Can the talking heads explain 11 Big East bids now?

[MVCfans]

This is a very simple b/w rule that says "If you are 500 or below in your conference you are not eligible for an at-large bid". Yearly it might effect 3 or 4 teams. I think it would of effected three teams this year.

What if the conference tourney games also counted toward the overall .500 record? While it won't happen, I could live with a rule that prevented a team with a sub-.500 record including all conference games from making the dance.

[Jay30]

I have no problem with people who want this rule, even though I complete disagree with it being a good idea. I simply want them to acknowledge the consequences. Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would think that a rule forcing UConn out of this year's tournament is a good idea. This isn't just a matter of leaving out a few bubble teams. This is a realistic national championship contender.

What consequences? UConn gets in by winning the BE tourney, which means the only other teams that this rule would have impacted would have been Marquette, Villanova and Missouri. Based on your thoughts above, surely you wouldn't say prior to the start of the dance, that any of those 3 would be "realistic national championship contenders" would you? So in effect it would have worked pretty well this year.

But, no one last year thought Butler to be a "realistic national championship contender" and well...

[Jamar Howard 4 Pres]

Sorry, I mispoke. I meant to refer to if UConn lost in the Big East Championship game to Louisville. Should that game have really been a required win for them to have made the tourney?

[Snapshot9]

This is a very simple b/w rule that says "If you are 500 or below in your conference you are not eligible for an at-large bid". Yearly it might effect 3 or 4 teams. I think it would of effected three teams this year.

What if the conference tourney games also counted toward the overall .500 record? While it won't happen, I could live with a rule that prevented a team with a sub-.500 record including all conference games from making the dance.

I agree with this. Just make .500 the bare minimum for making the dance. Anyone below .500 should not make the Dance.

[DUBulldog]

I have no problem with people who want this rule, even though I complete disagree with it being a good idea. I simply want them to acknowledge the consequences. Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would think that a rule forcing UConn out of this year's tournament is a good idea. This isn't just a matter of leaving out a few bubble teams. This is a realistic national championship contender.

Maybe I'm wrong about something here......I believe UConn was 9-9 in the Big East = .500

People are talking about wishing there was a rule that any team that finished below .500 in their league be ineligible.

UConn did not finish below .500, so they would have been eligible under that rule.

[cu8493]

I would love a rule that you have to be .500 or better in your conference. I don't care how good you think the 11th place team in the Big East is comparatively, if you can't win half of your conference games you don't deserve to be in. Is this year's tournament any better because we let in Missouri or Villinova - or Marquette for that matter? There was no particular intrigue watching them play Syracuse, and there won't be much more interest in watching them play UNC. Conversely, an 11 seed from a mid-major that won its conference but stumbled in the conf tournament would be much more interesting matchup with UNC - but maybe that's just my mid-major bias coming out.

As for those who say you penalize the teams in the top confereences by making them win half their conference games, I give you the same answer the BCS pundits love to throw at the non BCS teams: Just take care of your business during the conference season (as opposed to tournament for non-BCS teams) and you don't have to worry about it!

[Jamar Howard 4 Pres]

This is a very simple b/w rule that says "If you are 500 or below in your conference you are not eligible for an at-large bid". Yearly it might effect 3 or 4 teams. I think it would of effected three teams this year.

DUBulldog,

This is what I was talking about. He said "500 or below". I'll admit that normally people say "below .500", but in this case, I was going off of what was said here.

[Jamar Howard 4 Pres]

Still waiting to hear back from CaseyGarrisonforPrez to know what he thinks about my College of Charleston analysis. Actually, I'd love to hear from any of you who are trying to argue that Charles Barkley was making any sense when he said the Big East should only have received 8 bids.

[Jamar Howard 4 Pres]

...and a couple more days go by. Casey, where are you?