BracketBuster Pool Announced

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).
 
Good point, DB. Hadn't really thought of that.

How about this as a solution: Have every school from conferences below the BCS (excluding the usual suspects -- A-10, CUSA, etc.) hold one Saturday in February as an open date to be filled later. Then, as the season goes along and most teams realize they're not going to be anywhere near the top-16 threshold, they can either get together with other regional teams and schedule another nonconference game or just keep it as an off-day; I'm sure many coaches wouldn't mind having a weekend to rest their guys' legs, especially at that time of the year.

I know scheduling is done way in advance for TV, but since ESPN is basically running this show, couldn't they set a date -- say, two weeks prior to the BB date -- as the cutoff for compiling the top-16 and pairing up the BB teams?
 
AG_fan said:
Good point, DB. Hadn't really thought of that.

How about this as a solution: Have every school from conferences below the BCS (excluding the usual suspects -- A-10, CUSA, etc.) hold one Saturday in February as an open date to be filled later. Then, as the season goes along and most teams realize they're not going to be anywhere near the top-16 threshold, they can either get together with other regional teams and schedule another nonconference game or just keep it as an off-day; I'm sure many coaches wouldn't mind having a weekend to rest their guys' legs, especially at that time of the year.

I know scheduling is done way in advance for TV, but since ESPN is basically running this show, couldn't they set a date -- say, two weeks prior to the BB date -- as the cutoff for compiling the top-16 and pairing up the BB teams?

Most AD's don't want to go through the bother of doing all that when they can just settle everything prior to the season. Plus when you do things later, there are other factors you can't control like arena availability and getting refs and all that. Season-ticket holders wouldn't want to suddenly find out there's a game on a certain date a couple of weeks before the game. It's a logistical nightmare. As it stands most teams know right now whether they aren't going to be in the top 16 mids anyway. The current Bracketbuster setup is by no means perfect, but it works. We can always just leave if it doesn't serve our purposes anymore as it seems many successful mids are doing. That said, I think it's out of our control since I believe it is the CAA that has signed up all its teams as a conference for the bracketbuster.
 
The BBs failed because it failed to do what it was created to do:

ESPN said:
Give teams from lower-profile conferences a chance at a full day of exposure and possibly another quality nonconference game before the selection process.

Once ESPN took its focus away from that, its usefulness went with it. It's even more apparent now that some of the consistently top mid major teams have left.

Look look at what happened last year. For example, Siena (RPI 23) getting screwed playing Northern Iowa (RPI 73).

It's the BBs fault all the good mid majors are leaving because quite frankly there is nothing in it anymore to keep them around.

This should be our last year in the BBs period, unless something is done to bring back all the good mid majors again.
 
trying to do match-ups or seedings and determining who the best of the rest are seems like it's trying to be too clever-by-half... I say go ahead and shake up a small piece of everyone's schedule... from the elite BCS teams, down to the sub300s... schedule by lotto... just set aside one game the first year, then two every year after that... there would be a new lotto game each year, with the home-or-away being picked by lotto too... the 2nd game would be a return game of the previous year's

there could be tweaks, like exempting teams already on your schedule... maybe even break it down into east/midwest/west, and/or have the NCAA provide some need-based travel compensation

sure, the odds are you'd probably draw somebody below the rpi 100, but there's always the chance ya get one of the top dogs too... and it wouldn't be about espn backrooms, or Greenbergian risk management ...just fair and open chance... almost everyone has at least 2 arguable cupcake type games on their schedule, so they couldn't really complain if they swapped out those for these ...it only has to be two games
 
Looks like a number of higher profile mid-majors are dropping out. I figured this would happen eventually. Maybe we should consider dropping out as well. Off hand I noticed the following teams missing from this years participant list:

Butler
Davidson
St. Mary's
Bucknell
Albany
North Dakota State
Montana

All of these teams were NCAA tournament teams at one point over the past 3-4 years.

John, look at the home teams too.
 
ramathon74 said:
Looks like a number of higher profile mid-majors are dropping out. I figured this would happen eventually. Maybe we should consider dropping out as well. Off hand I noticed the following teams missing from this years participant list:

Butler
Davidson
St. Mary's
Bucknell
Albany
North Dakota State
Montana

All of these teams were NCAA tournament teams at one point over the past 3-4 years.

John, look at the home teams too.

I did. I didn't see Butler there but upon further review, they are still participating, but Davidson, St Mary's and Bucknell dropping out is a pretty big statement in and of itself. Then when you add in Albany, ND State and Montana, it only gets worse.
 
Could have to do with budgets. Some don't want to pay for another trip that might take them across the country.
 
One unintended, but fortuitous result of those teams dropping out is that it will likely increase VCU's chances of getting a marquee ESPN Network game that weekend. Silver lining people. Silver lining.
 
Can't really get a marquee game if all the good teams are out and the ones that are left have RPI's in the 100s.
 
Not impressed. At all. This looks extremely weak to me, and I'd say it would be basically useless except for the major media coverage of some of the games. Otherwise, this thing looks like it's been completely watered down. There are several solid programs in here that I would like to face off with on National TV. On the other hand, there also a whole bunch of DUDS that do nothing for us. ??
 
Maybe this BraketBuster lite could offer Yeager the oppurtunity to finagle some kind of conference to conference tourney around the same time. Maybe Horizon or MAAC.....I don't see Missouri Valley really needing anything like that.
Just a thought....although It's a pretty safe bet we'll keep on dry humping our way thru the Braket Buster, maybe they'll be an upswing in a year or two.
 
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