OVC Basketball Tournament Format

[saluno22]

Was perusing the various conference tournament brackets this morning and stumbled upon this one...

The OVC tournament looks like something I drew when I was 7 before I knew what a bracket was supposed to look like. Essentially gives a tremendous advantage to regular season success, but adds an extra day to the event.

I actually like it when there is a true round robin regular season schedule (or double round robin), but not when there is schedule imbalances that exist in mega conferences.

 

[saluno22]

Looks like the Southland Conference does the same thing.

As do the Sun Belt and West Coast Conferences, but with 10 teams instead of 8.

 

[JohnRossEwing]

I get it but...why place so much importance on the regular season if you are not awarding them the auto-bid, which they can do but none of the conferences do that.

 

[schuele]

I get it but...why place so much importance on the regular season if you are not awarding them the auto-bid, which they can do but none of the conferences do that.

Yeah the mid-major conferences can't have it both ways. They want the intrigue and excitement that goes with having their conference tournament champion get the automatic bid, but then they have remorse when the team (like South Dakota State, for example) that they've been touting all year gets knocked out.

 

[jlb321_rivals110621]

These small conferences benefit the most if their NCAA tournament rep(s) win a game or 2 in the tournament. In most cases their best chance for advancing is having the regular season champion receive the automatic bid.

 

[saluno22]

I get it but...why place so much importance on the regular season if you are not awarding them the auto-bid, which they can do but none of the conferences do that.

Oh yeah, definitely could do that. I think the Ivy League did that for a while in basketball, possibly the Pac-10, too, before expansion. (I know as of a couple years ago, the Pac-12 still didn't have a conference baseball tournament either.)

 

[cubsker_rivals142943]

Check out what conf USA does. Last four games in the conference reg season are against teams with similar records to you to give the top teams a better schedule.

 

[9and4_rivals188421]

Ivy League invites only the top four teams to its tournament.

 

[schuele]

Ivy League invites only the top four teams to its tournament.