Official 2019-20 MVCfans.com Prediction - 3rd Place

[sivert]

Just my opinion, but I think this is one of the dumbest things college basketball does especially at the midmajor level, that being giving the ultimate prize to a team that gets hot for 4 days over a team that performed for 3 months. It doesn't hurt the power conferences because their regular season champ is never left out of the NCAA Tourney, but it really hurts the mids and especially low majors . At least in a conference like the Valley, it's rare that a lower half team makes a run all the way, but still, how often does the best team get knocked off in conference tourneys. How do you raise the perception of your conference if your best team doesn't get to compete in the championship tourney?

I get the dollar side of having post season Conference Tourneys, and I understand the thinking behind sending the team playing the best at the end of the season, but I strongly feel a regular season champion should never be kept out of the NCAA Tourney, and like I said , it doesn't happen to the power conferences.

Well, I disagree. 1) Arch Madness is seeded, so the team that has earned their high ranking gets an easier road to the final. So winning the regular season is still valuable in getting to the NCAA Tournament. 2) Teams do change over the season. Bradley prime example. They didn't do poorly and then really well for non reason - they changed things and by the end of the season, they were a better NCAA representative than their season record showed.

(However, the REAL key is GO WIN OOC GAMES! so we get two bids!)

[Eville Ways]

I get the dollar side of having post season Conference Tourneys, and I understand the thinking behind sending the team playing the best at the end of the season, but I strongly feel a regular season champion should never be kept out of the NCAA Tourney, and like I said , it doesn't happen to the power conferences.

It's up to each conference to determine how their representative is chosen. If a conference wanted to send its regular-season champ, it could. (The Ivy League did just that until a few years ago.) If it wanted to make it so each of the ten teams went to one tournament per decade, they could do that, too.

But every single league has decided to have a conference tournament to determine the auto-bid. That's mostly so the conference tournament is meaningful, and meaningful tournaments draw more fans and make more money. But it's also because there's some romance in the notion that no matter how badly your season is going, it's possible to miraculously turn it around and play your way to a national title. It makes those late-February regular season games for teams out of contention a little more meaningful, too.

I'm not sure when a conference has to declare how it's determining its auto-bid; presumably at the beginning of the season because if not, it would make sense to wait and take advantage of the loophole that creates. If you're a multi-bid league, you'd give the auto-bid to the conference tourney champ; if you're a one-bid league, you'd give it to the regular season champ.

[BEARZ77]

Well, I disagree. 1) Arch Madness is seeded, so the team that has earned their high ranking gets an easier road to the final. So winning the regular season is still valuable in getting to the NCAA Tournament. 2) Teams do change over the season. Bradley prime example. They didn't do poorly and then really well for non reason - they changed things and by the end of the season, they were a better NCAA representative than their season record showed.

(However, the REAL key is GO WIN OOC GAMES! so we get two bids!)

Just a little sobering statistic to backup my argument. As best I could determine[ and I'm open to the possibility i may have missed a team] since the 2000 season, when a MVC Tourney Champion was different than the regular season champion, and they were the only MVC team included in the NCAA Tourney, we have not won a single game. Teams other than the MVC regular season champion have won just 5 games total in those 20 years, all coming in years when the regular season Champion was also in the tourney and 3 of those 4 years the regular season champion also won at least a game. The regular season Champion has won 20 games in the tourney in that same span, 8 of those coming when they were not the MVC Tourney Champ but got an at large bid.

This ain't rocket science , obviously we do best when the team that was best the whole year gets in, and they do better than the MVC Tourney winner does even as an at large. We never win a game when the sole participant is someone other than the regular season winner. A big part of this is obviously seeding. When your regular season winner doesn't get in, the team that does usually gets a pretty low seed and you just don't win those games. In years you get multiple bids with the regular season winner getting an at large , they still often get a decent seed and therefore have a better chance to win. Anyway you cut it and even if my figures missed someone, it's clear we do best when the regular season champion is in the tourney, and rarely is the MVC Tourney champion successful if they were not also the regular season champion.

[Mikovio]

As best I could determine[ and I'm open to the possibility i may have missed a team] since the 2000 season, when a MVC Tourney Champion was different than the regular season champion, and they were the only MVC team included in the NCAA Tourney, we have not won a single game.

But that happened literally twice (2011, 2019). So, a small sample size.

Usually the regular season champ is the best representative but it depends. For instance, I'm confident Bradley showed better than Drake would have. Bradley led a Final Four-bound Michigan State for most of the game. Drake had 6 scholarship players come March and lost at a bad Southern Utah in the CIT. Loyola was never really competitive with Creighton in the NIT. It was a 1 bid, bad seed league regardless but by utilizing the tourney auto bid, the Valley sent its hottest team giving it its best chance for a run.

[uniguy]

Just my opinion, but I think this is one of the dumbest things college basketball does especially at the midmajor level, that being giving the ultimate prize to a team that gets hot for 4 days over a team that performed for 3 months. It doesn't hurt the power conferences because their regular season champ is never left out of the NCAA Tourney, but it really hurts the mids and especially low majors . At least in a conference like the Valley, it's rare that a lower half team makes a run all the way, but still, how often does the best team get knocked off in conference tourneys. How do you raise the perception of your conference if your best team doesn't get to compete in the championship tourney?

I get the dollar side of having post season Conference Tourneys, and I understand the thinking behind sending the team playing the best at the end of the season, but I strongly feel a regular season champion should never be kept out of the NCAA Tourney, and like I said , it doesn't happen to the power conferences.

That is the logically correct answer.....but conference tournaments are so much fun. Would hate to see them go. Not just Arch Madness (which I love and have been going to for 16 straight years) but all the conference tourneys. Not much more fun than a random .500ish team going on a run in their league tourney.

[Mikovio]

4 seeds have won Arch Madness twice and 5 seeds have won twice. (No seed lower than 5 has ever won).

2000 - 4 seed Creighton loses to Auburn 72-69
2001 - 5 seed ISUb upsets Oklahoma 70-68, loses to Gonzaga 85-68
2016 - 4 seed UNI upsets Texas 75-72, loses in 2OT to Texas A&M (Panthers took their foot off Aggies' throats)
2019 - 5 seed BU loses to Michigan State 76-65

So that's a 2-4 record by the worst seeds but generally pretty good showings. The fear that a bad Valley team is going to get hot on the right weekend and embarrass the conference just hasn't transpired.