But you guys miss the point. This is not all or nothing. The non-bigs could vote together to get some tweaks to the system and it would be a better system.
How about blinding the committee? Make them remove the names from the teams and just put the actual numbers up when making comparisons? Sure, most could figure out who some teams were, but would they really know the difference between the 50-100 teams? And that is exactly where the problem is, the teams that are not slam-dunks to get in. By blinding them to the name of the team, they could actually evaluate each based upon whatever criteria they wanted, and it would be a fairer system. This is a change that the non-bigs could get voted in, and how could anyone make an argument against it? Who would vote against "a fair system"?
Or vote to remove the entire human element from the system. They do it for football, how could they argue that it would not be fair for basketball? Just have the NCAA members decided on 15 or 20 elements, assign a weight to each element, and pick at-large candidates by computer. Then EVERYBODY would know where they stand. Everybody could adjust their schedule based upon the selected criteria, and the best teams would be in the tournament. If conference affiliation was part of it, so be it. But there would be a lot of other elements that a team/coach could use to overcome such advantages. And again, the BCS schools do this for football, how could they EVER say that it is not fair? The computer picks the BCS teams based upon how good each team does on the field. So come up with 20 elements and let the best teams play.
Either of the above would not diminish the NCAA tournament. In fact, the best teams would still tend to win. No matter how you pick them, that is what will happen 99% of the time. But the system would be fairer.
If the Top 6 conferences pulled out of the NCAA they would have a decent product. But what drives March Madness is the fact that a lot more teams (and thus fans, and just sheer numbers say a lot of fans) watch because their non-Top 6 teams are playing. If you do that, then the non-Top 6 teams should just refuse to play them at all and they can change the name to the NBA college development league. It would not work. There are just too many fans out there from the non-Top 6 teams. Would it go on? Sure, but if the other 250 schools went to ESPN and offered to team up to compete with CBS and the new NBACDL, ESPN would jump at it. And my guess is that it would work. A lot of college basketball fans don't watch the NBA. Why would they watch the NBACDL? Especially if the other teams refused to play them and all you had all year was the same teams beating up on each other? Do you really think CBS would be willing to pay $25 Billion for a 15 year contract for March Blandness? Because without the thrill of the upset, that is exactly what it would be.
Wait for the ratings to come in for this year. My guess is that all the upsets have lead to better ratings. That is what drives the networks.
So rather than drastic changes, why not just come up with a fair selection system, one that treats EVERY TEAM from EVER CONFERENCE the same. Seems pretty simple to me.
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