IA and IAA Basketball???

[DJH]

What? Jeez people, this isn't going to happen. What a retarded idea.

[weberwildcat]

No one tell Huggins that the NCAA and the conferences don't care about basketball. It might make him feel bad.

Doesnt he know the alignment of teams and conferences is based soley on football which is the only sport that makes big money?

When we discuss schools worth mentioning say for example a school moving up to DI FBS for football they were able to make that transition because of football, NOT basketball.

Most could careless about basketball only schools, I mean how many good ones are out there that don't have at least FCS football? Gonzaga, a few in giant sized big east? A small handful.


Its all about Football Huggins, ya damn moron!

[clenz]

No one tell Huggins that the NCAA and the conferences don't care about basketball. It might make him feel bad.

Doesnt he know the alignment of teams and conferences is based soley on football which is the only sport that makes big money?

When we discuss schools worth mentioning say for example a school moving up to DI FBS for football they were able to make that transition because of football, NOT basketball.

Most could careless about basketball only schools, I mean how many good ones are out there that don't have at least FCS football? Gonzaga, a few in giant sized big east? A small handful.


Its all about Football Huggins, ya damn moron!

Respectable basketball teams without football? Creighton and Wichita State come to mind real quick.


Oh and basketball is the only sport at UNI to actually make money

[SuperHornet]

The problem with this is that there is not a 1-to-1 relationship between the power conferences in each sport. What Huggins is doing is forcing a few individual outstanding teams down. One assumes that the B(C)$ conferences would be included in the proposed I-A hoops subdivision. There are conferences such as the Big East that are usually outstanding in hoops but not always in football. In addition, what do they do with the WAC/Mountain West, who are fighting their way into the football B(C)$ (which is being fought kicking and screaming) and the minor FBS conferences like the Sun Belt and C-USA. (C-USA has at least one top tier hoops team, but they whomp in football.) And that's not even covering the I-AAA conferences. Does one subsume I-AAA in I-A or I-AA hoops subdivision? Dropping them would screw individual outstanding teams such as Gonzaga. That would in turn skew the I-AA hoops tournament.

This is going to open a huge can of worms that the NCAA probably doesn't want to deal with. I believe that they will keep status quo.

[woffordgrad94]

Bob Huggins has not thought this through very well. There would be WAY to many factors to consider in deciding on which division some schools were placed in. It is a poor idea and it will not happen. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[SuperHornet]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The perfect summation to pretty much all arguments in this thread.

[clenz]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The perfect summation to pretty much all arguments in this thread.

Only problem is it is broke...getting the right teams into the tourney that is.

[mtgrizfan4life]

As it is I do not watch the bowl games other than when regional teams are playing or the "so called" BCS championship game. I do not watch because how selfish and retarded the system is. If this does come to the forefront, then I will be 100% behind politicians going after the NCAA full throttle, spare nobody.

For all I care, regionalize all the conferences, reduce the scholarships further, and help balance out the talent nationwide. Get away from the conference classifications, and get NCAA athletics back balance grounds, being about the "amateur" student athlete, fans, and get away from it being all about the money. The money is there and and should be shared equally for the betterment of all competing universities not just "select" programs. If you want athletics to be about the money, then go join the pros damnit or have the pros sponsor it, and finally make NCAA athletics what it truely is, a minor league.

I used to love NCAA football and basketball, but because of the politics in BCS football, I really do not care much about it any longer. I have become a fan of NCAA basketball because of the NCAA tournament. I love the David verse Goliath matchups with something on the line. They take this away from me, then I swear I will NEVER support any NCAA sport again, and go back to strictly pro sports.

By the way Huggins, do you think the fans should have the same attitude as you? If so, then you are not coaching at the level you are. After all, your DUI and reputation would not put you in the "ELITE" class of coaches if coaching were based on the haves and have nots. I really regret supporting your ass a few years ago in thinking you are human and made a mistake, and thinking you should be given a chance to still coach.

Huggins, programs, AD's, school presidents with this attitude can shove it for all I care, you are nothing more than money grubbing pigs that will lose my money and interest. SCREW YOU!!!!!!!!!!

[mtgrizfan4life]

The perfect summation to pretty much all arguments in this thread.

Only problem is it is broke...getting the right teams into the tourney that is.

Who is to say who the right teams are? It is entirely opinion, and is much better than the joke they have set up for BCS football.

[SuperHornet]

Exactly, MT. Most people I know would rather see a 18-22 win mid-major than a 15-win B(C)$ team. Those poseurs are just getting in on the fallacy that their conference schedule is "better" than the mid-major's entire schedule because the mid-major didn't "play anybody." Yet no B(C)$ conference will play a mid-major. It's a freaking self-fulfilling prophecy that has GOT to stop. The last time I remember a mid-major winning a national championship (not counting Memphis State) is probably UNLV back when they were in the PCAA. There are plenty of FCS/I-AAA schools with good basketball teams, and it's time the establishment got that through their bloody thick skulls.

[FargoBison]

This is just Huggins being a drunken idiot.

College hoops is built for the BCS schools....They get big money from TV and the big dance, the can play 80% of their non-conference games at home, and all they need to do in conference play is finish .500 or better and they are probably dancing. Meanwhile everyone else has to scrape and claw to get good non-conference home games(because BCS schools don't travel), big TV games are few and far between, and an NCAA at-large berth if their team fails to win their tournament is very difficult. Four so called mid-majors got at-larges last year.

If they did split, the money for the college basketball tournament would plummet. Who wants to bunch of the same teams play each other all year, talk about boring, and I'm sure 50% of teams would make the tournament making it even more boring.

Huggins just needs to shut up and cash his fat paychecks, the NCAA caters to the BCS schools, quit whining.

[mtgrizfan4life]

This is just Huggins being a drunken idiot.

College hoops is built for the BCS schools....They get big money from TV and the big dance, the can play 80% of their non-conference games at home, and all they need to do in conference play is finish .500 or better and they are probably dancing. Meanwhile everyone else has to scrape and claw to get good non-conference home games(because BCS schools don't travel), big TV games are few and far between, and an NCAA at-large berth if their team fails to win their tournament is very difficult. Four so called mid-majors got at-larges last year.

If they did split, the money for the college basketball tournament would plummet. Who wants to bunch of the same teams play each other all year, talk about boring, and I'm sure 50% of teams would make the tournament making it even more boring.

Huggins just needs to shut up and cash his fat paychecks, the NCAA caters to the BCS schools, quit whining.

Well said.

[FargoBison]

The real question I have after reading the article is WTF is the NCAA doing with the $300 million plus a year in profit they're taking in?

The NCAA basketball tournament is their golden goose and it pays for a lot of the NCAA tournaments that either don't make a dime or lose barrels of money.

Plus you have to pay the people who do all the administration work(clearing house, rules, academic compliance, etc). Huggy should just be happy that the NCAA isn't involved with BCS football, so his school can rake in the big bucks off of that.

[JayJ79]

Who is to say who the right teams are? It is entirely opinion, and is much better than the joke they have set up for BCS football.

depends what your definition of the "right teams". I really don't think any program with any fathomable chance to win the national championship has been left out of the field of 64/65.

[Evolution Prime]

If that happened, I honestly think that would kill the aura of the tournament. You kill the Cinderella teams and therefore kill the first round or two possibly up to the Sweet 16. Everyone knows that the larger schools like Kansas, Kentucky, Connecticut, Duke, etc are going to win every year. That isn't what makes the tournament so popular. Its the "little" guys like Valpo, UNI, Kent St, George Mason making some runs and upsets. There are actual teams in the lower conferences that can play, though their entire conference as a whole maybe can't. You eliminate them, you eliminate the greatness of the tournament.

I don't want to go see a #15 seed Iowa team play a #2 seed Duke team. The excitement just isn't there. You aren't pulling for Iowa because they really aren't the "little guy." They are still a Big Ten team. They really aren't an underdog in the sence. You get rid of the lower conferences, then you start filling the rest out with lower teams from power conferences. You could get a vast majority of you leage in. What is the point of conference tournaments then?

The lower class of league would wind up playing in the NIT type of tournament. It would largely go unnoticed and unheralded, kind of like the FCS playoffs. It would matter to only those in those conferences and division. You really think a fan of Kansas would give any respect to a fan of the winner of the NIT? You really think Alabama fans give respect to Villinova fans? Highly doubtful. This only creates a more of a sence of superiority to the power conferences.

This would also be about money, money, money. The power conferences don't want to share that. They will do anything they can to keep that money with them. They feel as the little guys are taking away from their money. The split would keep a lot more of that money with them.

Another issue would be where to draw the line. The MVC is FCS for football so would you drop them into this new classification? The MVC has quality teams like Creighton, UNI, and Drake. What about UMass, Villanova, Georgetown and the likes out on the east coast. They play quality basketball, but only do FCS football. Would you include them in the upper or lower division? There has to be a uniformly drawn line somewhere and my bet it would be where the line is drawin where the FCS football level is drawn at right now. That would leave teams contemplating their jump up to a higher level of football to compete in basketball or possibly drop football altogether. Even whole conferences moving up or formed would be a possibility.

So to summarize everything up, I hate this idea.

[GannonFan]

If that happened, I honestly think that would kill the aura of the tournament. You kill the Cinderella teams and therefore kill the first round or two possibly up to the Sweet 16. Everyone knows that the larger schools like Kansas, Kentucky, Connecticut, Duke, etc are going to win every year. That isn't what makes the tournament so popular. Its the "little" guys like Valpo, UNI, Kent St, George Mason making some runs and upsets. There are actual teams in the lower conferences that can play, though their entire conference as a whole maybe can't. You eliminate them, you eliminate the greatness of the tournament.

You know, as much as people like to claim that the beauty of the NCAA tournament is that they "little guy" has a chance to win, in reality, I don't really think that's the case. People like the NCAA tournament because it has brackets and it fits neatly on a single piece of paper and because it's so much fun to gamble on.

Let's face it, after the first weekend, you rarely have any little guys left at all. And when you do, they're rarely the nationally televised game because it doesn't draw as well as a game with better known teams. Heck, most of the time during the first weekend you are bummed when you end up having to watch a game with a seed worse than 12 because that means you're missing a better game elsewhere. Sure, it's fun to switch over to a game when a lower seed has the chance late for the upset, but for most of those games it's kinda boring. How many 1v16 games have taken place compared to the one or two Princetons versus Georgetowns that were actually watchable?

Historically, although the Mason story was great, what was missed was that about 25 years happened in between Penn making the Final Four in '79 and Mason doing it a few years ago, and there's no indication that the next gap will be any shorter before seeing it happen again. A lot of really good things happened in the intervening quarter of a century that had nothing to do with the little guys.

Heck, the two biggest Cinderalla stories of the past 30 years of the tournament have been NC State winning in '83 and nova winning in '85, and that's an ACC team and a Big East team, and nova was an 8 seed that year.

I'm not knocking the little guys, nor their inclusion in the tournament - they should be there and I love when they do well. However, the tournament is so popular and so much fun to watch because of everyone that's in the tournament (and the bracket format of course), even the big bad BCS conferences. Last time I checked, people seem to tune in in large numbers to the Big East tournament and the ACC tournaments and there aren't a lot of little guys there.

[weberwildcat]

mid-majors/cinderellas/upsets...

...is the reason why the first 2 rounds are so popular and the reason we watch. No one is tunning in to see if 1-seed Kansas is gonna beat SouthWestern Mulletville State.

[SuperHornet]

What, a PCAA team winning the national championship wasn't big news?

[GannonFan]

mid-majors/cinderellas/upsets...

...is the reason why the first 2 rounds are so popular and the reason we watch. No one is tunning in to see if 1-seed Kansas is gonna beat SouthWestern Mulletville State.

Eh, like I said, people like the gambling and the office pools that come with the brackets. And amazingly, even more people watch the last 4 rounds even once most of the mid-majors/cinderellas/upsets are out of the way. How is the Big East and ACC tournaments so popular then even without a single mid major in them? How do they last 4 rounds of the NCAA get so many people watching, also without the mids?

[UNI88]

mid-majors/cinderellas/upsets...

...is the reason why the first 2 rounds are so popular and the reason we watch. No one is tunning in to see if 1-seed Kansas is gonna beat SouthWestern Mulletville State.

Eh, like I said, people like the gambling and the office pools that come with the brackets. And amazingly, even more people watch the last 4 rounds even once most of the mid-majors/cinderellas/upsets are out of the way. How is the Big East and ACC tournaments so popular then even without a single mid major in them? How do they last 4 rounds of the NCAA get so many people watching, also without the mids?

You make a good point about the brackets and the gambling aspect but I wonder how excluding the non Big 6 conferences would impact the quality of play and how that would impact viewership and advertising revenue. IMO, if they went any deeper into the Big 6 conferences in order to fill out a 64 team bracket you would end up with a bunch of average and below average teams that no one other than their fans would want to watch. The tournament would be more compelling with 32 teams at that point but that would impact advertising $. I'm not sure this is as cut and dried of a boon for the big conferences as some might think.

And I think it would definitely put the NCAA at greater risk of losing the Big 6 to their own organization which would leave the NCAA as a dead man walking from a revenue perspective.

[OSBF]

how has it worked out for the bcs?

game-set-match

[GannonFan]

how has it worked out for the bcs?

game-set-match

Well, not really. If the BCS had a playoff system with brackets, they would make a fortune out of it. The problem with the BCS right now, in football, is that only one game really matters to most of the nation. If the BCS went to an 8 or 16 team playoff, it would be plenty popular.

[CrackerRiley]

This, if it did happen, would kill FCS football.

If this were to happen, it would kill all the excitement surrounding the NCAA basketball tournament.

I don't agree/understand either of these statements. People seem to get too technical with the conference alignments/money situations. If you have the money/facilities play in the division that you are suited for.

Having 150+ teams in the top division does not kill any excitement for the tournament. You still have all the teams that were going to be competitive even before a divisional split.

[OSBF]

how has it worked out for the bcs?

game-set-match

Well, not really. If the BCS had a playoff system with brackets, they would make a fortune out of it. The problem with the BCS right now, in football, is that only one game really matters to most of the nation. If the BCS went to an 8 or 16 team playoff, it would be plenty popular.

It's all about $$$

nothing else

they have succsefully set up a system whereby they get ALL the $$ and the "little" guy gets shut out

it has been successful beyond their wildest dreams

[Evolution Prime]

For the BCS its a success. For everyone outside of it, not so much. The BCS wants to keep the money in their conferences (and Notre Dame) and keep their precious bowls. The rest want to see some sort of playoff system. They threw rest of the FBS conferences a bone by allowing some at-large spots that they can get in if they qualify for it. Then they further screw them by saying to a team who may have an undefeated record (Utah, Boise State) that the BCS doesn't think you are good enough so we are going to let a one or two loss BCS team into the national championship because we think they are better. They may, and most likely are, but they don't let them even be able to prove it on the field.

Same thing applies here. Splitting it up into two divisions does the same thing. They would be saying a 24-5 Summitt League team is good but not good enough for their "higher" division so they would rather take a 17-14 Big Ten team. They dump all the teams/leagues into a lower division because they deem them inferior to them. They do that already in FBS: BCS and non BCS qualifying conferences. Splitting basketball into two divisions further puts more money in the power conference's pockets. They wouldn't add more mid-majors from the WAC, MVC, or MWC. They would add more power conferences team who were mediocre. Teams that were hovering around .500, and guess what, they would probably get higher seeds just due to conference affiliation.

So if you want to say successful, yes it would be for the power conferences. Everyone else, not so much.