(01-27-2024 10:54 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 10:21 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 09:55 AM)Section 200 Wrote:  This is a good decision - I would cut it down to 12 teams. Too many teams over the years have won the conference tourney & then bombed early in the NCAA tourney. Reduce the games the top teams play to get the best NCAA results. If you can't finish in the top 12 you aren't going to win in the NCAA tourney.

I agree fully. If all 18 are not going, then reduce to 12.

Competitively, that makes sense.

Financially, though, that eliminates an entire day of the tournament for TV purposes… and TV is really why all of these conference tournaments exist as opposed to using regular season results for NCAA Tournament auto-bid purposes.

I’d also say that while the #13 team in the Big Ten probably isn’t winning the NCAA Tournament, there could be many years where it’s legitimately on the bubble for of even getting an at-large berth (considering that leagues like the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East have been frequently getting over half of their league memberships into the NCAA Tournament in recent years).

People need to be careful in using the “This team can’t win the national championship” standard because if that’s the criteria, then basketball ought to use something more like the 12-team CFP and eliminate all conference auto-bids completely outside of the P4 plus Big East. Now, I think that would be personally terrible, but people need to be reminded of this whenever they try to argue that, “If you can’t get to Xth place in your conference, then you shouldn’t be in the NCAA Tournament.” That argument isn’t going to work for the power conferences that could very well destroy the NCAA Tournament tomorrow if they wanted to do so. I know it’s harsh, but everyone in college sports needs to internalize that the power conferences are *massively* subsidizing everyone else with the NCAA Tournament. No one else has leverage and we’re seeing just the start of that with the NIT criteria changing. That’s just the canary in the coal mine.

I think the Big 10 should have fewer teams so a team like Purdue is less tired for the NCAA tourney. Do you really think the Big 10 will get 13 teams in the NCAA tourney? That is extremely unlikely - there are 36 at large bids - how could the Big 10 take 12 bids?

To take it a step further, I would move the Big 10 final to Saturday to get an extra day of rest. They won't do that since CBS wants to Big 10 to lead into the selection show, but the conferences that end on Saturday have an additional advantage.

(01-27-2024 10:27 AM)Eichorst Wrote:  I'm guessing the B1G had some consultant who showed the math that 15/18 schools is optimal.

It probably didn't help anyone to have the teams with the lowest NET ranking in the tourney (you can actually *drop* in the NET by winning a conference tourney game today), so eliminating a couple of teams that are so far outside of the bubble probably raises everyone's boats.

They probably also looked at what cutoff makes sense to improve the odds of securing either a #1 seed in the NCAA tourney or increasing the odds of a bid thief (i.e. a non-bubble team sneaking in by winning the conference tourney).

Just thinking about the conference standings mathematically, 15 helps to break them up into multiple tiers.

Top 4 - Double bye
Seeds 5-9 - single bye
Seeds 10-12 - favorites for opening round
Seeds 13-15 - makes B1G tourney
16-18 - misses B1G tourney

I'd imagine if we go to 20 teams, the B1G tournament would expand to 16 teams and split up into the tiers used above: 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, and 17-20.

(01-27-2024 10:56 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 08:28 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 05:56 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  Finally. Conferences used to not include the bottom of the barrel but then they all changed that for some reason. Glad to see it's back, hopefully others start to follow again.

Wut? Back in the day conferences were smaller, and the whole conference went to the conference tournament. Or the league just crowned the regular season winner as conference champ.

There were times even in 12 team conferences where only the top 8 went, for instance. I think that’s what John is referring to. With that said, the reason most conferences went back to all teams being in the tournament is it’s much easier for ADs and fans to plan knowing for a fact their team will be in the tournament.

Yeah, who wants to see more teams checking out early?

(01-27-2024 10:56 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 08:28 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 05:56 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  Finally. Conferences used to not include the bottom of the barrel but then they all changed that for some reason. Glad to see it's back, hopefully others start to follow again.

Wut? Back in the day conferences were smaller, and the whole conference went to the conference tournament. Or the league just crowned the regular season winner as conference champ.

There were times even in 12 team conferences where only the top 8 went, for instance. I think that’s what John is referring to. With that said, the reason most conferences went back to all teams being in the tournament is it’s much easier for ADs and fans to plan knowing for a fact their team will be in the tournament.

No, I was just wrong. The conferences I paid attention to either had everyone in their tournament, or didn;t have a tournament.

(01-27-2024 11:05 AM)Section 200 Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 10:54 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 10:21 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 09:55 AM)Section 200 Wrote:  This is a good decision - I would cut it down to 12 teams. Too many teams over the years have won the conference tourney & then bombed early in the NCAA tourney. Reduce the games the top teams play to get the best NCAA results. If you can't finish in the top 12 you aren't going to win in the NCAA tourney.

I agree fully. If all 18 are not going, then reduce to 12.

Competitively, that makes sense.

Financially, though, that eliminates an entire day of the tournament for TV purposes… and TV is really why all of these conference tournaments exist as opposed to using regular season results for NCAA Tournament auto-bid purposes.

I’d also say that while the #13 team in the Big Ten probably isn’t winning the NCAA Tournament, there could be many years where it’s legitimately on the bubble for of even getting an at-large berth (considering that leagues like the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East have been frequently getting over half of their league memberships into the NCAA Tournament in recent years).

People need to be careful in using the “This team can’t win the national championship” standard because if that’s the criteria, then basketball ought to use something more like the 12-team CFP and eliminate all conference auto-bids completely outside of the P4 plus Big East. Now, I think that would be personally terrible, but people need to be reminded of this whenever they try to argue that, “If you can’t get to Xth place in your conference, then you shouldn’t be in the NCAA Tournament.” That argument isn’t going to work for the power conferences that could very well destroy the NCAA Tournament tomorrow if they wanted to do so. I know it’s harsh, but everyone in college sports needs to internalize that the power conferences are *massively* subsidizing everyone else with the NCAA Tournament. No one else has leverage and we’re seeing just the start of that with the NIT criteria changing. That’s just the canary in the coal mine.

I think the Big 10 should have fewer teams so a team like Purdue is less tired for the NCAA tourney. Do you really think the Big 10 will get 13 teams in the NCAA tourney? That is extremely unlikely - there are 36 at large bids - how could the Big 10 take 12 bids?

To take it a step further, I would move the Big 10 final to Saturday to get an extra day of rest. They won't do that since CBS wants to Big 10 to lead into the selection show, but the conferences that end on Saturday have an additional advantage.

That’s valid, but once again, if the goal is purely about the competitive aspects, then none of these leagues would have any conference tournament at all. It’s like the old joke of, “Madam, we have established what you are. We’re now just haggling over the price.” The only reason why these conference tournaments exist at this point is for TV money, so what is the point of taking less TV money for any reason if it’s being offered? There are tons of leagues that would take the exposure that the Big Ten gets from being the lead-in to the Selection Show if it was ever offered to them. The Big Ten title game is generally one of the most-watched, if not the single most-watched basketball games of the year (outside of the NCAA Tournament itself). It’s easy to tell people to give up something of super high value when it’s at no cost to them.

B1G/networks want games on tv on the final Sunday of the regular season. If the conference tournament expands beyond 16, some teams could get stuck playing on Tuesday with only 1 day in between the regular season finale and conference tournament.

(01-27-2024 11:17 AM)Porcine Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 10:56 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 08:28 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 05:56 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  Finally. Conferences used to not include the bottom of the barrel but then they all changed that for some reason. Glad to see it's back, hopefully others start to follow again.

Wut? Back in the day conferences were smaller, and the whole conference went to the conference tournament. Or the league just crowned the regular season winner as conference champ.

There were times even in 12 team conferences where only the top 8 went, for instance. I think that’s what John is referring to. With that said, the reason most conferences went back to all teams being in the tournament is it’s much easier for ADs and fans to plan knowing for a fact their team will be in the tournament.

Yeah, who wants to see more teams checking out early?

So, this is an interesting statement.

On the one hand, the elimination of that “one last chance” for everyone in a league in their conference championship can be a de-motivating factor.

On the other hand, one could argue that the anticipated Big Ten system where the bottom 3 teams don’t go to the conference tournament could actually make the regular season games in the lower half of the league more competitive and meaningful, similar to how the games between the worst clubs in the English Premier League are actually super high intensity with a lot of interest because those teams are battling to avoid relegation.

Take Michigan and Rutgers this year - they’re out of the NCAA Tournament and Big Ten title mix, so they’re essentially just marking time until the Big Ten Tournament. However, if those teams are having to win more games just to get to the Big Ten Tournament as opposed to being automatic, you could argue that this is a larger motivation for both Michigan and Rutgers to keep playing at their best (whatever it might be) as opposed to rolling over. Plus, the 2 Michigan-Rutgers games that they still need to play go from being games between the 2 worst teams in the league that can be freely ignored into actually meaningful games with respect to Big Ten Tournament qualification.

Putting aside the worst teams in the league, it also keeps the teams in the middle tier on their toes since you could very well have only a 1 or 2 game record difference or even a tiebreaker between having a first round bye to not even making the conference tournament at all. I look at the NBA as an example where the fact that only the top 6 teams in each conference automatically get into the playoffs while the last 2 playoff sports are subject to the play-in tournament with the 7 through 10 seeds. This has the dual effect of keeping the middle-of-the-pack teams highly engaged for the entire regular season because getting into the top 6 is such a huge advantage while keeping lower half teams engaged because a lot of them have shown to be in striking distance of the 10-seed up until the last week or two of the regular season.

So, even as an overall proponent of inviting all members to the conference tournament (as I still think the “one last shot” part outweighs everything for me), I would grant that this could turn what had been totally meaningless lower level regular season games into ones that have meaningful stakes involved when a Big Ten Tournament berth is on the line.

(01-27-2024 11:37 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 10:56 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 08:28 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 05:56 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  Finally. Conferences used to not include the bottom of the barrel but then they all changed that for some reason. Glad to see it's back, hopefully others start to follow again.

Wut? Back in the day conferences were smaller, and the whole conference went to the conference tournament. Or the league just crowned the regular season winner as conference champ.

There were times even in 12 team conferences where only the top 8 went, for instance. I think that’s what John is referring to. With that said, the reason most conferences went back to all teams being in the tournament is it’s much easier for ADs and fans to plan knowing for a fact their team will be in the tournament.

No, I was just wrong. The conferences I paid attention to either had everyone in their tournament, or didn;t have a tournament.

Ah ok. The Sun Belt only had the top 8 teams go to the conference tournament in 2014, 2015, and 2016. But it changed back to all teams in 2017. I thought you were describing this scenario.

(01-27-2024 12:30 PM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 11:37 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 10:56 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 08:28 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 05:56 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  Finally. Conferences used to not include the bottom of the barrel but then they all changed that for some reason. Glad to see it's back, hopefully others start to follow again.

Wut? Back in the day conferences were smaller, and the whole conference went to the conference tournament. Or the league just crowned the regular season winner as conference champ.

There were times even in 12 team conferences where only the top 8 went, for instance. I think that’s what John is referring to. With that said, the reason most conferences went back to all teams being in the tournament is it’s much easier for ADs and fans to plan knowing for a fact their team will be in the tournament.

No, I was just wrong. The conferences I paid attention to either had everyone in their tournament, or didn;t have a tournament.

Ah ok. The Sun Belt only had the top 8 teams go to the conference tournament in 2014, 2015, and 2016. But it changed back to all teams in 2017. I thought you were describing this scenario.

No, I was just wrong. The Big East had everybody in MSG. The Big Ten famously didn't have a tournament. Everyone else, I was maybe paying attention to whether the 1 seed got upset and "stole a bid." Or if a major program on the bubble won their quarterfinal game to solidify an at-large.

I sort of assumed that the middle-ground "X of Y teams go to the conference tournament" or "first round of conference tournament on campus" was a recent development, either as leagues grew to unwieldy proportions or as leagues started searching for ways to pinch pennies.

(01-27-2024 12:16 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 11:17 AM)Porcine Wrote:  

(01-27-2024 10:56 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 08:28 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 05:56 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  Finally. Conferences used to not include the bottom of the barrel but then they all changed that for some reason. Glad to see it's back, hopefully others start to follow again.

Wut? Back in the day conferences were smaller, and the whole conference went to the conference tournament. Or the league just crowned the regular season winner as conference champ.

There were times even in 12 team conferences where only the top 8 went, for instance. I think that’s what John is referring to. With that said, the reason most conferences went back to all teams being in the tournament is it’s much easier for ADs and fans to plan knowing for a fact their team will be in the tournament.

Yeah, who wants to see more teams checking out early?

So, this is an interesting statement.

On the one hand, the elimination of that “one last chance” for everyone in a league in their conference championship can be a de-motivating factor.

On the other hand, one could argue that the anticipated Big Ten system where the bottom 3 teams don’t go to the conference tournament could actually make the regular season games in the lower half of the league more competitive and meaningful, similar to how the games between the worst clubs in the English Premier League are actually super high intensity with a lot of interest because those teams are battling to avoid relegation.

Take Michigan and Rutgers this year - they’re out of the NCAA Tournament and Big Ten title mix, so they’re essentially just marking time until the Big Ten Tournament. However, if those teams are having to win more games just to get to the Big Ten Tournament as opposed to being automatic, you could argue that this is a larger motivation for both Michigan and Rutgers to keep playing at their best (whatever it might be) as opposed to rolling over. Plus, the 2 Michigan-Rutgers games that they still need to play go from being games between the 2 worst teams in the league that can be freely ignored into actually meaningful games with respect to Big Ten Tournament qualification.

Putting aside the worst teams in the league, it also keeps the teams in the middle tier on their toes since you could very well have only a 1 or 2 game record difference or even a tiebreaker between having a first round bye to not even making the conference tournament at all. I look at the NBA as an example where the fact that only the top 6 teams in each conference automatically get into the playoffs while the last 2 playoff sports are subject to the play-in tournament with the 7 through 10 seeds. This has the dual effect of keeping the middle-of-the-pack teams highly engaged for the entire regular season because getting into the top 6 is such a huge advantage while keeping lower half teams engaged because a lot of them have shown to be in striking distance of the 10-seed up until the last week or two of the regular season.

So, even as an overall proponent of inviting all members to the conference tournament (as I still think the “one last shot” part outweighs everything for me), I would grant that this could turn what had been totally meaningless lower level regular season games into ones that have meaningful stakes involved when a Big Ten Tournament berth is on the line.

IMO, it's better overall for everyone to be in than potentially better play from some bubble teams.

Love this move. I like anything that puts more emphasis back on regular season events. This means there is something at stake at staying outside the bottom spots beside seeding.

(01-27-2024 12:36 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  ... No, I was just wrong. The Big East had everybody in MSG. The Big Ten famously didn't have a tournament. Everyone else, I was maybe paying attention to whether the 1 seed got upset and "stole a bid." Or if a major program on the bubble won their quarterfinal game to solidify an at-large.

I sort of assumed that the middle-ground "X of Y teams go to the conference tournament" or "first round of conference tournament on campus" was a recent development, either as leagues grew to unwieldy proportions or as leagues started searching for ways to pinch pennies.

According to the Wikipedia machine, the Mid American Conference MBB tournament started in 1980 and expanded to include all teams in 2000, and then went to the top eight out of 12 in 2021/22. As I recall, back when they had all schools in the tournament there were byes straight to Cleveland for the top four teams and 5-8 hosted 9-12 in the the rest played the first round with higher seeds hosting before going to the main tournament site in Cleveland ... now the entire tournament takes place at the tournament site in Cleveland.

I liked it for the MAC because NIL and easy transfers have already savaged the MAC's NET rankings badly enough ... the better MAC schools don't need the conference adding on top of that games against sub-300 NET ranked schools in the tournament results.

I like it for the Big Ten more for the same reason that others give of making regular season games more meaningful for the schools in the middle of the conference looking ahead to the last two or three weeks, and I particularly like the 4/5/3/3/3 structure for the incentive even in the last few weeks to work to take at least one step up the ladder.

(01-26-2024 05:31 PM)goofus Wrote:  https://theathletic.com/5230431/2024/01/...ule/?amp=1

The Big Ten has announced it's men's and women's basketball tournaments will not include all 18 schools in 2025 and will instead be limited to only 15 teams. The first round games on Wed will expand from 2 to 3 games, but everything else will be the same with the top 4 seeds getting a double-bye until Friday.

The Big Ten also announced they will keep the 20-game conference schedule in 2024-2025.

I am a little surprised to hear this. I wonder if this is just a temporary thing and they will expand the tourney to 18 teams in later years.

At one point, the Big East (not the current teams) did that because of the total number of teams. In one of UConn's MBB championships, they barely made the conference tourney and were in a play-in game with Pitt, trailing with only a few seconds left; one of their guards got a mismatch against a Pitt PF and got the winning trey as time expired. After they won the NC, I thought, how precarious their NC run had been.

I think UConn was 19-9 that year and won 11 or 12 games counting the conference tourney and the NCAA to become national champions. It might have been Calhoun's third.

The 20-game regular season schedule effectively makes the Pac 4 their own pod. They will always play each other twice annually. The existing 14 teams only have to make one trip to the West Coast to play two away games against the Pac 4.

The Big Ten tourney should rotate Chicago and Vegas going forward. Or just permanently play it in Vegas. With a national conference, you need a national destination and when it comes to sports in March, Vegas > Chicago

(01-27-2024 10:54 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  The 20-game regular season schedule effectively makes the Pac 4 their own pod. They will always play each other twice annually. The existing 14 teams only have to make one trip to the West Coast to play two away games against the Pac 4.

That's what I'd expect, and the existing 14 either get their 3 protected rivals or stick with flex protect format and try rotating existing members slightly more frequently. Maybe they stick with the current in-state rivals protected only to allow rotating more existing teams (or at least regional teams).

(01-26-2024 05:44 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  The only thing I can think is a restriction to 4 games per day for TV, which limits you to 16. Maybe 15 is sort of the agreed number to make enough not in to not be totally embarrassing to those schools. Go to 20 schools and the number is 16.

3 games Wednesday, 4 games Thursday and then Friday, Semifinals Saturday, Championship Sunday

With 18 schools you have to have 6 games on Wednesday, requiring an Auxiliary court for a few games, and a few games not covered on the primary or BTN main feed.

You can get 5 games a day in if you don't sell tickets for two sessions. Having to empty the arena and letting folks in for the night session eats a game slot.

(01-28-2024 01:32 AM)whittx Wrote:  

(01-26-2024 05:44 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  The only thing I can think is a restriction to 4 games per day for TV, which limits you to 16. Maybe 15 is sort of the agreed number to make enough not in to not be totally embarrassing to those schools. Go to 20 schools and the number is 16.

3 games Wednesday, 4 games Thursday and then Friday, Semifinals Saturday, Championship Sunday

With 18 schools you have to have 6 games on Wednesday, requiring an Auxiliary court for a few games, and a few games not covered on the primary or BTN main feed.

You can get 5 games a day in if you don't sell tickets for two sessions. Having to empty the arena and letting folks in for the night session eats a game slot.

Yes expanding to 5 games on Wed would not cost any more in tickets sales because right now the plan is just for one 3-game set. But it could also encourage low attendance for individual games, which could happen anyway even if it was split between 2 sites.

Having 5 games on Thursday could cost the league some ticket sales cause right now it's split into the two 2-game sets. Which I guess is why they think 2 gyms would be needed.

This is the main reason I would just prefer expanding the tourney to a 6-day tourney with a format with a triple bye for the top 4 seeds.

3 games on Tues (seeds 13-18 play)
3 games on Wed (seeds 10-12 get single bye)
4 games on Thurs (seeds 5-9 get double bye)
4 games on Fri (seeds 1-4 get triple bye)
2 games Sat
1 game Sun

(01-27-2024 11:15 PM)esayem Wrote:  The Big Ten tourney should rotate Chicago and Vegas going forward. Or just permanently play it in Vegas. With a national conference, you need a national destination and when it comes to sports in March, Vegas > Chicago

I like the idea of including Vegas and Chicago, but there is no way Indianapolis is not included in some kind of rotation of sites.

(01-27-2024 05:53 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  Love this move. I like anything that puts more emphasis back on regular season events. This means there is something at stake at staying outside the bottom spots beside seeding.

I’ve always joked that college basketball is the only major sport where you could theoretically lose every single regular season game and still have a chance to win the national championship. Not anymore in the Big Ten!