Choosing which teams make the NCAA tournament and which teams are excluded is no doubt a time consuming and nearly impossible task. I don’t envy anyone with that job. One thing we hear over and over again is that the selection committee examines the “body of work” from that entire season, as opposed to focusing on any one stretch of games, in determining who’s in and who’s out. I’m not sure that’s always the case because it has become evident to me that there is far too much attention placed on conference tournaments and they seem to matter more than anything else prior.
When bubble teams make a case for why they should be invited to the dance, too often we hear things like “we lost our conference tournament championship game in overtime” as if almost winning them should count for something. And often times, that’s a reason why schools get invited. If the conference tournament is supposed to be no more important than any other game on the schedule, then it’s safe to say that we talk about them way too much. The only reason that conference tournaments exist is so that the NCAA and conferences can make more money. If there wasn’t the opportunity to cash in, then we wouldn’t even have these tournaments because there’s really no need for them when you think about it.
In my opinion, they are glorified regular season games which just happen to take place at the end of the season. The University of Connecticut pulled off a magical run in the Big East tournament where they won five games in five days en route to their much deserved Big East tournament championship. It was an incredible display by tournament MVP, Kemba Walker and the rest of his teammates, as we saw the emergence of Jeremy Lamb. We’ve never seen a team have to win five games in five days before in order to win a Big East tournament title. It was historic on many levels.
However, I don’t think it should’ve played as strong a role in their NCAA tournament seeding, which it clearly did. UConn had some bad losses late in the season (prior to the Big East tournament) but their play in the Big East tournament seemed to erase that. Oh yeah, and I’m a UConn alum and that’s still my unbiased stance. If UConn would’ve lost to Louisville in the Big East championship game, or to Syracuse in the game prior, they probably would’ve been a 4 or 5 seed, not a 3. There was also talk about them possibly being awarded a 2 seed as result of them winning the Big East conference tournament. Again, they are just games on the schedule.
To take it a step further, if you win your conference tournament, your dance ticket has been punched. That means that in conferences where every team qualifies for the conference tournament, you could theoretically go winless in the regular season, catch lightning in a bottle and win your conference tournament, and you’re dancing. There is a fundamental problem with that. I’d like to think that you would want the 68 best teams in the country battling for supremacy. That will never be the case as long as conference tournaments matter as much as they do. They distort reality and have an unnecessary amount of weight. But again, cash is king and somebody has to make money off of these tournaments so they’re here to stay. So is the unwarranted emphasis placed on them.
If you’re looking for your everyday, predictable basketball talk, then go somewhere else, because Kevin Burke of The Kevin Burke Project brings provocative, thought provoking content about basketball as only he can. Kevin also hosts The Hoop Doctors weekly podcast show, which you can subscribe to for free on iTunes. Follow Kevin on Twitter and Facebook
