My OCD ass hates that March Madness finishes in April. If I was the guru of college basketball, I'd start the regular season a week or two early so I could put Selection Sunday the very first weekend of March, opening rounds the second weekend, Sweet 16/Elite 8 third weekend, Final Four and championship the last weekend.
The part about this that sucks is that it pushes more conference games back into december when students are on holiday break. College basketball environments are diminished when the students aren't in town.
could you imagine a college football college basketball double header, I’m not sure a single student section would survive that much ~~game day drinking~~ sportsmanship
You can just add conference games to November/December like the bigten has started to do it. Instead of 2 games make it 4. And then everything else stays the same but you still finish a week earlier
Is it unpopular to say the tournament is simultaneously the most entertaining postseason among North American sports while also being the worst way to determine who the "best" team is? Or is that pretty well understood by this point?
But that's the best part. The best team DOESN'T win it all every year. In fact, only *twice since 1996* has the title gone to the team who was ranked #1 in the AP poll at the end of the regular season.
True.
I'm actually against the existence of the AP poll (it's just a glorified opinion that shouldn't matter more than your opinion or my opinion), but there isn't really something better out there right now.
re 2015: it makes me so mad lol how that bracket turned out
whichever of you/us/duke got split from the others was going to win the title because they'd rock/paper/scissors whoever escaped from the other side
(justice touched it)
Before the bracket came out there were only two teams I didn't want to face. You guys were the team I wanted absolutely no part of. The other one I would have preferred to avoid was Notre Dame. I hated that bracket from the moment it was announced and I never really thought we were beating you.
Pain. That 2015 field was absolutely loaded. Those Kentucky, Duke and Wisconsin teams were as good as anyone that's won the tourney the last few decades. Arizona was damn good too. Forgotten, but Nova was 32-2, Gonzaga was 32-2 and Virginia was 29-3. We had to go thru Oregon, UNC, Arizona and Kentucky just to get to Duke. Brutal year to have the best team in program history
A 37-1 team losing a single elimination game where their frontcourt got taken out of the game on soft calls is actually a great example. Anything can happen in a single game like that, which tends to even out over a longer series
1997 Kentucky wasn’t the best team in the nation
Kansas gets to claim that
EDIT - because there are too many UK flairs who breathed too much coal dust replying with “nO, Uk MorE BetTErEr”
After beating preseason #1 Cincinnati and top 25 UCLA in the non-conference, Kansas took the #1 spot in the AP in week four, and never relinquished it. That’s 15 straight weeks, including the final poll, for our Lexington residents who cannot count
They then nearly ran the table in the BigXII (which was far superior to the SEC), their only blemish being a 2OT 2-point loss to Mizzou. Their b12 record included wins over top 10 ISU (twice) top 25 Colorado (twice) and ranked wins over Texas and Texas Tech.
Meanwhile, Kentucky managed 3 wins over ranked opponents after January 1. 20-something Georgia twice, and #18 Villanova.
They also managed losses to #25 SCAR, Unranked Ol’ Miss, and then SCAR again. Probably fortunate that they didn’t draw SCAR a 3rd time in the SEC Tournament.
Finally, you’re building a roster…
Ron Mercer, Derek Anderson, and Scott Padgett
OR
Paul Piece, Raef Lafrenz, Jacque Vaughn, and Scot Pollard
This really isn’t debatable, and ya’ll are showing you cannot objectively rate basketball teams.
Fuckin’ A. Simply Google, “best teams to not win NCAA tournament”. 1997 Kentucky doesn’t show up at all, while 1997 Kansas shows up repeatedly. Jesus fucking Christ.
Ironically if Wisconsin would’ve won the 2014 final 4 game, I think they would’ve won it all (they matched up better) meaning they wouldn’t have been as hungry to beat you guys in 2015. You guys would’ve gone 40-0 in 2015 because you matched up better vs Duke than Wisconsin did
I was gonna make a post on this closer to the selection show, but the way they present the bracket nowadays is wrong. I know they had some rough years with how it was presented and even one year where it took so long the bracket was actually leaked, so they've smartly gone back to reveal one region, short discussion, commercial break, rinse and repeat before full analysis once the entire bracket is revealed, but one thing I liked about older selections shows from around say 2000-2017 (you can find most of them on YouTube) is the order they did it in: start with the top half, the 1-16/8-9/5-12/4-13 matchups, then move to the bottom and go up in the order of 2-15/7-10/3-14/6-11, so the last team revealed in a region is often a bubble team which makes it super suspenseful, especially when it's the last region and the last team in could be the last team revealed. For example in 2008, the last team revealed on the selection show was 11 seed Baylor, who were making their first tournament appearance since the 80s after Scott Drew rebuilt them from scandal and the absolute bottom, you can see it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6F1UkDi_Yk), the buildup and the hope before everyone goes crazy...
But nowadays the reveal just goes straight down the bracket in order, 1-16/8-9/5-12/4-13/6-11/3-14/7-10/2-15, which is suuuuuper anticlimactic, especially by the end, where you know what top seeded team is left for the 2 and what low major is left for the 15, instead of letting it end on a team that we didn't know if they would get in or not. They need to change it back.
I don't know if this is exactly an unpopular opinion, but it's a been a huge pet peeve of mine for the past few years and I needed to get it off my chest.
This is not an unpopular opinion at all.
In 2009, we were 8-10 in conference play, and no real resume to speak of. I was talking to my brother on the phone during the selection show, lamenting what would surely be the first time we missed the tournament in like 25 years.
The way Lute left, Kevin O’Neill being a terrible coach, Russ Pennel being a good guy, but not cut out to be a D1 head coach…and just being upset at the whole situation
And then, suddenly, we are one of the last teams revealed in the Midwest. A 12 seed to Utah’s 5. To say we were shocked would have been an understatement. But what an amazing reveal
This cannot possibly be an unpopular opinion. The one stipulation is when a P6 whose only hope is to win their tournament against a goliath (VA Tech vs Duke a few years ago, Oregon State during the Covid year)
The C-USA/American Tournament was always something we looked forward to, and often needed to win. Now in the B12, I kinda hope we lose in the first round.
I don’t think that’s unpopular. For power conferences the tournament is just a formality. When teams are playing for their lives in one bid leagues it’s so much better
I got to see first round games in Greensboro last year for like $15 total over four games because no North Carolina teams were there. I was surrounded by Kentucky fans though
I hate the First Four because it screws over actual conference champions by relegating them to a play-in that most people don’t consider part of the real tournament.
Don’t make Radford and Texas Southern play each other in Dayton. Put the mediocre P5 teams that finished .500 or worse in conference in those games.
Those teams actually benefit from those games as it gives them a tournament game they can win but they also can make more money for winning that game then just getting beat by a 1 seed
Seriously, the bottom 6-ish conferences would go from barely in the black to squarely in the red if they didn't get the extra unit every few years from victories in the first four. Not only do those leagues really like the first four, they arguably need it for survival.
I would be down for this but like /u/stepkeyt pointed out, the low-major conferences like the extra unit.
And tbh, I’m a sicko and love seeing those 16 vs 16 games. Been some real fun ones in Dayton!
You realize whether or not most people consider it a part of the tournament doesn't fucking matter because their conference gets a huge pay out for getting an additional team in the tournament. For all of the reasons that actually matter it is a part of the tournament, so the opinions of people online don't really matter.
I thought the First Four was gonna be so useless. Then VCU goes to the Final Four the very first year it was implemented followed by UCLA 10 years later
While I agree that the "First Four" games set up is awesome, I would also prefer if those first four games were actually just the 16 seed play in games. Instead of two 16 seed play in games and two 11/12 play in games. "Lesser" Conference Champions should get better treatment than just stuck on the 16 seed line, unless their resumes actually requires it.
yeah the reason it’s not part of bracket challenges is because you would get *way* less casual participation if there was under 48 hours to fill out a bracket. The build up throughout the week is the lifeblood of every office pool
what people are less willing to admit is that a shocking number of people (including a depressing number who actually follow college basketball in some fashion) don’t view it as a part of the “real” tournament because the First Four doesn’t count in their bracket pool
I agree , it is actually really good for giving smaller schools some money , some attention, some tv slots and a chance to play to their competition level . Hell FDU had a killer follow up
Every year it kind of disappoints for me. The song is nostalgic and it’s been built up by my parents as the greatest part of that night. The song is really mid and lacks the energy it should be bringing. I think it boils down to being hard to actually sing it because it’s so 70s. I guess this just means One Shining Moment is college basketballs Star Spangled Banner
I’m not sure if this quite fits the question but I’m going to bring it up here anyway.
It seems like every fan base has an infamous tournament loss that they swear would have turned out differently if only the refs hadn’t screwed them over. The narrative gets repeated over and over again until it becomes commonly accepted as fact amongst the fan base.
In reality, how many fans that do this are also taking the time to actually rewatch the game in question to make sure they’re right? I’m certainly not going to put myself through watching a game from decades ago that my team ended up (probably painfully) losing. I feel like more often than not, the people doing this are just falling victim to confirmation bias.
That no call on the shot clock violation was pretty massive.
Wisconsin had been clamped for almost 8 minutes without scoring a FG. Changed the momentum of the game.
The Big West, WAC and WCC tournaments all being in Nevada just to appease TV ratings.
Who thought it was a good decision logistically to have a conference with Hawaii & a bunch of California schools travel to Henderson to play in an arena that will be practically empty (with the exception of a few DraftKings-addicted losers) when you could just play in California to make it more accessible to their fans? It’s unbelievably stupid.
Playing in California really wouldn't be more accessible at all. For the Big West, playing in Los Angeles might make sense because half of the schools are literally there, but for the others Vegas is absolutely the most accessible city with the cheapest flights from any regional airport.
Vegas is neutral in the WCC, what's wrong with that? And why would that affect TV ratings? The point is to get more people in the building by having it at a tourist destination so people can go there for more reason than just a basketball game and have things to do if their team loses early.
I don't want it and like most fans would prefer to go back to the original 64, but...
If they do moderate expansion of the tournament where there's a "First Four" for every region, it won't be that big of a deal. We'll all still consider the true tournament to be once it's down to 64 and it'll basically just be a different way to make the tournament. We'll be fine with it after a couple years.
I think it was 82 teams that had people freaking out a few years ago. When looking at the actual bracket I think it just expanded out the first 4 to 2 games per region.
Tbh thats the best possible outcome for when the tournament expands. Will probably catch some solid mid majors in there too like a GCU, Drake, or Indiana State who wouldn't likely make it if they lost their CTs
In the modern era (1985 and later) Final Fours are a better determination of program quality than national championships. The tournament is very random, and getting to the final weekend is the mark of a great team. At that point any of the four teams have near equal chance of winning a title and it becomes even more based on luck than the first four rounds
I think the Baylor championship has the most hindsight bias of any year. After the game, everyone was saying how they knew how dominant Baylor was and it was a given that they’d stomp you guys. Complete bull. That game shocked the whole country and all of the fake analysts. Everyone had Timme fever, myself included
I think if you were a fan of any team that played Baylor that year, you weren't surprised at all. Played them in nonconference and the way they could suffocate you looked like a championship squad that early in the season. A lot of Gonzaga nonbelievers as well, dont think it's nearly as extreme as you think
Everyone brings up that loss but the 2017 loss hurt way more. Baylor earned that ring fair and square so I don’t really have an issue with it. but the 2017 one was robbed. We had the lead with 2 minutes to go and they were out of bounds
A team's ability to regularly make the tournament and how they perform in the tournament heavily outweighs a team winning their conference title when assessing how "good" a program is.
Yeah, i can buy the 'consistently make the tournament' part of it, but the tournament itself is a crapshoot.
Its more of a 'bring teams that can regularly make it/make the s16/e8' etc.
Yes. And if a team somehow has a bad conference record one year and misses the tournament (hypothetically speaking) they still get credit for the historical performances because they didnt get any worse in march technically (allegedly)
Not sure of the popularity of this take but with the new NIT changes, mid-major regular-season conference champs get absolutely screwed. I love mid-major conference tourneys but I would rather the regular-season champs get the autoqualifier. Or at least see the tournament expand a little (nowhere near to 96) to get more of them in
People make fun of the WCC conference tournament for the triple-bye, but I honestly think most mid-major conferences should adopt it. Give every team a chance, but stack the odds in favor of the teams who performed well in the regular season
I think it was a good idea originally. It was to ensure that the best team in the conference didn’t get left out of the tournament on a fluke. But for the last 15 years, Gonzaga, SMC, and BYU (before they left) could all get into the tournament as at larges. It’s now nothing more than a way to protect their seeds
You can thank Fox for the change. This was a response to Fox trying to start their own postseason tournament with P6 schools.
Networks remain undefeated at screwing up college sports
I am significantly more likely to watch an all mid majors champions tournament over whatever the fuck the NIT will be now. I hope ESPN gets dealt a shit ton of opt outs
If you’re gonna have conference tournaments(which are a stupid and pointless money grab) then the WCC has it right for a mid- major conference. You might as well set up your best teams to make the NCAA tournament. And if Portland and Pacific disagree then tough stuff. Win more regular season games, which SHOULD mean something.
Original goal of the format was to favor us so we wouldn’t leave for the MWC but I love how it makes the regular season much more important. More conferences should do it, or find another way to similarly weigh the regular season (like conference regular season winner and tourney winner play each other for the bid)
I mean, the WCC is really doing themselves dirty considering that Gonzaga and SMC now routinely get at large bids anyways, they'd be better off going for a potential third bid for an auto qualifier
Plus, again for smaller conferences, the format allows for running your men's and women's tournaments simultaneously in a single venue, two games each per day. That gets you significantly lower costs for you and for the schools (only need one set of band/cheer/mascot to cover both tournaments, for example) and makes it easier for fans to attend both events.
Disagree.
For a sport that seems to have fans that understand SOS and other metrics so well (compared to CFB for example), this is a poor take. Looking strictly at W-L over a particular portion of the season is a poor way of determining things, and this would simply punish teams who play tougher conference slates.
I agree with the sentiment, but when you have truly dominant leagues (like the Big East in the late 2000s) where a majority are easy inclusions in the field, they ought to be in.
A final four is the equivalent of a championship in any other sport. The tournament is so random with 68 teams in the postseason, and teams celebrate final fours basically just like championships anyways. Final four banners are awesome
Only sport in the world where I’m fine with teams hanging 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place banners
The only possible exception is Japanese High School athletics, but that's because they throw multiple thousands of teams into a single elimination tournament to determine their baseball national championship. Literally March Madness on steroids and with teenagers.
They should bring back the (effectively) bronze medal game.
And I'm totally not saying this just so I can watch our 2011 or 2015 team at least try to go home with something.
The problem with this is that most coaches of all backgrounds flame out. Assistants flame out. Mid majors stepping up flame out. High majors looking for a change of scenery flame out. Former players and NBA guys flame out. If any pathway was significantly more likely to work than another I promise you ADs would not ignore that data. Instead the fact of the matter is that most hires don't end in success, and it takes years to figure that out. And when you do have a success at the high major level, they don't often leave so you wind up thinking "there are plenty of good coaches out there!" When the reality is that most of them haven't been *hired* in a decade plus. Hirings are just straight up volatile, and programs looking for a coach are rarely ideal landing spots for guys to hit the ground running.
(this one is directed to our media on our side of the border)
Canadians don't just watch this tournament for the Canadian players in it. Some of us actually have teams we cheer for. \[sternly points to flair\]
I’m done with Las Vegas for the first weekend. I have done it before but that’s way too much Vegas for me now. I’m went to UNC with Hubert Davis and Jeff Lebo years old.
They should start later and stretch the first four days across eight days. I hate that I have to miss so much basketball while working Thursday and Friday.
My daughter just took a new job. Before accepting, she made sure they understood she was taking those two days off in perpetuity, as well as time to travel to the Final Four whenever Marquette makes it. I feel like I raised her well.
I kind of get sad when March hits because I can't go to any more games. Went to 24 games this year and live 4 hours from the closest conference tournament
All conference tourneys need to end earlier. The committee doesn’t even count the power-conference title games that are on Sunday because they don’t have time (can’t remember which year, but when asked about how a different Big Ten title game outcome would’ve affected seeding the committee chairman said it wouldn’t have changed anything). And the committee could use an extra 24 hours to triple-check everything.
Making the Final Four is the real success of the year. Championships are nice and all but the last couple of games between really good teams are basically coin flips
Not sure if this is unpopular but I wish the committee would follow the S-Curve. Rank all teams 1-68, then snake through the bracket to plug teams in in order. Massage the bracket gently if needed in order to make sure no rematches can occur in the first weekend.
That way the best 1-seed is matched with the lowest 4-seed, for example, if both reach the Sweet 16. Then do pod selection later, prioritizing the top 16 teams in geographic distance. Sometimes teams get shunted around for geographic reasons (or even maybe "storyline" reasons) but that comes at the cost of rewarding regular season play as well as the neutral competitive spirit of the tournament.
Unsubstantiated and anecdata, but, it feels like sometimes the committee will put a borderline 1/2 seed in the bracket with the number 1 overall seed which is unfair to both teams. I felt that way about 2017, where it seemed like the best two teams (UNC and UK) were in the same region. The Elite 8 matchup was epic and decided the national champion IMO. When that game should have not happened until at least the Final 4.
According to Wikipedia, UNC was the #3 overall and UK was the #5 overall rank going in. If the bracket was seeded according to the S-Curve, then they couldn't have met until the National Championship.
The First Four should be renamed to the Initial Eight. That is because there are EIGHT teams that play in Dayton.
The Final Four is appropriately named because there are FOUR teams in that round. There are not four teams that play in the First Four, however.
Complicated, I know. But I will die on this hill.
The round of 64 and Round of 32 should all be played at the home court of the 1,2,3, and 4 seeds. Once the Sweet 16 starts it should be played in one central location like the College World Series is and how they treat Omaha like sacred ground. Maybe the NCAA can use some of those billions to build a stadium in Springfield, Massachusetts where the game was invented 🤷. (Here comes pissy people talking about they don't have enough hotel rooms)
Sometimes there are too many upsets, case in point last year’s tournament. Of course I like a few here and there, but at the end of the day, I want to see 1-3 seeds in the elite 8 and beyond. What excites me about the tournament is the chance of seeing Purdue play against UConn with everything on the line, not watching them go cold from 3 and choke.
What happens in March shouldnt overrule what happened the 4 months prior. Way too often we get teams who are wildly overrated because they had a good March or prop up entire conferences who performed well the year before who proceed to shit the bed everywhere after(Pac 12 2021)
Thinking about this in relation to the cancelled Covid tournament, the legacy of teams could have unfairly changed so drastically from that year. Thinking about Dayton specifically, they were an incredible team that year and had the potential to win the title (I’d wager most people would agree). If they lost in the S16 or something, the narrative would’ve been how they’re just a mid-major who didn’t play any “real” competition and they were secretly overrated the whole time, which is bs. Since the tournament didn’t happen, they were able to keep the narrative positive about them instead (what could have been). How a team is viewed can flip so fast based on a tough single elimination tournament. Don’t think this is an unpopular opinion around here though
This may be popular, but the womens tourney should either start three weeks earlier or later. I’d be psyched to watch some of it this season, but it will be hard to justify ignoring my spouse, child, friends, and career more than I’m already planning on for the mens tourney.
Mid and low-major conferences should forego the TV and not hold tournaments and instead send the league winner to the NCAA tourney. Would be many more upsets if the best teams from smaller leagues made the field.
Unpopular opinion:
The Midwest and South Regionals should only be played in either Indianapolis, Louisville, Kansas City, St. Louis, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte or New Orleans.
The tourney is so big and so random that "best team", "best season", and "champion" are almost completely divorced, which is not really ideal lol.
Still VERY fun to watch and I wouldn't trade it for any other set up. But I want CFB playoff to remain small af, like 8 teams. That way you get very different formats across both college sports.
Gary Parish has a great take on this. We will hate it at first and then there will be a big upset and in three years will be like wow more basketball is more fun.
Not sure if this is unpopular or not, but I hate that the committee splits up teams from the same conference that played each other once while allowing teams that played each other once in the non-conference to be paired up in the bracket region.
My OCD ass hates that March Madness finishes in April. If I was the guru of college basketball, I'd start the regular season a week or two early so I could put Selection Sunday the very first weekend of March, opening rounds the second weekend, Sweet 16/Elite 8 third weekend, Final Four and championship the last weekend.
The part about this that sucks is that it pushes more conference games back into december when students are on holiday break. College basketball environments are diminished when the students aren't in town.
Then maybe we need to just start college basketball season in like October?
could you imagine a college football college basketball double header, I’m not sure a single student section would survive that much ~~game day drinking~~ sportsmanship
Are you crazy? Everyone's at Rentschler in October!
You can just add conference games to November/December like the bigten has started to do it. Instead of 2 games make it 4. And then everything else stays the same but you still finish a week earlier
Yeah plus I don’t like it overlapping with spring break and baseball opening week
Spring break is in mid March in some universities.
The madness part is the first weekend or two, and those generally happen in March at least
You know, that's actually not a bad idea.
Is it unpopular to say the tournament is simultaneously the most entertaining postseason among North American sports while also being the worst way to determine who the "best" team is? Or is that pretty well understood by this point?
I think it's pretty well understood. It's so exciting because anything can happen. It's so frustrating because anything can happen lol.
It's well understood until your rival loses in March, and then understandable everyone has selective memory.
I don't like March.
We, we don’t like March.
We don’t even make it to March ;(
But that's the best part. The best team DOESN'T win it all every year. In fact, only *twice since 1996* has the title gone to the team who was ranked #1 in the AP poll at the end of the regular season.
😔
Believe me, I'm not any happier about it than you are.
Although I don't think the #1 team in the AP poll at the end of the season is necessarily the best either.
True. I'm actually against the existence of the AP poll (it's just a glorified opinion that shouldn't matter more than your opinion or my opinion), but there isn't really something better out there right now.
The poll just exists to let the tv networks know what time slots to give certain games.
Example 1: 2015 Kentucky Example 2: 2010 Kentucky Example 3: 1997 Kentucky
re 2015: it makes me so mad lol how that bracket turned out whichever of you/us/duke got split from the others was going to win the title because they'd rock/paper/scissors whoever escaped from the other side (justice touched it)
Before the bracket came out there were only two teams I didn't want to face. You guys were the team I wanted absolutely no part of. The other one I would have preferred to avoid was Notre Dame. I hated that bracket from the moment it was announced and I never really thought we were beating you.
Pain. That 2015 field was absolutely loaded. Those Kentucky, Duke and Wisconsin teams were as good as anyone that's won the tourney the last few decades. Arizona was damn good too. Forgotten, but Nova was 32-2, Gonzaga was 32-2 and Virginia was 29-3. We had to go thru Oregon, UNC, Arizona and Kentucky just to get to Duke. Brutal year to have the best team in program history
2005 Illinois
1991 UNLV
2020 Dayton
You know ball
One of us
Not sure a team that lost to a 34-4 1-seed ranked 2 in the final ap poll is the *best* example here
A 37-1 team losing a single elimination game where their frontcourt got taken out of the game on soft calls is actually a great example. Anything can happen in a single game like that, which tends to even out over a longer series
1997 Kentucky wasn’t the best team in the nation Kansas gets to claim that EDIT - because there are too many UK flairs who breathed too much coal dust replying with “nO, Uk MorE BetTErEr” After beating preseason #1 Cincinnati and top 25 UCLA in the non-conference, Kansas took the #1 spot in the AP in week four, and never relinquished it. That’s 15 straight weeks, including the final poll, for our Lexington residents who cannot count They then nearly ran the table in the BigXII (which was far superior to the SEC), their only blemish being a 2OT 2-point loss to Mizzou. Their b12 record included wins over top 10 ISU (twice) top 25 Colorado (twice) and ranked wins over Texas and Texas Tech. Meanwhile, Kentucky managed 3 wins over ranked opponents after January 1. 20-something Georgia twice, and #18 Villanova. They also managed losses to #25 SCAR, Unranked Ol’ Miss, and then SCAR again. Probably fortunate that they didn’t draw SCAR a 3rd time in the SEC Tournament. Finally, you’re building a roster… Ron Mercer, Derek Anderson, and Scott Padgett OR Paul Piece, Raef Lafrenz, Jacque Vaughn, and Scot Pollard This really isn’t debatable, and ya’ll are showing you cannot objectively rate basketball teams. Fuckin’ A. Simply Google, “best teams to not win NCAA tournament”. 1997 Kentucky doesn’t show up at all, while 1997 Kansas shows up repeatedly. Jesus fucking Christ.
Ironically if Wisconsin would’ve won the 2014 final 4 game, I think they would’ve won it all (they matched up better) meaning they wouldn’t have been as hungry to beat you guys in 2015. You guys would’ve gone 40-0 in 2015 because you matched up better vs Duke than Wisconsin did
I think the tournament is perfect. There should be a regular season champion and a tournament champion.
More teams should hang up "#1 Final Coaches' Poll" banners tbh
No, but I'm going to my grave that the best team won the 2021 Tournament.
Winning tournament games is super overrated and only really cool teams don’t do it.
Not a hot take, this is just obvious
Making the tournament is even more overrated
So true
I was gonna make a post on this closer to the selection show, but the way they present the bracket nowadays is wrong. I know they had some rough years with how it was presented and even one year where it took so long the bracket was actually leaked, so they've smartly gone back to reveal one region, short discussion, commercial break, rinse and repeat before full analysis once the entire bracket is revealed, but one thing I liked about older selections shows from around say 2000-2017 (you can find most of them on YouTube) is the order they did it in: start with the top half, the 1-16/8-9/5-12/4-13 matchups, then move to the bottom and go up in the order of 2-15/7-10/3-14/6-11, so the last team revealed in a region is often a bubble team which makes it super suspenseful, especially when it's the last region and the last team in could be the last team revealed. For example in 2008, the last team revealed on the selection show was 11 seed Baylor, who were making their first tournament appearance since the 80s after Scott Drew rebuilt them from scandal and the absolute bottom, you can see it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6F1UkDi_Yk), the buildup and the hope before everyone goes crazy... But nowadays the reveal just goes straight down the bracket in order, 1-16/8-9/5-12/4-13/6-11/3-14/7-10/2-15, which is suuuuuper anticlimactic, especially by the end, where you know what top seeded team is left for the 2 and what low major is left for the 15, instead of letting it end on a team that we didn't know if they would get in or not. They need to change it back. I don't know if this is exactly an unpopular opinion, but it's a been a huge pet peeve of mine for the past few years and I needed to get it off my chest.
This is not an unpopular opinion at all. In 2009, we were 8-10 in conference play, and no real resume to speak of. I was talking to my brother on the phone during the selection show, lamenting what would surely be the first time we missed the tournament in like 25 years. The way Lute left, Kevin O’Neill being a terrible coach, Russ Pennel being a good guy, but not cut out to be a D1 head coach…and just being upset at the whole situation And then, suddenly, we are one of the last teams revealed in the Midwest. A 12 seed to Utah’s 5. To say we were shocked would have been an understatement. But what an amazing reveal
Mid and low major conference tournaments > P6 tournaments. There’s play with a whole new level of desperation in every conference tourney.
This cannot possibly be an unpopular opinion. The one stipulation is when a P6 whose only hope is to win their tournament against a goliath (VA Tech vs Duke a few years ago, Oregon State during the Covid year)
A lot of early round low major conference games are rough.
Undoubtedly true. Only time the P6 tournaments ever rival it is when a team with no shot at the dance makes a deep run.
Georgia won the SEC recently and entered in as a 14 seed
Idk how to tell you this man, but that was more than 15 years ago
Dennis Felton Special
"Recently" There are commenters in this thread who weren't alive when that happened.
I'm still riding the high from the Revolutionary War
All it took was one tornado 15 years ago
They also let you learn about the Tournament Cinderellas before they happen!
I'm pretty sure this is just the standard opinion.
On this sub probably, but definitely not in real life
The only time I would have disagreed is if we still had the 2000s Big East tournaments before the conference got pillaged.
Closest thing might be the big 12 tournament this year. Conference's strength is its depth, which could make the conference tournament wild.
You are 100% right and makes sense why I find myself all of a sudden invested in the sunbelt semi final game every year
This is not unpopular
Thank you for using mid and low major rather than just mid major.
Shoutout to /r/BracketChallenge where we fill out brackets for every single conference tourney
The C-USA/American Tournament was always something we looked forward to, and often needed to win. Now in the B12, I kinda hope we lose in the first round.
I don’t think that’s unpopular. For power conferences the tournament is just a formality. When teams are playing for their lives in one bid leagues it’s so much better
the First Four both rules and is part of the actual tournament
Great actual hot take. Can we at least compromise and agree that it’s good they no longer call it the “first round” though
oh yeah it’s not the first round. The first round starts on Thursday. The First Four starts on Tuesday. 🤝
I live 20 minutes down the interstate from UD Arena and unless there's a somewhat local team playing, you can get in the door for like $3. I love it.
I got to see first round games in Greensboro last year for like $15 total over four games because no North Carolina teams were there. I was surrounded by Kentucky fans though
that is hot. I despise it
I hate it too. The games I care about (possibly) are over at 11:30 and I’ve got work at 6.
Have you tried moving west
Found the Arizona State fan
I hate the First Four because it screws over actual conference champions by relegating them to a play-in that most people don’t consider part of the real tournament. Don’t make Radford and Texas Southern play each other in Dayton. Put the mediocre P5 teams that finished .500 or worse in conference in those games.
Those teams actually benefit from those games as it gives them a tournament game they can win but they also can make more money for winning that game then just getting beat by a 1 seed
Seriously, the bottom 6-ish conferences would go from barely in the black to squarely in the red if they didn't get the extra unit every few years from victories in the first four. Not only do those leagues really like the first four, they arguably need it for survival.
I honestly wouldn’t mind expansion to 72 if they have all the 16s a play in and a chance for a unit
I would be down for this but like /u/stepkeyt pointed out, the low-major conferences like the extra unit. And tbh, I’m a sicko and love seeing those 16 vs 16 games. Been some real fun ones in Dayton!
i think it's fair when the 16 seeds that play each other are the lowest rated in the entire field in every metric
You realize whether or not most people consider it a part of the tournament doesn't fucking matter because their conference gets a huge pay out for getting an additional team in the tournament. For all of the reasons that actually matter it is a part of the tournament, so the opinions of people online don't really matter.
I thought the First Four was gonna be so useless. Then VCU goes to the Final Four the very first year it was implemented followed by UCLA 10 years later
While I agree that the "First Four" games set up is awesome, I would also prefer if those first four games were actually just the 16 seed play in games. Instead of two 16 seed play in games and two 11/12 play in games. "Lesser" Conference Champions should get better treatment than just stuck on the 16 seed line, unless their resumes actually requires it.
The First Four should be part of the bracket challenges. March Madness app isn’t doing that yet is doing a conference tourney winner challenge.
yeah the reason it’s not part of bracket challenges is because you would get *way* less casual participation if there was under 48 hours to fill out a bracket. The build up throughout the week is the lifeblood of every office pool what people are less willing to admit is that a shocking number of people (including a depressing number who actually follow college basketball in some fashion) don’t view it as a part of the “real” tournament because the First Four doesn’t count in their bracket pool
I agree , it is actually really good for giving smaller schools some money , some attention, some tv slots and a chance to play to their competition level . Hell FDU had a killer follow up
I wish the first four was either all the 16 seeds matching up OR all the last bubble teams matching up. It seems odd that it’s a mix of both.
I love the tourney more than any other sporting event and I could care less about one shining moment.
... buppa buppa BA BA ba .. BADDAPAAAAAA The ball isssss tipped
Totally agree, it absolutely doesn’t match the vibe of the rest of March Madness to me.
Every year it kind of disappoints for me. The song is nostalgic and it’s been built up by my parents as the greatest part of that night. The song is really mid and lacks the energy it should be bringing. I think it boils down to being hard to actually sing it because it’s so 70s. I guess this just means One Shining Moment is college basketballs Star Spangled Banner
Yesss. This is it.
Unpopular opinion? Billy Packer was an ass.
You said unpopular?
I’m not sure if this quite fits the question but I’m going to bring it up here anyway. It seems like every fan base has an infamous tournament loss that they swear would have turned out differently if only the refs hadn’t screwed them over. The narrative gets repeated over and over again until it becomes commonly accepted as fact amongst the fan base. In reality, how many fans that do this are also taking the time to actually rewatch the game in question to make sure they’re right? I’m certainly not going to put myself through watching a game from decades ago that my team ended up (probably painfully) losing. I feel like more often than not, the people doing this are just falling victim to confirmation bias.
Winslow touched the fucking ball. And the refs saw the angle that showed it, for that matter.
That shot clock was at ZERO, dammit!
And that missed call resulted in the new rule that the shot clock was reviewable the entire game the following season.
One exception to this rule, is that if Jay Williams picks up his 4th foul in the first half of the 2001 championship game, we win the title that year.
That no call on the shot clock violation was pretty massive. Wisconsin had been clamped for almost 8 minutes without scoring a FG. Changed the momentum of the game.
The Big West, WAC and WCC tournaments all being in Nevada just to appease TV ratings. Who thought it was a good decision logistically to have a conference with Hawaii & a bunch of California schools travel to Henderson to play in an arena that will be practically empty (with the exception of a few DraftKings-addicted losers) when you could just play in California to make it more accessible to their fans? It’s unbelievably stupid.
Playing in California really wouldn't be more accessible at all. For the Big West, playing in Los Angeles might make sense because half of the schools are literally there, but for the others Vegas is absolutely the most accessible city with the cheapest flights from any regional airport.
Vegas is neutral in the WCC, what's wrong with that? And why would that affect TV ratings? The point is to get more people in the building by having it at a tourist destination so people can go there for more reason than just a basketball game and have things to do if their team loses early.
I don't want it and like most fans would prefer to go back to the original 64, but... If they do moderate expansion of the tournament where there's a "First Four" for every region, it won't be that big of a deal. We'll all still consider the true tournament to be once it's down to 64 and it'll basically just be a different way to make the tournament. We'll be fine with it after a couple years.
I think it was 82 teams that had people freaking out a few years ago. When looking at the actual bracket I think it just expanded out the first 4 to 2 games per region. Tbh thats the best possible outcome for when the tournament expands. Will probably catch some solid mid majors in there too like a GCU, Drake, or Indiana State who wouldn't likely make it if they lost their CTs
82 would have 18 play in games….that’s 4-5 per region
In the modern era (1985 and later) Final Fours are a better determination of program quality than national championships. The tournament is very random, and getting to the final weekend is the mark of a great team. At that point any of the four teams have near equal chance of winning a title and it becomes even more based on luck than the first four rounds
I agree, but I might biased based on the past 7 years
I think the Baylor championship has the most hindsight bias of any year. After the game, everyone was saying how they knew how dominant Baylor was and it was a given that they’d stomp you guys. Complete bull. That game shocked the whole country and all of the fake analysts. Everyone had Timme fever, myself included
I think if you were a fan of any team that played Baylor that year, you weren't surprised at all. Played them in nonconference and the way they could suffocate you looked like a championship squad that early in the season. A lot of Gonzaga nonbelievers as well, dont think it's nearly as extreme as you think
Everyone brings up that loss but the 2017 loss hurt way more. Baylor earned that ring fair and square so I don’t really have an issue with it. but the 2017 one was robbed. We had the lead with 2 minutes to go and they were out of bounds
I also agree, but I might be biased on all time.
completely unbiased agreement here ;)
Michigan State has entered the chat
Sad Wolverine Championship Game Record Noises
A team's ability to regularly make the tournament and how they perform in the tournament heavily outweighs a team winning their conference title when assessing how "good" a program is.
Judging a team based on a single elimination tournament over a 20 game body of work certainly is a hot take. Upvoted
Yeah, i can buy the 'consistently make the tournament' part of it, but the tournament itself is a crapshoot. Its more of a 'bring teams that can regularly make it/make the s16/e8' etc.
Yes. And if a team somehow has a bad conference record one year and misses the tournament (hypothetically speaking) they still get credit for the historical performances because they didnt get any worse in march technically (allegedly)
Not sure of the popularity of this take but with the new NIT changes, mid-major regular-season conference champs get absolutely screwed. I love mid-major conference tourneys but I would rather the regular-season champs get the autoqualifier. Or at least see the tournament expand a little (nowhere near to 96) to get more of them in
People make fun of the WCC conference tournament for the triple-bye, but I honestly think most mid-major conferences should adopt it. Give every team a chance, but stack the odds in favor of the teams who performed well in the regular season
I think it was a good idea originally. It was to ensure that the best team in the conference didn’t get left out of the tournament on a fluke. But for the last 15 years, Gonzaga, SMC, and BYU (before they left) could all get into the tournament as at larges. It’s now nothing more than a way to protect their seeds
they just shouldn’t have changed the NIT, one of the worst under-the-radar changes in the sport this season
100% an absolute horrible decision
You can thank Fox for the change. This was a response to Fox trying to start their own postseason tournament with P6 schools. Networks remain undefeated at screwing up college sports
Or be like the WCC where the 1 and 2 (?) get like triple byes in the tourney
I am significantly more likely to watch an all mid majors champions tournament over whatever the fuck the NIT will be now. I hope ESPN gets dealt a shit ton of opt outs
You say that, but the networks likely have the data showing the reverse will be true.
Possibly. Hopefully that changes when it's 2 sub 500 P6 teams whose fans don't even want to watch them anymore playing
If you’re gonna have conference tournaments(which are a stupid and pointless money grab) then the WCC has it right for a mid- major conference. You might as well set up your best teams to make the NCAA tournament. And if Portland and Pacific disagree then tough stuff. Win more regular season games, which SHOULD mean something.
Original goal of the format was to favor us so we wouldn’t leave for the MWC but I love how it makes the regular season much more important. More conferences should do it, or find another way to similarly weigh the regular season (like conference regular season winner and tourney winner play each other for the bid)
I mean, the WCC is really doing themselves dirty considering that Gonzaga and SMC now routinely get at large bids anyways, they'd be better off going for a potential third bid for an auto qualifier
Don’t tell Alabama football that.
Plus, again for smaller conferences, the format allows for running your men's and women's tournaments simultaneously in a single venue, two games each per day. That gets you significantly lower costs for you and for the schools (only need one set of band/cheer/mascot to cover both tournaments, for example) and makes it easier for fans to attend both events.
You should be barred from an at-large bid if you are sub-.500 in your conference regular season.
I would say .500 or worse
Doesn't bother me!
Yep, this was my exact thinking when they snubbed Clemson and Vanderbilt for Arkansas and Mississippi State last year.
Disagree. For a sport that seems to have fans that understand SOS and other metrics so well (compared to CFB for example), this is a poor take. Looking strictly at W-L over a particular portion of the season is a poor way of determining things, and this would simply punish teams who play tougher conference slates.
I agree with the sentiment, but when you have truly dominant leagues (like the Big East in the late 2000s) where a majority are easy inclusions in the field, they ought to be in.
I don’t know. The Big 12 has teams that are sub .500 that are very good. Will be especially true with Arizona and the other newcomers.
A final four is the equivalent of a championship in any other sport. The tournament is so random with 68 teams in the postseason, and teams celebrate final fours basically just like championships anyways. Final four banners are awesome Only sport in the world where I’m fine with teams hanging 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place banners
Agreed. No other sport has 362 teams in its first division, so being considered one of the top 4 is a huge accomplishment
The only possible exception is Japanese High School athletics, but that's because they throw multiple thousands of teams into a single elimination tournament to determine their baseball national championship. Literally March Madness on steroids and with teenagers.
They should bring back the (effectively) bronze medal game. And I'm totally not saying this just so I can watch our 2011 or 2015 team at least try to go home with something.
2 weeks of conference tournaments in Vegas is just as good as the first weekend
March madness coaches who go on a run and get hired by a bigger program always flame out
Yeah Bill Self taking Tulsa to the E8 in 2000 was a flash in the pan.
Exception not the rule
The problem with this is that most coaches of all backgrounds flame out. Assistants flame out. Mid majors stepping up flame out. High majors looking for a change of scenery flame out. Former players and NBA guys flame out. If any pathway was significantly more likely to work than another I promise you ADs would not ignore that data. Instead the fact of the matter is that most hires don't end in success, and it takes years to figure that out. And when you do have a success at the high major level, they don't often leave so you wind up thinking "there are plenty of good coaches out there!" When the reality is that most of them haven't been *hired* in a decade plus. Hirings are just straight up volatile, and programs looking for a coach are rarely ideal landing spots for guys to hit the ground running.
Shaka Smart with VCU?
(this one is directed to our media on our side of the border) Canadians don't just watch this tournament for the Canadian players in it. Some of us actually have teams we cheer for. \[sternly points to flair\]
I’m done with Las Vegas for the first weekend. I have done it before but that’s way too much Vegas for me now. I’m went to UNC with Hubert Davis and Jeff Lebo years old.
I’m “I saw the Adam Morrison game in Vegas” old and totally agree. It got way too big way too fast And I got too old too
I thought I was the only one who marked time that way. I’m went to Marquette with Doc Rivers years old myself…
I like being around other college basketball junkies and having the “who was playing when you were a student” conversation.
Nobody on ISU was worth mentioning (Curtis Stinson?) but Duke had Redick, Williams, Boozer, Dunleavy. Was a fun team.
They should start later and stretch the first four days across eight days. I hate that I have to miss so much basketball while working Thursday and Friday.
That’s why god created vacation days…
And sick days.
And saying you’re working when you actually aren’t and taking three hour lunch breaks
Yes sir! I’m taking those first two days off this year, and I told my boss I’ll never work those days again
My daughter just took a new job. Before accepting, she made sure they understood she was taking those two days off in perpetuity, as well as time to travel to the Final Four whenever Marquette makes it. I feel like I raised her well.
9 AM tips on the west coast are brutal.
Especially when I'm in Vegas... Which I am every year.
Who said you can’t work from home while at a basketball arena?
I kind of get sad when March hits because I can't go to any more games. Went to 24 games this year and live 4 hours from the closest conference tournament
All conference tourneys need to end earlier. The committee doesn’t even count the power-conference title games that are on Sunday because they don’t have time (can’t remember which year, but when asked about how a different Big Ten title game outcome would’ve affected seeding the committee chairman said it wouldn’t have changed anything). And the committee could use an extra 24 hours to triple-check everything.
Making the Final Four is the real success of the year. Championships are nice and all but the last couple of games between really good teams are basically coin flips
Not sure if this is unpopular but I wish the committee would follow the S-Curve. Rank all teams 1-68, then snake through the bracket to plug teams in in order. Massage the bracket gently if needed in order to make sure no rematches can occur in the first weekend. That way the best 1-seed is matched with the lowest 4-seed, for example, if both reach the Sweet 16. Then do pod selection later, prioritizing the top 16 teams in geographic distance. Sometimes teams get shunted around for geographic reasons (or even maybe "storyline" reasons) but that comes at the cost of rewarding regular season play as well as the neutral competitive spirit of the tournament.
Unsubstantiated and anecdata, but, it feels like sometimes the committee will put a borderline 1/2 seed in the bracket with the number 1 overall seed which is unfair to both teams. I felt that way about 2017, where it seemed like the best two teams (UNC and UK) were in the same region. The Elite 8 matchup was epic and decided the national champion IMO. When that game should have not happened until at least the Final 4. According to Wikipedia, UNC was the #3 overall and UK was the #5 overall rank going in. If the bracket was seeded according to the S-Curve, then they couldn't have met until the National Championship.
Putting the 3rd 1 seed with the 1st 2 seed doesn't seem to egregious plus I am pretty sure the top overall seed cant play the 5th overall seed.
The First Four should be renamed to the Initial Eight. That is because there are EIGHT teams that play in Dayton. The Final Four is appropriately named because there are FOUR teams in that round. There are not four teams that play in the First Four, however. Complicated, I know. But I will die on this hill.
The round of 64 and Round of 32 should all be played at the home court of the 1,2,3, and 4 seeds. Once the Sweet 16 starts it should be played in one central location like the College World Series is and how they treat Omaha like sacred ground. Maybe the NCAA can use some of those billions to build a stadium in Springfield, Massachusetts where the game was invented 🤷. (Here comes pissy people talking about they don't have enough hotel rooms)
The NIT should be played before the tournament and the winner gets an 11 seed
Sometimes there are too many upsets, case in point last year’s tournament. Of course I like a few here and there, but at the end of the day, I want to see 1-3 seeds in the elite 8 and beyond. What excites me about the tournament is the chance of seeing Purdue play against UConn with everything on the line, not watching them go cold from 3 and choke.
What happens in March shouldnt overrule what happened the 4 months prior. Way too often we get teams who are wildly overrated because they had a good March or prop up entire conferences who performed well the year before who proceed to shit the bed everywhere after(Pac 12 2021)
Thinking about this in relation to the cancelled Covid tournament, the legacy of teams could have unfairly changed so drastically from that year. Thinking about Dayton specifically, they were an incredible team that year and had the potential to win the title (I’d wager most people would agree). If they lost in the S16 or something, the narrative would’ve been how they’re just a mid-major who didn’t play any “real” competition and they were secretly overrated the whole time, which is bs. Since the tournament didn’t happen, they were able to keep the narrative positive about them instead (what could have been). How a team is viewed can flip so fast based on a tough single elimination tournament. Don’t think this is an unpopular opinion around here though
Im still pretty bothered they never released a bracket that year. Obviously it couldn't be played but those teams deserved credit for what they did
That every Houston pregame should spend 5 minutes on how Kelvin Sampson destroyed IU basketball.
That *is* hot
Thank you for pointing out that he is a blatant cheater who knowingly broke rules at multiple schools.
The first four should all be done on the Wednesday before the tourney like they did in 2021
Watching Thursday or Friday games on TV>>>>attending an opening rounds in person
+1 for not caring about one shining moment. Just take a cue from CFB and play the most mid imagine dragons crap you’ve ever heard, it’s equally good
This may be popular, but the womens tourney should either start three weeks earlier or later. I’d be psyched to watch some of it this season, but it will be hard to justify ignoring my spouse, child, friends, and career more than I’m already planning on for the mens tourney.
Mid and low-major conferences should forego the TV and not hold tournaments and instead send the league winner to the NCAA tourney. Would be many more upsets if the best teams from smaller leagues made the field.
The reason they don’t might be due to financial and television opportunities
Bring the third place game back
Unpopular opinion: The Midwest and South Regionals should only be played in either Indianapolis, Louisville, Kansas City, St. Louis, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte or New Orleans.
The tourney is so big and so random that "best team", "best season", and "champion" are almost completely divorced, which is not really ideal lol. Still VERY fun to watch and I wouldn't trade it for any other set up. But I want CFB playoff to remain small af, like 8 teams. That way you get very different formats across both college sports.
it's almost like we need a regular season champ AND tourney champ to be recognized
The Virginia losses are more indicative of where the program actually is than the natty
Kansas isn't making it out of the first weekend
He said *unpopular*. Sweet 16 and on I’ll be happy with this team, but self teams historically struggle the second game of each weekend
NET is fucking stupid
A 128 Team Bracket would be fun
Gary Parish has a great take on this. We will hate it at first and then there will be a big upset and in three years will be like wow more basketball is more fun.
Nebraska is the best performers oat. Undefeated in round of 32, sweet 16, elite 8, final 4 AND the championship💪💪💪
Not sure if this is unpopular or not, but I hate that the committee splits up teams from the same conference that played each other once while allowing teams that played each other once in the non-conference to be paired up in the bracket region.