Can we bring back divisions in basketball now?

[00Dawg]

After hearing time and time again that we needed to do away with them in order to increase the number of NCAA tournament teams for the conference, that argument melted faster than Cody Glenn. If UM doesn't beat Vandy yesterday (and maybe if they had lost today), there's only 2 SEC teams in the tournament.
Now we see this evening that the selection committee is still putting tons of emphasis on OOC scheduling, and that appears to be something that will stick around. Going to an 18-game SEC schedule hurt, not helped. That's two more slots UK, Bama, and Tennessee could've used to play quality opponents instead of South Carolina, Auburn, or yes, even us.

 

[Bro Montana]

What difference would divisions have made? It still would have been Florida and Missouri and then a ****** West. The SEC was and has been crap for several years now. Crowning dumbass division champions doesn't make it any better.

As for your 18 game argument. The Big East and ACC don't have divisions and play 18 game schedules. Doesn't hurt them. The fact is, other than Florida, Kentucky, and recently Tennessee, SEC coaches are too big of pussies to step up their scheduling.

 

[karlchilders.sixpack]

Regardless, I have less interest in the Tourney than EVER!

And that is more than a couple of years.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

The SEC should pass rules about non-conference scheduling. Maybe require 3 OOC games against teams likely to be in the top 50 of RPI (I realize it's all guessing, but maybe the SEC could get together with Nate Silver or someone like that and make a list), and another 3-5 games against teams likely to be in the top 100. Maybe also a ban on playing teams likely to be in the bottom 100, with an exception for 1-2 games against in-state teams.

The RPI is pretty easy to manipulate if you don't play any sub-200 games.

 

[00Dawg]

And the Big East and the ACC actually have a significant portion of their schools that care about basketball and are good at it. Until we can convince our SEC brethren that basketball can be important, we should be playing fewer conference games, not more.
Meanwhile, the divisions would've made no difference in how many teams made the tournament, but no one claimed they would have. It was the opposite claim, which has been proven false.

 

[thf24]

Meanwhile, the divisions would've made no difference in how many teams made the tournament, but no one claimed they would have. It was the opposite claim, which has been proven false.

You can't claim that anything has been "proven" in a year when the conference is significantly worse than usual.

 

[GloryDawg]

I think they shold limit the tourney size. If you play that first day it is almost impossible to win it. To get to the championship game you will have to play four days in a roll. You just don't have the legs. If they want all 14 in they should limit the first round bye to the top two teams and make everyone else play the first day or something along those lines.

 

[DAWG61]

This +1. The OOC scheduling for the SEC is terrible. Slive needs to punish those that don't schedule a top 64 OOC schedule by withholding money or something. Ray and Stricklin need to be trend setters in this. Hell if just half the league would do this it would pull the conference ranking way up.

 

[Drewbowski]

didn't the top 4 get byes in a 12 team tourney?

 

[DawgatAuburn]

There are about 72 bad ideas in this thread.

 

[mstateglfr]

This +1. The OOC scheduling for the SEC is terrible. Slive needs to punish those that don't schedule a top 64 OOC schedule by withholding money or something. Ray and Stricklin need to be trend setters in this. Hell if just half the league would do this it would pull the conference ranking way up.

Per teamrankings.com, 5 SEC teams were in the top 64 this season for OOC scheduling.
Padding 2 more, which would be half, would have pulled the conference ranking way up? That's what I read from you, just want to give you a chance to revise it before posting more.

Oh, we had half the conference in the top 77. So had those other 2 scheduled probably 1 game each that was a better opponent, we very well could have had the 7 you wanted.

 

[DAWG61]

Ha! Alrighty it'll take more than I thought. All 14 must schedule top 100 schedules? Whatever it takes do it.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

I counted more than that. **

 

[00Dawg]

That's just it. It's not. It's bad, but it's hardly any worse than it has been since 2006, which was the last time the SEC got 6 bids. We've been a subpar basketball conference since then, occasionally producing one top-tier team. What's changed is the committee's standards and the quality of basketball played in the mid-majors....and the fact that we State fans have to had to watch our worst squad in at least 15 years.

 

[patdog]

The league is a lot worse this year than it has been since at least the early 1980s. Maybe before then. It's been going down slowly for the past decade, but it fell off the cliff this season.