Screw the G5

[Neutral Corner]

“Moving to 20 league games is going to change the entire model,” one Big Ten athletic director told FanRag Sports last week. “They want to wipe out the non-Power 5 schools from getting at-large bids completely. Moving to 20 games makes that more of a realistic possibility.”

“The Big Ten isn’t doing this to get six teams in the NCAA Tournament,” one Big Ten head coach said last week on the condition of anonymity. “They’re doing this to get programs like Penn State and Nebraska into the NCAA Tournament. Going to 20 league games will create more opportunities for teams that aren’t usually in contention. That’s the goal of this.”


The Trickle-Down Impact Of 20-Game Power 5 League Schedules

 

[cjericho]

Screw the NCAA, football and basketball.

 

[LongTimeListener]

It's almost like college basketball isn't fair or on the level.

 

[trifectarich]

We've watered down college football so that 6-6 teams are rewarded. Might as well give a well-deserved pat on the back to basketball teams that go 17-15 — as long as they're getting TV time wearing Adidas gear, of course.

 

[Songbird]

Penn State and Nebraska

Eric Piatkowski and John Amaechi aren't walking through that door on a regular basis.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Does the Big 10 think that the NCAA is just going to let the conferences screw with the highly successful business model of the tournament, its cash cow? I know the NCAA is as dysfunctional as it gets, but when the topic is money, it seems to perk right up.

 

[Vombatus]

Seems to me the conferences are more powerful than the NC$$. The NC$$ is a shell that puts on tournaments and hands out trophies. I'm waiting for the day when the conferences decide they don't need that for football and basketball - they can run the tournaments themselves.

And then the NC$$ shrivels and dies.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

The NCAA is all the schools. An open fight between them would be as harmful to the power conferences as to the others. The NCAA is the shell that allegedly allows these exploitative and corrupt business enterprises to function. Some enterprising US attorney who went to say, East Carolina could make his bones prosecuting a power conference on criminal anti-trust or even RICO statutes. It'd be very hard to defend the kind of power play you're envisioning as having anything to do with higher education or even lawful business.

 

[Vombatus]

So they can't break away? Didn't they opt into this arrangement 75+ years ago? It sounds like a strong arm RICO situation if they can't get out.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Oh, they could get out. It's just not in their self-interest to do so.

 

[Vombatus]

Okay. So it's all about the money. If it ever becomes in their interest to do so, the NC$$ will collapse when the conferences realize they can make the money themselves without the outside rules and bureaucracy.

 

[trifectarich]

The power conferences need the Sacramento States and Florida Internationals of the world to pad the won-loss records for their members. Nothing more, nothing less. Of course they could go ahead and run their athletic programs with their own set of rules and regs; it sounds like a massively complicated idea, but who knows?

 

[Neutral Corner]

The power conferences will do whatever they want to. It is already nearly impossible for the G5 to to get an at large bid. It's win the conference tournament or stay home.

Look at what happened to Monmouth last year. 27-7, 17-3. 17 road games and 23 away from home. Three of the losses were at Syracuse, at South Carolina, and at North Carolina. Lost in the conference tournament, which is the fear of every good small team with a good year going, because if it happens it all goes in the ****ter.

Middle Tennessee. They had a nice little tournament run for the second year in a row, were obviously under-seeded, but if they had lost in the C-USA tournament, do you think they would have gotten in as an at large?

Throw in that the tournament committee's attitude is that the non-P5 schools should work their way in... but that a good G5 team has a hard time getting good games scheduled because P5 AD's live in fear of scheduling one and losing. If they can get a game, there is a 90% chance that it won't be a home and home, but a pure road game.

If the P5 goes to twenty conference games you're going to have a de facto P5 tournament whether they say it out loud or not. Say goodbye to Cinderella team upsets in the first two rounds, because I really can't see P5 cellar dwellers as Cinderellas, they're ****ty teams who got in at the expense of more deserving teams who don't have the big name/big conference money and muscle.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

You know they'll just expand the tournament, right?

 

[Cosmo]

The P5 is really a misnomer when it comes to basketball.

The Atlantic 10 is a multiple bid league. So is the Big East. Neither are "power 5." Gonzaga is a "P5" in a non-P5 league.

Anything outside of those additional leagues, and maybe the AAC, is in one-bid territory. The Missouri Valley is back there now that Wichita is gone.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

Yeah, we're not really talking about the "Group of 5." It doesn't apply to basketball. Monmouth has nothing to do with the Power 5/Group of 5 divide.

The AAC could be a four or five bid league. The Big East and A-10 are major conferences in hoops. I don't think much is going to change, tourney wise, especially as RPI continues to fall out of favor and there are more and more holiday tournaments to fill out.

 

[Roscablo]

The P5 is really a misnomer when it comes to basketball.

The Atlantic 10 is a multiple bid league. So is the Big East. Neither are "power 5." Gonzaga is a "P5" in a non-P5 league.

Anything outside of those additional leagues, and maybe the AAC, is in one-bid territory. The Missouri Valley is back there now that Wichita is gone.

The AAC had a whopping two total bids last year and the A-10 three (three at-larges between them). If you aren't in a power conference, or for now the Big East, you are going to be lucky to get an at-large. If they are power conferences the tourney no longer cares.

 

[Neutral Corner]

UConn and Memphis have both underachieved compared to what the AAC thought they were getting. Adding Wichita St. will help them some.

 

[Big Circus]

Eric Piatkowski and John Amaechi aren't walking through that door on a regular basis.

The Polish Rifle!

 

[Cosmo]

The AAC had a whopping two total bids last year and the A-10 three (three at-larges between them). If you aren't in a power conference, or for now the Big East, you are going to be lucky to get an at-large. If they are power conferences the tourney no longer cares.

The A-10 has gotten two at-large bids to each of the last three NCAA tourneys and received five at-large bids in 2014. All I'm saying is that it's a multi-bid league, and it has been for a while now.

EDIT: To clarify at-large bids.