Skip to main content

Dumb Things People Say: "Eliminate All At Automatic Bids"

If you've seen Jay Bilas over the past few weeks you've probably noticed that he's been advocating the NCAA Tournament to completely eliminate the Auto-bids and go to a 64 team at-large tournament. Seriously he's advocating this, saying the story of a team like Penn St. would be just as good as a team like Vermont. They both have interesting kids and they both want to play in the tournament just as badly as the other.

To this I say, wow. Isn't half the intrigue of the first round of the NCAA tournament about watching those 12 seeds from the MAC face off against a 5 seed from the Big 10 and give them a run for their money. Isn't the tournament about Hampton shocking the world and knocking off Tim Floyd's #2 seeded Iowa Cyclones? Do we really need 10 teams from the ACC and 10 from the Big East and 10 from the Big Ten instead of an Ivy League school and a SWAC school? So what if the tournament isn't the best 65 teams in the country. Does Penn St. or VaTech or Notre Dame really have a chance to win the National Championship?

Furthermore, if you eliminate the Autobids you might as well just religate conferences like the Ivy League to division 2 because in all likelihood none of those teams are going to amongst the top 65. In addition, how much are we watering down both conference play and conference tournaments. If an extra 31 at large bids are given out, then teams like VaTech and Florida wouldn't have been playing for their lives in the tournament. They would have already been in.

All in all, taking away the autobids just strips the NCAA tournament of part of its heart. It would be a completely miserable idea.
Labels:

Comments

Steve Kornacki said…
Bilas irritates me. He browbeat poor Dick Vitale last night, when Vitale made St. Mary's case over Arizona. If you take the small conference automatic bids away, I wouldn't want to watch the tournament. As it is, I usually don't care that much about the actual Sweet 16 and Final 4 match-ups. I just want to see the Vermonts and Bucknells knock off the Dukes and Carolinas.
4:05 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

M E T S = Mercifully End The Season

Do it before David Wright gets Hurt!
185 comments
Continue Reading the Rest of This Fine Post

Numbers On Steroids: Mickey Mantle

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. This week it's throwing a curve ball and looking at All Time Great Yankees. Players that we know did not take steroids to see if this gives a defense to any of the players 'convicted' by Numbers on Steroids. Time to look at my dad's favorite athlete of all time, Mickey Mantle. Averages Say: What's with the mysterious dip at 27 and then the uptick? At Bats Per Home Run Says: That's a mighty jump from 22 to 24 Explaining As If It Was the 90s If you take a look at the numbers there are two time frames which in the 1990s would be questioned. First would be the incredible leap he took from his first year in the big leagues to his first MVP season in 1956. His batting average jumped 50 points. His slugging percentage jumped 90 points and he hit 15 more homers than his previous high. This wouldn't merrit a conviction nowadays though because the young age he...
2 comments
Continue Reading the Rest of This Fine Post

Guest Post: Thoughts on Sabathia Signing

I asked Grutt what his thoughts were on the Sabathia signing and I thought his response pretty much nailed it. So here it is. I don’t know. Every year I get a little more disenchanted with baseball. Yea, it’s great we signed the top pitching free agent. But we were supposed to. No team was even in the ballpark of the Yankees offer yet they still needed to jump from the already ridiculous price of $140 million to $160 million to close the deal. Now I hear we are going to sign more pitchers who will also get large contracts and the position player gaps are still glaring. Each new, large contract just adds to the feeling that the Yanks are supposed to win it all. “I think we have a good chance this year.” That is a lost feeling. If they don’t win I’ll wonder why, like there has to be some other reason besides that it’s a sport you can never predict how things will work out and some years just aren’t yours to be won. If they win I will be pleasantly smug. It gets a little more...
53 comments
Continue Reading the Rest of This Fine Post