Why not a College Basketball Champions League?
The concept, first suggested by NCAA bylaws baron @John_Infante, and heartily endorsed by me, would riff off of the European soccer setup, which enables teams from different countries (and leagues) to play each other on the biggest stage. College basketball is perfect for that kind of setup. We already spend two months enabling these kinds of cross-conference matchups. Why not package them better and profit?
The initial allocations for multiple-bid leagues would be based on previous seasons’ performance and, at least for this season, is impacted by a number of conference realignment jumps. That means teams like Creighton and Memphis get squeezed for this season. Here’s a hypothetical breakdown of the “multi-bid” conferences for a 2013-14 event:
Multi-bid Leagues (25 total spots)
Big Ten (4): Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan
ACC (3): Miami, Duke, North Carolina
Big 12 (3): Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State
Mountain West (3): New Mexico, Colorado State, UNLV
Pac-12 (3): UCLA, Arizona, Oregon
SEC (3): Florida, Kentucky, Ole Miss
Atlantic 10 (2): Saint Louis, VCU
American Athletic (2): Louisville, Connecticut
Big East (2): Georgetown, Marquette
The other 23 conferences get one bid each, given to their regular-season champion from last season. So you’d also have Gonzaga, Wichita State (because of Creighton’s move), Davidson, Harvard and other known smaller-conference entities in the mix.
http://college-basketball.si.com/2013/0 ... =uk_bf1_a4