An intrepid reader adds a wrinkle

Reader David McCoy has done the unthinkable by combining the best portions of the Wothism proposal and the best portions of the current system. As he explains:

My own personal belief is that 64 teams is perfect. The first two days of the tournament, when there are 32 games, those are the two best sports days of the year. It's marvelous. And let's not discount how much fun the bracket pools are. Going down to 32 removes a whole round of fun.

I can't help but agree. Once it's down to the round of 32, that means eight games a day, and it's just not the same. If only there were a way to keep the 64-team format intact ... David continues:

First, we include all regular season conference winners, AND all conference tournament winners. I like this because if you have a great regular season and win your regular season title, but slip up in the conference tourney, you still get in. It rewards you for being good all year. But also, if you have a rough start, or a key player misses a bunch of games, you've still got your shot in the conference tourney. That fixes the issue that you brought up before, about waning interest when a team is eliminated. With my method, nobody is eliminated until their season is over.

 
Boom. That was indeed one of my biggest problems with my own proposal -- once a team was mathematically eliminated from winning their conference, their season became almost entirely meaningless. Keeping the tournaments as an avenue to get in means there's always a light at the end of the tunnel and is a reason for these teams to stay sharp and fans to stay interested.

So far, I'm feeling this.

David's next step is where I start to question the methodology just a bit. If not even one conference were to have the same regular season and conference tournament champion, there would be no at-large bids. I'm OK with that. However, at-large bids "open up," for lack of a better term, when a team wins both the regular season and tournament conference crown.


The ideology here, I think, is that if a team wins both the regular season and the conference tournament, you can't really say it was a fluke or that another team deserved to make it. That's fair. Where I get a little bit bothered is that this will only serve to prop up the participation from the BCS conferences because of David's methodology for picking at-larges:

At-large bids awarded according to strength of conference; according to regular season conference standings. Conferences with .9xxx receive one more bids than conferences with .8xxx and so on. First teams selected for auto-bids will be second-place regular season finishers. If that (second-place) team already has auto-bid due to conference tourney title, third place team is NOT selected until other conferences fill their bids.

The reference to ".9xxx" and ".8xxx" is from the same source that I culled my conference rankings earlier -- the esteemed Dr. Po-Po, Ken Pomeroy. I think the end result is that it ends up giving too many at-large bids to the best conferences.

David put together the following list to explain how the idea would have looked this season:

Big Ten: Ohio State (Purdue, Wisconsin, Illinois)


Big East: Pittsburgh, U-Conn (Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville)


Big 12: Kansas (Texas, Kansas State)


ACC: North Carolina, Duke (Florida State)


Pac 10: Arizona, Washington (UCLA)


SEC: Florida, Kentucky (Alabama)


MWC: BYU, SDSU


CUSA: UAB, Memphis


A10: Xavier, Richmond


MVC: Missouri St., Indiana St


Colonial: George Mason, ODU


Horizon: UW-Milwaukee, Butler


WCC: St. Mary's, Gonzaga


WAC: Utah St.


Ivy: Princeton


MAAC: Fairfield, St. Peter’s


Big West: Long Beach St., UCSB


MAC: Kent St., Akron


Summit: Oakland


Southern: College of Charleston, Wofford


ASun: Belmont


OVC: Murray State, Morehead State


Big Sky: Northern Colorado


Patriot: Bucknell


Northeast: Long Island


Sun Belt: FAU, UALR


Big South: Coastal Carolina, UNC Asheville


Southland: McNeese St., UTSA


America East: Vermont, Boston U


MEAC: Bethune Cookman, Hampton


SWAC: Texas Southern, Alabama State


Auto: 53


At large: 11 - Purdue, Notre Dame, Texas, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Kansas St, Florida St, UCLA, Alabama, Illinois, Louisville

Anything bother you? I'll tell you what bothers me: the fact that some conferences get punished for having one very strong team that stands above the rest.

Let's call it the "Memphis Problem." From 2006-2009, Memphis lost a TOTAL of 14 games. FOURTEEN! Some other teams in the conference were pretty darn good -- UAB comes to mind in a few of those seasons -- but their chances of an auto bid under David's system were nearly null and void, and the conference as a whole was too far down the list for consideration under the .9xxx or .8xxx rules. As it stands under David's solution, the WAC, for instance, only gets one team despite being a much stronger conference than the SWAC, which gets two teams.

I know, it kind of feels like grasping at straws. And I can see the other side of the argument -- if a league doesn't have another team that's capable of knocking off that top team, that top team is the only truly deserving squad. That's all well and good, but when we take bids away from these smaller conferences and give them to the bigger conferences, we're still rewarding mediocrity in those larger conferences!

Finally, the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if some of these cash-strapped conferences have more of an incentive to "throw" the conference tournament to a team that hadn't won the regular season tournament, thereby pushing two teams through and getting a bigger piece of the NCAA tourney cash pie. (Mmmm. Cash pie.)

So, what's the solution? I think a more level distribution of the at-large bids is the ticket. David's method clustered the bids at the top due to the .9xxx and .8xxx idea.

I think if we apply one of David's own clauses to the entire nation rather than just the best conferences, we can fix this: "First teams selected for auto-bids will be second-place regular season finishers. If that (second-place) team already has auto-bid due to conference tourney title, third place team is NOT selected until other conferences fill their bids."

There were nine conferences with just one auto bid under David's system: Big Ten, Big 12, WAC, Ivy, Summit, ASun, Big Sky, Patriot, Northeast.

My adjustment to what David did is as follows: distribute at-larges in a top-to-bottom (in order of conference strength) fashion.

So, starting at the top, we get Purdue, Texas, Boise St., Harvard, Oral Roberts, East Tenn. St., Montana, American, Quinnipiac. Now, every conference has an equal amount of bids and we can start back at the top, awarding the final two spots to the top two conferences: the Big Ten and Big East. Wisconsin and Notre Dame are the final two teams into the tournament.

The teams that David had in that I would be leaving out are: Syracuse, Kansas St, Florida St, UCLA, Alabama, Illinois, Louisville. Since only one (Florida St.) of these teams made it to the Sweet 16, I don't think we're losing much. (Kansas St. lost in the second round -- the real second round, not the third round like the NCAA and CBS want us to believe -- UCLA lost in the second round, Alabama didn't make it at all, Illinois lost in the second round and Louisville lost in the first round.)

So, here's how my modified David field looks:

Big Ten: Ohio State (Purdue, Wisconsin)

Big East: Pittsburgh, UConn (Notre Dame)

Big 12: Kansas (Texas)

ACC: North Carolina, Duke

Pac 10: Arizona, Washington

SEC: Florida, Kentucky

MWC: BYU, SDSU

CUSA: UAB, Memphis

A10: Xavier, Richmond

MVC: Missouri St., Indiana St

Colonial: George Mason, ODU

Horizon: UW-Milwaukee, Butler

WCC: St. Mary's, Gonzaga

WAC: Utah St. (Boise St.)

Ivy: Princeton (Harvard)

MAAC: Fairfield, St. Peter’s

Big West: Long Beach St., UCSB

MAC: Kent St., Akron

Summit: Oakland (Oral Roberts)

Southern: College of Charleston, Wofford

ASun: Belmont (East Tenn. St.)

OVC: Murray State, Morehead State

Big Sky: Northern Colorado (Montana)

Patriot: Bucknell (American)

Northeast: Long Island (Quinnipiac)

Sun Belt: FAU, UALR

Big South: Coastal Carolina, UNC Asheville

Southland: McNeese St., UTSA

America East: Vermont, Boston U

MEAC: Bethune Cookman, Hampton

SWAC: Texas Southern, Alabama State

Auto: 53

At large: 11 - Purdue, Texas, Boise St., Harvard, Oral Roberts, East Tenn. St., Montana, American, Quinnipiac, Wisconsin and Notre Dame

We're still acknowledging the better overall strength of the top conferences without bowing down to their greatness. I LIKE IT!

Finally, one other topic to tackle is the number of empty seats at many of these sites. Does anyone go to these games?!?!?

The best solution is to structure the tournament in legitimate geographic terms and actually make it possible for more fans to take in a game. I'm sure UConn fans love their team and would love to see them play -- only they were out in Arizona this year!

Now, in the current NCAA format, it wouldn't work because we'd have one region with 11 Big East teams.

Under the Wothism/McCoy format, though, we don't have to worry about that since each conference has at most three teams. David's seeding method was as follows:

Teams are seeded in reverse, starting with the 16s (weakest teams from weakest conferences). At-larges are seeded according to conference strength, in reverse order. All at-larges will be seeded BEFORE any auto-bids from conferences that have an at-large team in the field. After non-at-large conference teams are seeded, then at-large teams will be seeded (in reverse order, weakest to strongest), then conference tournament winners are seeded in reverse order of conference quality. Then regular season winners are seeded in reverse. THEN, teams that won both their Regular Season and Conference Tournament will get a one-seed advance (i.e. a 16 according to conference quality gets bumped to 15.)

I will follow that guideline with one exception: I will regard regular season champions as more worthy than their equivalent conference tournament champions. So, the 16 seed line will consist of the bottom four conference tournament champions. The 15 seed line will consist of the bottom four conference regular season champions. (Note: In some cases, I will expand this to five conferences if it keeps one team significantly closer to home. Care was also taken to avoid second-round matchups between teams from the same conference.) FINALLY, when two teams on the same seed line are roughly the same distance from a site, the higher-regarded team will stay closer to home, even if it means a slightly lower seed.

Here goes!

MIDWEST (Chicago): 16) Hampton, 15) McNeese St., 14) UALR, 13) Oakland, 12) East Tenn. St., 11) Morehead St., 10) Murray St., 9) Harvard, 8) Kent St., 7) Gonzaga, 6) UW-Milwaukee, 5) Memphis, 4) Xavier, 3) Wisconsin, 2) Purdue, 1) Ohio State

NORTHEAST (Newark): 16) Boston, 15) Vermont, 14) Quinnipiac, 13) American, 12) Long Island, 11) Bucknell, 10) College of Charleston, 9) St. Peter's, 8) Princeton, 7) Butler, 6) ODU, 5) George Mason, 4) Richmond, 3) Notre Dame, 2) Connecticut, 1) Pittsburgh

MOUNTAIN (Denver): 16) UTSA, 15) Texas Southern, 14) Montana, 13) Northern Colorado, 12) Oral Roberts, 11) UCSB, 10) Long Beach St., 9) Boise St., 8) St. Mary's, 7) Utah St., 6) Indiana St., 5) San Diego St., 4) Washington, 3) BYU, 2) Arizona, 1) Kansas

SOUTHEAST (Atlanta): 16) Alabama St., 15) Bethune Cookman, 14) NC Asheville, 13) FAU, 12) Coastal Carolina, 11) Wofford, 10) Belmont, 9) Akron, 8) Fairfield, 7) Missouri St., 6) Kentucky, 5) Florida, 4) UAB, 3) Duke, 2) Texas 1) North Carolina

(You do not want to know how long that took or how tedious that was.)

So, here's the final result. It doesn't get any better than this.

1	OHIO ST.
16	HAMPTON
8	KENT ST.
9	HARVARD
5	MEMPHIS
12	EAST TENNESSEE ST.
4	XAVIER
13	OAKLAND
6	WISCONSIN MILWAUKEE
11	MOREHEAD ST.
3	WISCONSIN
14	ARKANSAS LITTLE ROCK
7	GONZAGA
10	MURRAY ST.
2	PURDUE
15	MCNEESE ST.
	MOUNTAIN
1	KANSAS
16	TEXAS SAN ANTONIO
8	ST. MARY'S
9	BOISE ST.
5	SAN DIEGO ST.
12	ORAL ROBERTS
4	WASHINGTON
13	NORTHERN COLORADO
6	INDIANA ST.
11	UC SANTA BARBARA
3	BRIGHAM YOUNG
14	MONTANA
7	UTAH ST.
10	LONG BEACH ST.
2	ARIZONA
15	VERMONT
	NORTHEAST
1	PITTSBURGH
16	BOSTON U
8	PRINCETON
9	ST. PETER'S
5	GEORGE MASON
12	LONG ISLAND
4	RICHMOND
13	AMERICAN
6	OLD DOMINION
11	BUCKNELL
3	NOTRE DAME
14	QUINNIPIAC
7	BUTLER
10	COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON
2	CONNECTICUT
15	VERMONT
	SOUTHEAST
1	NORTH CAROLINA
16	ALABAMA ST.
8	FAIRFIELD
9	AKRON
5	FLORIDA
12	COASTAL CAROLINA
4	UAB
13	FLORIDA ATLANTIC
6	KENTUCKY
11	WOFFORD
3	DUKE
14	NC ASHEVILLE
7	MISSOURI ST.
10	BELMONT
2	TEXAS
15	BETHUNE COOKMAN