NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

[Priceless]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

Wodon weighs in

[4four4]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

Would the NCAA get rid of the pairwise and go back to the old way of doing things? For example, private rooms of smoke and cigars?

[Caustic Undertow]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

There are definitely negatives to this idea.

1. We lose the easy-to-produce television coverage. This has no effect on the publicity of the sport as a whole, since casual fan viewership is negligible, but it is likely that it will be difficult for us average folk to watch out-of-area games on TV, including fans of teams on the road. If, say, Minnesota and Bemidji both host series, will Bemidji get tv coverage? I don't think so.

2. The tournament loses symmetry. Right it is a nicely divided win-and-advance production with four four-team regionals and then a four-team final. I have never been a huge fan of playoff formats where some rounds have different requirements for winning than others, and this format gives us some tournament games that you can lose and still have a chance to advance, and others that are one-and-done. Awkward.

3. The superregionals will still have the same problems that they had before, except for one day instead of two. They are kind of a bizarre way-station between an intense home-ice opening round and the Frozen Four. Weird.

All this said, I like this idea. The current regional format is unattractive on television and, apparently, unattractive even to die-hard college hockey fans who do not attend. Worcester is the one regional that can count on local teams and decent attendance every year, and nobody has any affection for it at all. All other regionals are attractive only when they are unfair. That is, they are interesting when there is a local team involved with a home crowd. Otherwise, they are empty.

Eight first round home series would eliminate this issue entirely; home ice is earned by regular season record, attendance is good, and the atmosphere is guaranteed to be electric. The games that are on television will make casual fans take notice, and the highlights on Sportscenter (say, of a game-three overtime winner in Alfond) would be incredible. As Dave Hakstol was quote, it would be more fun even for visiting teams, who get to experience the atmosphere and a real playoff series that matters.

Higher seeded teams would win more often, but I have no problem with that. They earned their high seeds. Frankly, I think the opening rounds are a bit too tossup anyway--I would rather have seen what Denver would do against Wisconsin than RIT. As much as I enjoyed watching lower seeds upset higher seeds again this year, I was left disappointed that Denver and North Dakota were not able to face the real cream of the crop because they were playing in practice-rink settings 1500 miles from home.

Attendance would be fixed, atmosphere would be fixed, and we could avoid television embarassments. Good reasons.

Even better reason: The 2002 and 2003 regionals at Michigan were absolutely off-the-hook bonkers. As amazing an atmosphere as you can find in sports, and I've seen some great ones. It was an endorsement of college hockey--anyone who was there or who watched could not deny that something special was happening. The problem was that Michigan was getting the benefit of that atmosphere against higher seeds. The "Best team not to win a National Title" thread has a handful of teams listed that were devoured there. It was fun, but it wasn't fair.

Move the top eight seeds to home rinks, and you get that incredible experience for thousands and thousands of fans--and it is fair. It looks great on tv, it feels great to the home team, and even the road team gets the chance to silence the crowd with one flick of a stick.

Bring it.

[moose97]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

My one concern would be if they messed with how much they messed with the brackets to making traveling to another campus easier.

Looking at this year, for example:
Midwest
UAH traveling to Miami instead of to Fort Wayne. Not bad.
Michigan traveling to BSU instead of to Fort Wayne. An improvement.

East
RIT traveling to Denver instead of to Albany.
New Hampshire traveling to Cornell instead of to Albany. Not bad.

Northeast
Alaska traveling to BC instead of to Worcester. Probably an improvement, actually.
Yale traveling to North Dakota instead of to Worcester. An improvement for UND to be sure, but not great for Yale by any means.

West
Vermont traveling to Wisconsin instead of St. Paul. Not bad.
Northern Michigan traveling to St. Cloud State instead of to St. Paul. Negligible.

And why is UMich traveling to BSU any better than Yale to UND?

And then you come to my whole argument this past March - who cares what's fair for the 3 &4 seeds? BSU did what it needed to do to get a 2 seed. How where they rewarded? With a partisan UMich croud as the higher seed since UMich fans could drive a couple hours no problem, while it was a 15 hour drive from northern Minnesota. For some reason, the NCAA felt that $$$ and attendance was more importaint than the play of the teams. I'd rather reward the 1 & 2 seeds with home games than move 3 & 4 seeds close in off-campus neutral sites (like was done for UMich and Yale).

[moose97]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

1. We lose the easy-to-produce television coverage. This has no effect on the publicity of the sport as a whole, since casual fan viewership is negligible, but it is likely that it will be difficult for us average folk to watch out-of-area games on TV, including fans of teams on the road. If, say, Minnesota and Bemidji both host series, will Bemidji get tv coverage? I don't think so.

Bemidji (and for that matter, SCSU, UMD and MSU) all have their own TV deals, and therefore, would have a local option to pick-up the games outside ESPN.

[4four4]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

And why is UMich traveling to BSU any better than Yale to UND?

And then you come to my whole argument this past March - who cares what's fair for the 3 &4 seeds? BSU did what it needed to do to get a 2 seed. How where they rewarded? With a partisan UMich croud as the higher seed since UMich fans could drive a couple hours no problem, while it was a 15 hour drive from northern Minnesota. For some reason, the NCAA felt that $$$ and attendance was more importaint than the play of the teams. I'd rather reward the 1 & 2 seeds with home games than move 3 & 4 seeds close in off-campus neutral sites (like was done for UMich and Yale).

Or maybe the NCAA believed BSU wasn't a strong number two seed and Michigan might be a stronger number three or four seed.

[Caustic Undertow]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

Bemidji (and for that matter, SCSU, UMD and MSU) all have their own TV deals, and therefore, would have a local option to pick-up the games outside ESPN.

With the local cable company, (Charter here in Duluth, not sure about Bemidji) available locally only. A step down from ESPNU or ESPN Plus syndication, both of which give out of area fans a fighting chance to see the game on television. Besides, those rights do not include NCAA tournament games, which are held by ESPN. The question is not whether a local station will want to broadcast the games; the question is whether ESPN will produce from every regional site and make the games available on ESPNU or syndication.

I hope it is not a deal-breaker with the powers-that-be, but it might be a significant consideration.

[LynahFan]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

Imagine those upsets happen-Yale and RIT have to travel out to North Dakota and Denver for a best of three series, and then come back east to play in Albany the next weekend. Yikes. Who do you switch? You could switch Miami and Denver in the 1 band. But the two western 2 teams besides North Dakota are from Minnesota- doesn't make sense to move them east either.

I think your premise is flawed. If Yale won @ UND (whether on Saturday or Sunday the first weekend), they would fly home to New Haven anyway, then bus up to Albany probably Thursday evening, practice on Friday, skate-around Saturday morning, and play the quarterfinal game Saturday evening. Even if they played @ UND and then @ a Western quarterfinal location the next weekend, I really doubt they'd stay in a hotel for all 6/7 days between the games - they'd fly home and then fly back out west.

And lest there be ANY doubt - the NCAA would control the ticket sales, ticket prices, and TV rights to those first round games, not the schools - just like when regionals have been held at campus locations in the past. So hosts' TV deals, number of season ticket holders, and alcohol policies are irrelevant - those will belong to the NCAA. In fact, I'm sure that the hosts would still have to cover up their own paid advertising in the rink, same as the regional and FF rinks have to do now.

[CLS]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

We all know the weaknesses of the seeding system and debate it annually. Home ice advantage and two out of three is too much of an advantage for the higher seeded team, especially the 4-5 seeds when the seeding system is so controversial.

I see the advantages in atmosphere, but I'm a competitive purist, and I think having Bemidji and RIT in the FF is a good thing. That's much less likely to happen with this proposal.

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

2. The tournament loses symmetry. Right it is a nicely divided win-and-advance production with four four-team regionals and then a four-team final. I have never been a huge fan of playoff formats where some rounds have different requirements for winning than others, and this format gives us some tournament games that you can lose and still have a chance to advance, and others that are one-and-done. Awkward.

3. The superregionals will still have the same problems that they had before, except for one day instead of two. They are kind of a bizarre way-station between an intense home-ice opening round and the Frozen Four. Weird.

These are my main sticking points. I don't know what kind of attendance they think they'd get at a four team "super-regional" where there is no winner and just two teams moving on like in the 12-team, 2-regional format of old, except with only the one day instead of two. Yes, very awkward. So teams have to work exceptionally hard to get to the second round by winning a best of 3 (potentially on the road), then to get to the Big Dance have to only win once on a neutral site. Doesn't make much sense to me.
I wonder why they aren't considering having both the first and second round be best of 3? You need to use two weekends anyhow. Why not make the second one a money maker, too? That would, of course make it even harder for Cinderellas, but it wouldn't be as awkward as the one-day second round.

[MikeAnderson]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

The only two reasons why this is popular:

1) Bemidji State 2009
2) RIT 2010

[MikeAnderson]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

[S]chools won't be happy to shell out a grand for each player's last-minute tickets. UNLESS NCAA reserves x tickets on flight to FF, team to pay upon winning regional. I'm sure this will never happen, but the more I look at it, the more I like it!

The NCAA handles all travel costs for the "travel party" of any team in an NCAA Championship tournament (save the smallest of non-revenue sports).

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

especially the 4-5 seeds when the seeding system is so controversial.

5 seeds in a 16 team tournament

I see the advantages in atmosphere, but I'm a competitive purist, and I think having Bemidji and RIT in the FF is a good thing. That's much less likely to happen with this proposal.

In the case of AHA teams, it is much much less likely to happen (sadly).
In the case of Bemidji, I don't know if you noticed but the Beavers were in the overall #4 to # 7 range all season. Not exactly a cinderella or long-shot to make the FF like many thought they were in '08-'09. Turns out they were actually just that good. Although going forward, they are no longer part of the "mid-major" world, so the point would be moot anyhow.

[Priceless]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

The only two reasons why this is popular:

1) Bemidji State 2009
2) RIT 2010

The reasons this is popular:

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4133
3204
7281
7182

[Kepler]

Re: NCAA Tourney Format Changing?

I love the idea, but I would have loved it even more if it had been in place last decade.

One thing though: since the top 8 teams are going to have such a big advantage, the selection and seeding have to be deterministic.

Rank 1-16 strictly by pairwise (or whatever). Assign each team a "home" and "road" super regional from the two SRs available for a given year. Then play the home site round. Reseed the 8 survivors, 1 vs 8 at 1's "home," 2 vs 7 at 2's "home." When only 1 SR has open slots, that's where the rest go.

No special dispensation for SR hosts -- if the rules banish them to the road, so be it.