I never did hear why. And why they landed on a weird number of teams that get to play, 15.
What is the reasoning for not allowing every team to compete in the conference tournament?
- Thread starter ROCKY MOUNTAIN HAWK
- Start date
I think the claim was it would be a six day tournament and simply too big. Which I find ridiculous. First of all, screw the new expansion and make it work. Second of all, excluding conference teams from their own tournament is stupid plain and simple.
To be honest, whatever PC reasons the conference has - some teams just flat out plainly don't deserve to be there.
Like our own.
The conference "suits" who decide these things have an MBA mindset. They're too busy "counting beans" and they don't really understand the very sports competitions they're entrusted to curate.
There's very something depressing about a team not making it to their own conference tournament, even if it's not the team I root for.
Longterm, this will damage the Big Ten conference, and the sport.
There's very something depressing about a team not making it to their own conference tournament, even if it's not the team I root for.
Longterm, this will damage the Big Ten conference, and the sport.
A big part of the fun of the tourney was seeing a Cinderella win 4 games in 4 days to make the NCAA tournament.
Sorry this should never be a concern or topic of conversation.
The bottom 3 teams in the ACC will not play in their tournament either, so B1G isn’t alone in this odd approach.
The Big East excluded bottom teams from their tournament back in the 2000s. The coaches were against it and within a couple years it was changed
First year of tournament expansion, Fran will find himself on the outside
There was a time I maybe felt that way but not anymore. If say for example Evansville gets hot in the Missouri Valley and wins the tournament, and a team like Drake who won the regular season loses, they might get left out. I am in favor of rewarding the team that played well for four months instead of instead of four days.
It doesn't matter in the power conferences, because their champions are already in.
Yeah this is why I like it on the power conferences. Those "bad" teams that win 4 games in 4 days are still better than 1/3 of the tourney teams.
There will still be that option of 4 wins in 4 days. Just won’t be the Hawks this year.
I don’t want to see 5 in 5 days.
since bringing in Ru and Mary the Wednesday night games have done nothing for me. I don’t want to watch 14v11, 13v12. It’s bad basketball.
The lowest seed to ever win the BTT was #8 Michigan in 2017.
Are we really wanting to watch 1-2 more games of this Iowa team?
Why have a conference tournament?
They literally copied the way the ACC does it. That said, Iowa should never be in a position where we're worried about it, but here we are.
I think if we were having a typical year, none of us would give a flying f*ck about the fact that 3 teams won't be invited to the party. But now that there is a very real, looming possibility that we might be one of those teams, it has become important to deeply examine the wisdom and fairness of it all.
lol
The lowest seeded team to ever win the BTT was Michigan as an 8 seed in 2018. However, an 11 seed (Illinois) has advanced to the championship game once in 1999. Two 10 seeds have also advanced to the championship game -- Illinois in 2008 and Penn State in 2023.
The odds of a 16, 17, or 18 seeded team ever actually earning an automatic bid by winning the tournament are too small to entertain. Accordingly, I don't think any manifest injustice is being done by cutting them out. You're really doing them a favor by not having to expend resources traveling to the event.
Do the 15, 14, and 13 seeds have any realistically better chance of winning the thing? Not really but the cut off is not really arbitrary because 15 teams gives the league the length of tourney they want.
It is what it is and in the grand scheme of things....
I like it. Put us fans of garbage teams out of our misery.
If you are bottom 3.... Just call it a season.
ITS OVER
If you are bottom 3.... Just call it a season.
ITS OVER
You "deserve" to play in your own conference tournament
Why?
If you are a member of a conference that has decided to set up a tourney within certain parameters, you are obliged to abide by them.
You "deserve" nothing.
Don't like it? Win more games or drop out of the conference.
Agree. Make it the bottom 6 teams.
It seems unrealistic to expect that Iowa should "never" be one of the bottom three teams in the league.
In terms of resources, facilities, recruiting footprint, tradition, fan support...etc., Iowa is pretty easily in the bottom half of this league, and much closer to the bottom third than many would like to admit.
1ST TIER
Indiana
UCLA
Purdue
Michigan State
Illinois
Michigan
2D TIER
Wisconsin
Maryland
Ohio State
Oregon
USC
Iowa
3D TIER
Nebraska
Rutgers
Penn State
Northwestern
Minnesota
Washington
According to the new rules setup, no you don't automatically deserve to play in your own conference tourney.
If a team can't do just enough to keep itself out of the bottom 3 teams in the league by the time that the beginning of March rolls around, then too bad so sad.
I will say though, this might be the first year - maybe even considering Lick's last season - that I will have no interest in either Championship Week or the NCAA Tournament (or NIT).
jfc Fran, thanks a real bunch for that.
Champ Week & the first weekend of March Madness is the single greatest 2-week stretch in sports (when Iowa is involved), and its not even remotely close, imo. I currently couldn't give the slightest fvck about this season's same stretch that is a month away from now.
jfc Fran, thanks a real bunch for that.
Champ Week & the first weekend of March Madness is the single greatest 2-week stretch in sports (when Iowa is involved), and its not even remotely close, imo. I currently couldn't give the slightest fvck about this season's same stretch that is a month away from now.
Yeah, it sucks. Wish it could be March already so the program could move on from Fran.
To answer the original question, if you accept that the parameters are to keep it at a Wed - Sun tournament (max of 5 days) as it is now, and a max of 4 games/day at a single venue, then this format is somewhat logical. Not sure why 15 instead of 16 (Wednesday would be 16-9, 15-10, 14-11, 13-12), though.
Serious question: Do we have ‘NIT participant’ banners currently hanging from the rafters in CHA?
If so, I vote that we remove them!🤪
Pretty sure they do.... It's another symptom of the Iowa acceptance of mediocrity
hawkeye fans butthurt we might not get to play in the BTT is a level of suck that I didn't think was possible
no one wants more games for this team, even the players likely don't
no one wants more games for this team, even the players likely don't
No argument here. There's no meaningful difference between finishing 13th and 16th IMO.
4 in 4 days is one thing. And we’ve certainly had teams go in as double digit seeds and reach the final. But I can’t think of any team in any conference who’s ever gone through 5 for 5. and going to 6 makes the odds somewhere on the Keno scale of exponentially minuscule, such that I think bothering with the price of hotels and plane tickets/fueling up the bus is just a flat out waste.
NC State went 5 for 5 last year in the ACC and UConn did it in 2011 in the Big East. What’s crazy is both made the final four and UConn won the title
20 regular season games to prove that. 1 more loss isn't going to change anything.
