Last Unbeaten Down

[HellYeahHokie]

Virginia Tech does it again. In the past 4 years, VT has played #1 four times. They are now 2-2 in those games. And the 2 they lost were on buzzer-beaters...one of those a half-court prayer.

No more unbeaten teams.

But this game has little significance. It's the regular season in basketball, and it means very little.

It's all about March Madness. Playoffs can devalue regular seasons.

[Blue Hen]

Seth Greenberg - deluxe hoops coach !

Disagree with you, HYH, about the meaningless of the regular basketball season. There's what ....360 D1 basketball teams ?.. and the regular season eliminates about 88% of them from competing for a national championship (depending how you view the conference tournaments- reg or post). That's more meaningful than the FBS regular season where undefeateds are not allowed to compete for MNCs but 2 loss teams are. That's as meaningless as sports regular seasons can get.

[GatorGrad]

Congrats to VT!

[Lincoln Tower]

Does a playoff "devalue" some regular season upsets? Sure.

You know what a playoff adds value to...the postseason, which is the whole idea.

[Lincoln Tower]

Also, way to go NJIT, for snapping a 51 game losing streak. They are now just ahead of the Lions.

[HellYeahHokie]

Does a playoff "devalue" some regular season upsets? Sure.

You know what a playoff adds value to...the postseason, which is the whole idea.

I wouldn't argue that point at all. March Madness has become an enormous event. It's huge. It comes at a cost of interest in the regular season. It's a tradeoff for sure

[HellYeahHokie]

Clearly the regular season isn't meaningless. In fact, all I said was "devalue". You have to play the games to be in a position to make the playoffs. But you can not deny that the way "March Madness" has been marketed as a major "event" has diminished the viewer interest in the regular season. Same with the NBA. Who watches the regular season? People tune in for the playoffs.

It would be a little different with football, because the relatively small number of slots available in the playoffs would make in-season matchups more important. But a NCAA Div1 playoff would become a huge spectacle like March Madness has become, it's glare ultimately outshining the interest in the games played to get there.

[Don]

Seth Greenberg - deluxe hoops coach !

Disagree with you, HYH, about the meaningless of the regular basketball season. There's what ....360 D1 basketball teams ?.. and the regular season eliminates about 88% of them from competing for a national championship (depending how you view the conference tournaments- reg or post). That's more meaningful than the FBS regular season where undefeateds are not allowed to compete for MNCs but 2 loss teams are. That's as meaningless as sports regular seasons can get.


Another way is to say that there WOULDN'T BE 360 D1A teams IF March Madness had only a 16 team field.

Or

Another way is to say that there WOULDN'T BE auto-bids for smaller conferences IF March Madness had only a 16 team field.

[Blue Hen]

Ok, I see what you're saying, HYH.

[ZOOMBAG]

Might cost Wake a #1 seed. That's a pretty big deal

[ZOOMBAG]

The only thing that really hurts the regular season in basketball is the use of conference tournaments to determine their autobid. Renders the regular season conference race pretty useless. But it's not the national tournament that does that. College basketball could fix itself if the conferences used the regular season champion for it's autobid and just played the conference tourney for fun.

[Hail to the Victors Valiant]

Coach 3 must be so proud of Duke.



team

[HellYeahHokie]

Why? What's the difference between a #1 seed and a #2 seed, except for bragging rights?

[CJHawkeyes]

I don’t believe the NCAA tournament is responsible for the sport’s diminished regular season, but rather the way in which the regular season is used to determine qualifiers for the tournament in addition to the limited significance between seeds providing a competitive advantage. For example, if all playoff games were played at the highest seed up until the NCAA title game, that would dramatically increase the significance of the regular season without changing the size of the playoff. Notwithstanding any reasons CBB would never do this, the point is that CBB’s regular season could be much more important. Therefore, pointing to CBB’s regular season as an example of what would happen to CFB is false. Besides that, CBB makes it too easy for BCS schools to make the tournament. 34 made it last year which amounts one shy of 50% of six leagues making up the field. With a 16-team football playoff, the best the BCS leagues can do is 11 of 66. 11 of 66 vs. 34 of 70. I think that represents a dramatic difference. And a college football playoff is better suited to allow for home field advantage through 1-3 rounds. As such, a #1 team losing a football game has a greater potential to do damage to a team’s national title hopes.