re: Fact or Fiction? tNCAA Tournament crowns undeserving teams as champions

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The main problem with the tourney isn't really crowning the champion but so much importance being placed on "Sweet Sixteen" or "Elite Eight" in evaluating whether teams or coaches are "successful".

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people are dumb. they form opinions and refuse to change them even though data changes. way too much emphasis has always been placed on the tournament when evaluating coaches, and bad hires have been made because of it.

i've posted this 100 times over the course of the tournament but it can't be said enough, the best coaches in the country do fantastic in both the regular season and the tournament.

the top 5 tournament coaches are K, roy, cal, self, and izzo. those are also the top 5 regular season coaches. it's not a coincidence.

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That's not really something to aspire to. College football does it the right way bc the regular season matters.

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That ceased to be true in 2011.

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Were they not at worst the undisputed #3 in 2011?

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Sure but they lost at home to LSU, if the “regular season mattered” they should not get a rematch.

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There are still teams close to .500 that make the playoffs in those leagues.

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Yeah, regular season is garbage in both those leagues.

But the playoff format chooses legit champ.

You can miraculously outplay someone for a game. If you beat them best of 7, you are just better.

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The main issue is that the top few teams get no special privileges- no bye, no home court games, etc.

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That's a false statement.

Seeds 1-4 are placed as close to their home arena as possible all the way through the regional final.

Let's examine this using the NCAA Tournament of 2018:

South Regional (Atlanta, GA)

1-Seed Virginia: Charlotte, NC
2-Seed Cincinnati: Nashville, TN
3-Seed Tennessee: Dallas, TX
4-Seed Arizona: Boise, ID

Only Tennessee was not placed in the closest opening weekend site to their home location and that was due to Cincinnati as the higher seed getting the closer draw. Had Virginia actually advanced, they would have been closer to the regional final than any of the other top seeds.

East Regional (Boston, MA)

1-Seed Villanova: Pittsburgh, PA
2-Seed Purdue: Detroit, MI
3-Seed Texas Tech: Dallas, TX
4-Seed Wichita State: San Diego, CA

Only Wichita State wasn't placed in the closest location to their home, but they were bumped in favor of a higher seed.

Midwest Regional (Omaha, NE)

1-Seed Kansas: Wichita, KS
2-Seed Duke: Pittsburgh, PA
3-Seed Michigan State: Detroit, MI
4-Seed Auburn: San Diego, CA

Only Auburn wasn't placed closest to their home due to higher seeds.

West Regional (Los Angeles, CA)

1-Seed Xavier: Nashville, TN
2-Seed North Carolina: Charlotte, NC
3-Seed Michigan: Wichita, KS
4-Seed Gonzaga: Boise, ID

Here you could make a case that Gonzaga was given a potential advantage over the #1 seed had they both made the Sweet 16. However, at this point, Xavier was the last #1 seed and was seeded lower than Virginia, Villanova and Kansas.

Sure, but by having longer series the playoffs are drug out for 2 months in some leagues.

Really, its not the rematch that makes 2011 so radical, its the lack of a conference title. The BCS had been allowing teams without a conference title into the title game already, but none of them had won yet. When Bama won, it was the first team to win the national title while failing to win its conference title since World War II.

And the floodgates opened. Conference titles don't mean anything anymore. Which is patently absurd. But if you make an argument against a team making the playoffs because they failed to win their conference, no one remotely takes that argument seriously.