of interest. Some schools played in both tournaments.

And not to make light of UCLA's accomplishments, but they had another advantage besides just having fewer teams in the tourney. During that run, regionals were truly regional. They only had to get past other western teams to get to the FF at a time when the predominance of outstanding teams were in the east and midwest. Sometimes they only had to play one ranked team to get in. Today, the best teams are (theoretically) spread out evenly over the four regions.

Great point that most people ignore. not only did they only have to play 2 games to get out of their regional but they were guaranteed to meet the winner of the old Midwest regional in the Final Four. The Midwest region was by far the weakest basketball region year in and year out with the only exceptions being when an independent like Houston had a good year.

The Missouri Valley conference was by far the best basketball league in that region. Why? Because the Southwest Conference and The Big 8 were football conferences that didn't care about basketball. The region was a joke.

Classic example was 1965 when Wichita State went to the Final Four when not a single team in the Midwest region was ranked - including WSU. Fans who check back on teams who made the Final Four will point to that Final four as an indicator of WSU's success while ignoring the NIT winners of that era. In 1965, St. John's had to face #8 Villanova in the championship game to win the NIT. Much more significant accomplishment in my book than breezing through a region with no competition.

While UCLA was facing a series of cupcakes to get to the championship game, the East and the Mideast regions were typically loaded. It wasn't unusual to find top teams matched up against each other in the regional semis as occurred with Indiana vs Marquette in 1973 when both programs were powerhouses at the time. I think that game was one of the events that provoked a re-look at the tournament and led to the revisions that were put in place a couple of year later.

For the MVC at that time, they were mostly city schools and desegregation didn't matter as much were the main causes for their basketball dominance at the time.

I believe most basketball historians would date the ascension of the NCAA as the more prestigious tournament to 1951, when the NIT was rocked with a major point shaving scandal.

By the way, did you know that the NCAA tournament was started by the National Association of Basketball coaches, led by Phog Allen, who weren't happy about the northeastern emphasis of the NIT and were jealous of its success? They were convinced that basketball could catch on west of Pennsylvania. But they were so disappointed by the lack of interest in the initial tournament that they sold the rights to it to the NCAA for less than $2,500.

If fans weren't interested, it could be partly because the players weren't either. Ohio State players didn't want to go to Chicago for the championship game because it conflicted with the Ohio high school championships.

The dynamics between the NIT and NCAA during their early years are explored in a peer-reviewed academic publication here:
http://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.c...xt=kss_fac

(03-20-2014 10:03 AM)ken d Wrote:  And not to make light of UCLA's accomplishments, but they had another advantage besides just having fewer teams in the tourney. During that run, regionals were truly regional.

Those UCLA teams beat everyone from everywhere. They had overwhelming talent and coaching. There wasn't anybody sitting at home who could touch them.