districtballer
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AG_fan said:If ESPN would be willing to scale it back to include the top 16 mid-majors, then pair them up as closely as possible according to geography and RPI, you'd have 8 really good games including teams that usually don't play each other during the season. If you aren't in the RPI top 16 among mid-majors, too bad, you're not an elite team and you don't deserve to play.
This would eliminate some of the matchups that either: A. Don't help the team with the higher RPI, or B. Don't generate any national buzz to get the selection committee paying attention (like Mason's win over WSU did). I thought these were two of the original motivations behind the BB concept? Maybe getting back to an "elites-only" field would entice schools like Butler, St. Mary's and Davidson to participate.
While that sounds good, there's no practical way of knowing who the top 16 teams are going to be every year until Bracketbuster time. Teams have to get their schedule's in place before the season starts. There is a lot of turnover from year to year, especially with the mids. Case in point Davidson...everybody wanted to play them last year and this year they are going to have a huge letdown with almost everyone gone and a certain Stephen Curry in the NBA. Unless you make it the high mid-major conferences (MVC, CAA, Horizon, WAC, WCC etc.), there's no way you can streamline the field, and even then you would miss out on some great teams (ex. Siena in the MAAC).