Actually, a 16 game schedule of playing each team twice is a much better way of determining a champion than is a weekend of single elimination who's the hot team and who has home court advantage does. When there is no tournament, the regular season champion would get the auto bid to the NCAA tournament.

Of course, I think playing an extra two games would lead to a home and road game, unless the MWC can get other teams to come in. But, playing one MWC team more than the other MWC teams isn't fair either. I would assume the extra games would be against OOC games, if possible. And they would be scheduled sometime during the season, hopefully during the second half of the season.



Gunk wrote:

mormonrasta wrote:

Why have the conference tournament? Every team in the conference plays each other at home and on the road. Tournaments should only exist to settle ambiguity. After the regular season we will already know who the best team in the conference will be. I hate pointless tournaments.

Why not push the regular season back one week and have every MWC team schedule 2 more games (preferably home games) each year? I'm willing to be the revenue generated of an additional 18 regular season games can trump 7 tournament games.

To me the tournament doesn't make sense from a competitive standpoint and a financial standpoint.

You could just as easily say, what's the point of the regular season? Why not just have a tournament to decide who the best team is in the conference? You have to keep in mind the point of the season is to decide a team's seeding in the MWC tournament. The winner of the tournament then goes to the NCAA tournament.

If we decided not to have a MWC tournament it would take some agreeing on the NCAA committee and we might forfeit our automatic bid. By having a MWC tournament the MWC will have at least one team in the NCAA tournament every year, and which team goes is decided by the play of MWC teams, not by a selection committee. If CSU were to win the MCW tourney, they would get a NCAA tourney spot. You have to admit there is something fair about that guarantee.

L.A. would be nice but finding a venue that seats 10,000+ that is available for the whole weekend would be tough.

I think that the tournament has its merits. As a conference, there is a lot to be said for sending teams that will represent you well at the NCAA tournament. Say Wyoming gets really hot these last two weeks and finally plays to their talent level. With their guard play and their athleticism in the post, Wyoming could be a troublesome tournament opponent where you have little time to scout and prepare for your next opponent. Putting your hottest teams in the tournament increases the liklihood that those teams will advance and thereby build esteem for the conference as a whole.

It's for this same reason that the selection committee puts more credence in what a team has done at the end of the season than in the beginning. A team with a current 10 game winning streak gets more consideration than one that went 12-0 through December/January.

I personally like the idea of sending the hottest teams as well as the regular season champs, which is why I have always been an advocate of auto-bids for both from each conference (which coincidentally gives you 64 teams). In the instance of a regular season team winning the tournament, the second bid would then become an at large. Such a system takes a lot of the uncertainty out of the selection process and gives smaller schools a better chance at earning their way in and would go a long way to leveling the recruiting field.

Gunk wrote:

You could just as easily say, what's the point of the regular season? Why not just have a tournament to decide who the best team is in the conference? You have to keep in mind the point of the season is to decide a team's seeding in the MWC tournament. The winner of the tournament then goes to the NCAA tournament.

Unfortunately you're buying into the devolution of sport. It used to be the regular season mattered much more than mere seeding, home court advantage, 1st round byes etc. Being a regular season champion used to mean that you are peerless among your fellow conference mates and you have earned the right to compete with other like champions in a tournament to settle who indeed is the champion of champions.

But due to flat out greed, not inherent fairness of competition, we now view "playoffs" as everything and the regular season meaningless other than for the purposes of seeding. Being the MWC champion now earns you the right to be eliminated by a 7th place Big East team. That sucks.


Gunk wrote:

If we decided not to have a MWC tournament it would take some agreeing on the NCAA committee and we might forfeit our automatic bid. By having a MWC tournament the MWC will have at least one team in the NCAA tournament every year, and which team goes is decided by the play of MWC teams, not by a selection committee. If CSU were to win the MCW tourney, they would get a NCAA tourney spot. You have to admit there is something fair about that guarentee.

L.A. would be nice but finding a venue that seats 10,000+ that is available for the whole weekend would be tough.

You don't need a conference tournament to determine a champion. It is NOT an NCAA rule. The Ivy League still does not have a conference tournament yet they get an auto bid. The Pac-10 had a conference tournament in the early '80s, then got rid of it, then brought it back. They didn't lose NCAA bids as a result.

Regarding your suggestion of CSU winning the tournament as having some sort of fairness, I completely disagree. It is not fair for a team to absolutely suck the entire year and be put in an arbitrary tournament with a team that has been by and large very good with the exact same chances of going to the NCAA tournament.

I think it is much more fair to give the autobid to the team that played the best over 3 months in the exact same conditions as the other teams in the conference, rather than giving the autobid to the team that is having a really good week.

mormonrasta wrote:

Why have the conference tournament? Every team in the conference plays each other at home and on the road. Tournaments should only exist to settle ambiguity. After the regular season we will already know who the best team in the conference will be. I hate pointless tournaments.

Why not push the regular season back one week and have every MWC team schedule 2 more games (preferably home games) each year? I'm willing to bet the revenue generated of an additional 18 regular season games can trump 7 tournament games.

To me the tournament doesn't make sense from a competitive standpoint and a financial standpoint.

For a weak league (WAC and lower), the conference champion should be the regular season champion (almost without exception). However, for a league like the Mountain West, giving the autobid to BYU makes no sense. It benefits the league to have more teams in the NCAAs. The conference gets compensation based on the number of games played in the tournament. It benefits the conference for the regular season champion to lose in the conference tournament. It can turn a 1 bid league into a 2 bid league and a 2 bid league into a 3 bid league. As the Mountain West improves its reputation, it may turn a 3 bid league into a 4 bid league. That said, it does not benefit the conference for the tournament to be located in Vegas. UNLV is one of the top tier teams in the conference. You want the top tier teams to lose. You want someone to win who would not go to the NCAAs without a win in the tournament. The ideal for the conference this year would be a San Diego State win over New Mexico in the finals. Right now, BYU and UNLV are in barring bad loses (ie Wyoming and TCU). BYU is probably in regardless. If New Mexico beats UNLV at home and goes to the conference Finals (beating UNLV again) they might make it into the tournament as an at large. UNLV will probably still be in and San Diego State won't make it without an automatic berth. This opens up the possibility of a 4th team getting into the tournament. The MWC will probably still only get 3 in this scenerio, however, without the tournament they would only get 3 maximum and probably only 2. That said, I don't think anyone beats BYU in the tournament so this only applies to a fantasy world. Without the conference tournament the possiblity of the poor Yewts going to the NCAAs is non-existent (ok, the conference tournament doesn't change that but you get my point).

rblack wrote:

For a weak league (WAC and lower), the conference champion should be the regular season champion (almost without exception). However, for a league like the Mountain West, giving the autobid to BYU makes no sense. It benefits the league to have more teams in the NCAAs. The conference gets compensation based on the number of games played in the tournament. It benefits the conference for the regular season champion to lose in the conference tournament. It can turn a 1 bid league into a 2 bid league and a 2 bid league into a 3 bid league. As the Mountain West improves its reputation, it may turn a 3 bid league into a 4 bid league. That said, it does not benefit the conference for the tournament to be located in Vegas. UNLV is one of the top tier teams in the conference. You want the top tier teams to lose. You want someone to win who would not go to the NCAAs without a win in the tournament. The ideal for the conference this year would be a San Diego State win over New Mexico in the finals. Right now, BYU and UNLV are in barring bad loses (ie Wyoming and TCU). BYU is probably in regardless. If New Mexico beats UNLV at home and goes to the conference Finals (beating UNLV again) they might make it into the tournament as an at large. UNLV will probably still be in and San Diego State won't make it without an automatic berth. This opens up the possibility of a 4th team getting into the tournament. The MWC will probably still only get 3 in this scenerio, however, without the tournament they would only get 3 maximum and probably only 2. That said, I don't think anyone beats BYU in the tournament so this only applies to a fantasy world. Without the conference tournament the possiblity of the poor Yewts going to the NCAAs is non-existent (ok, the conference tournament doesn't change that but you get my point).

A conference tournament wouldn't enhance or hurt the MWC chances of getting more or less bids. For every year a "bubble" team can get over the hump by doing well in the conference tournament there's a "bubble" team who craps the bed against a team like TCU. Let's face it, the MWC is a 2 to 3 bid league regardless of the postseason format.

Think about how scrapping the tournament could help the conference. Teams could use the extra week in the season to:

1. Schedule top quality programs to improve their RPI.

2. Renew regional rivalries that may go by the wayside *cough*BYU-USU*cough*

3. Use basketball scheduling to enhance football scheduling or vice versa. For example let's say you're Wyoming and nobody ever wants to play you in Wyoming in any sport. Wyoming could promise a football visit to certain ACC and Big East schools for a return basketball visit. This is done all the time.

rblack wrote:

For a weak league (WAC and lower), the conference champion should be the regular season champion (almost without exception). However, for a league like the Mountain West, giving the autobid to BYU makes no sense. It benefits the league to have more teams in the NCAAs. The conference gets compensation based on the number of games played in the tournament. It benefits the conference for the regular season champion to lose in the conference tournament. It can turn a 1 bid league into a 2 bid league and a 2 bid league into a 3 bid league. As the Mountain West improves its reputation, it may turn a 3 bid league into a 4 bid league. That said, it does not benefit the conference for the tournament to be located in Vegas. UNLV is one of the top tier teams in the conference. You want the top tier teams to lose. You want someone to win who would not go to the NCAAs without a win in the tournament. The ideal for the conference this year would be a San Diego State win over New Mexico in the finals. Right now, BYU and UNLV are in barring bad loses (ie Wyoming and TCU). BYU is probably in regardless. If New Mexico beats UNLV at home and goes to the conference Finals (beating UNLV again) they might make it into the tournament as an at large. UNLV will probably still be in and San Diego State won't make it without an automatic berth. This opens up the possibility of a 4th team getting into the tournament. The MWC will probably still only get 3 in this scenerio, however, without the tournament they would only get 3 maximum and probably only 2. That said, I don't think anyone beats BYU in the tournament so this only applies to a fantasy world. Without the conference tournament the possiblity of the poor Yewts going to the NCAAs is non-existent (ok, the conference tournament doesn't change that but you get my point).

Yeah, that's great, but my loyalties lie first and foremost with the boys in blue(not that yours don't, rblack). The best thing that can happen to the cougs is to get as high a seed as possible, not just earn a spot. A loss in the conference tourney by a BYU team with more than 2 or 3 losses means we're not looking at much more than an 8 seed. Even then it's tough enough to get respect from the seeding committee.

Bottom line: BYU wins mean a higher seed, and the higher the seed, the better the chance of advancing. So screw the conference getting teams in, if it costs us anything.

By the way, Sno, I agree the best idea is to put both champions in the tourney, I wish I could see it happening...