Should we get rid of the First Four?

[stever20]

there's 32 D1 conferences first off...

of the 32- 19 have been to final 4's.
of the other 13-
Big West- Pacific won games in 04,05
Southland- SF Austin won game last year vs VCU
MAC- several wins
MAAC- Siena had wins in 2008, 09(also in 2002 PIG)
Big Sky-Weber St, Montana with wins last 10-15 years.
Southern- Chattanooga, Charleston with wins
America East- who can forget Vermont?
Summit- North Dakota St last year
Big South- Winthrop
OVC- Murray St and Morehead St
MEAC- Norfolk St in 2012(over #2 Missouri), Coppin St in 1997(over #2 South Carolina), Hampton(over #2 Iowa St)
SWAC- Southern U in 93 beat Georgia Tech

really the only conference who has never had a team in the round of 32 is the Northeast Conference.

[shupirate98]

The AQ is never going to go away. NEVER. What I do think happens is the P5 will make it where the PIG is 4 16 vs 16 games, which does improve things a bit.

That will never happen. That's actually what the NCAA first wanted to do but their TV partner said no way. And when the TV partner is paying you a billion dollars the TV partner gets what it wants. They don't want 4 MEAC vs. SWAC type games. Who the hell's watching that?

[stever20]

The AQ is never going to go away. NEVER. What I do think happens is the P5 will make it where the PIG is 4 16 vs 16 games, which does improve things a bit.

That will never happen. That's actually what the NCAA first wanted to do but their TV partner said no way. And when the TV partner is paying you a billion dollars the TV partner gets what it wants. They don't want 4 MEAC vs. SWAC type games. Who the hell's watching that?

I think the P5 will make a harder push for this concept this year.

[DudeAnon]

there's 32 D1 conferences first off...

of the 32- 19 have been to final 4's.
of the other 13-
Big West- Pacific won games in 04,05
Southland- SF Austin won game last year vs VCU
MAC- several wins
MAAC- Siena had wins in 2008, 09(also in 2002 PIG)
Big Sky-Weber St, Montana with wins last 10-15 years.
Southern- Chattanooga, Charleston with wins
America East- who can forget Vermont?
Summit- North Dakota St last year
Big South- Winthrop
OVC- Murray St and Morehead St
MEAC- Norfolk St in 2012(over #2 Missouri), Coppin St in 1997(over #2 South Carolina), Hampton(over #2 Iowa St)
SWAC- Southern U in 93 beat Georgia Tech

really the only conference who has never had a team in the round of 32 is the Northeast Conference.

Yea, that doesn't change my opinion at all. D1 needs to contract and get rid of the bottom 10 conferences.

[stever20]

there's 32 D1 conferences first off...

of the 32- 19 have been to final 4's.
of the other 13-
Big West- Pacific won games in 04,05
Southland- SF Austin won game last year vs VCU
MAC- several wins
MAAC- Siena had wins in 2008, 09(also in 2002 PIG)
Big Sky-Weber St, Montana with wins last 10-15 years.
Southern- Chattanooga, Charleston with wins
America East- who can forget Vermont?
Summit- North Dakota St last year
Big South- Winthrop
OVC- Murray St and Morehead St
MEAC- Norfolk St in 2012(over #2 Missouri), Coppin St in 1997(over #2 South Carolina), Hampton(over #2 Iowa St)
SWAC- Southern U in 93 beat Georgia Tech

really the only conference who has never had a team in the round of 32 is the Northeast Conference.

Yea, that doesn't change my opinion at all. D1 needs to contract and get rid of the bottom 10 conferences.

I agree- but just do not see it happening.

What I wish D1 was-
The F5, G5(so 10 conferences there- ACC, B10, B12, P12, SEC, AAC, CUSA, MAC, SBC, and MWC)
BE
A10
MVC
WCC

that's 14 right there. Every at large was in that group. Then add in 8 others- probably Horizon, Ivy, CAA, Southern, Big Sky, MAAC, OVC, Southland.

Get rid of-
America East
Atlantic Sun
Big South
Big West
MEAC
NEC
Patriot
SWAC
Summit
WAC

would get rid of 97 teams leaving 254 schools.

[shupirate98]

The AQ is never going to go away. NEVER. What I do think happens is the P5 will make it where the PIG is 4 16 vs 16 games, which does improve things a bit.

That will never happen. That's actually what the NCAA first wanted to do but their TV partner said no way. And when the TV partner is paying you a billion dollars the TV partner gets what it wants. They don't want 4 MEAC vs. SWAC type games. Who the hell's watching that?

I think the P5 will make a harder push for this concept this year.

They can push for whatever they want. CBS/Turner has a contract.

[stever20]

I'd be pretty certain the contract doesn't mandate that the 4 games have to have 2 games with at large teams. It wasn't announced as such when the tv deal was announced.

[hoyahooligan]

I think they just need to get rid of the play in games all together.

Barring that, It would be nice to move them earlier so there's a week off between them and the games, this would reduce the advantage these 11 seeds currently have and give the 6 seeds adequate time to plan. But that of course would leave such a huge time off for the other teams. Although I guess it's no different than the super bowl, so it could be done.

I like the small conferences getting to play with the big boys even though it's bitten my team in the ass on numerous occasions as of late. I wouldn't want to see them 1) all being forced to play in the play in games or 2) not invited to the tournament at all.

[stever20]

I think if I'm Providence I'm hoping I see Dayton on Friday instead of Boise. Boise looks really good.

And they made a great point about the supposed home court advantage of Dayton. The biggest part of home court advantage is maybe getting a few extra whistles that you wouldn't get neutral or road games. Well with the NCAA tourney, that aspect of things is totally mitigated.

[Omaha1]

The first 4 is fine, but you can't have a team play on it's home court. Rotate the site or something but never allow that to happen again because the better team lost due to a bad decision by the NCAA.