Why even play a conference tournament?
by kennel07 on Mar 9, 2010 11:46 AM PST
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This really isn’t sour grapes for losing to St. Mary’s last night. They wanted this game 100x more than we did and hit the shots to put us away.
That being said, I have always thought the WCC tournament was a little redundant. I can understand it more in conferences like the Big East where not every team plays each other twice but I just don’t think it makes much sense in the WCC. We were already conference champions, we had already swept St. Mary’s and Portland in conference play, why have a tournament to basically recreate a mini-season all over again? I really like what the Ivy League does in giving its regular season conference champ the auto-bid. I think it makes much more sense for the smaller conferences like the WCC. Definitely like to hear some other thoughts on this. I can see some benefits to it like being able to play another week so we don’t have a LONG break till the NCAA’s and giving the league some TV exposure…
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We should be an independent
Seriously. This conference forces us to play garbage basketball for two months. The officials try to keep WCC teams in games, that can’t be denied. When you have a trash conference with one team that is respectable, it is natural for the legitimate team to play down after a while. Playing down coupled with questionable (I’m being generous) officiating can lead to an awkward game flow. No wonder we always look a bit sluggish in the first round, when we are back to playing REAL basketball.
Get out of this circus and take complete control of the schedule. We shouldn’t have to play this many bad teams late in the year, totally cripples us.
We would already be the Notre Dame of basketball if we beat UCLA, but we didn’t . So going independent is our best chance. The WCC doesn’t bring in much money, so why not separate? We don’t need the WCC, it needs us.
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Tough to argue that...
The WCC really is a tough conference to be in. Our SOS is absolutely terrible by the time we finish up conference play. We have to play a really tough non-conference just to keep it under 100 most years (couldn’t even do it this year). The only downside would be a loss of an auto bid but almost every year we are lock status before conference play even starts. The years that we aren’t, we are clearly down and haven’t done much in the tournament when we have grabbed the WCC auto-bid anyway. This would go a long way to solve Gonzaga’s motivation problems too. Suddenly almost every game matters, we play a variety of teams just like we’ll see in the tourney, and there is no protected auto bid to be had, we have to EARN it. The first part of the Zag’s season is always the best, imagine having that the rest of the season until tournament play.
Gonzaga
Where would your other sports teams play? Mens & Women’s Sports? You don’t have a football program, so the best you can do is the WCC.
As you just pointed out
This is definitely EXTREMELY wishful thinking in many ways and will never happen. You could make the argument that Notre Dame is independent in football but conference based in many of its other sports but that has been it’s tradition for many, many years. For Gonzaga to suddenly break out and say, we’re ditching the WCC in Men’s basketball only would be a slap in the face to the WCC and would be admittedly pretty ridiculous. It’s just difficult to think of any solution to this because our lack of football team prevents us from ever being in one of the BCS conferences. It’s just rough having to spend months of our season in the WCC.
Yeah, I wish some of the So. Cal. teams would step it up a bit. USF was a power in the 70’s (?)… Pepperdine and Loyola Mary. were the WCC Powers in the 80’s & 90’s… Gonzaga has been the power house for a decade and 1/2…. who’s next?
by Colorado Fan on Mar 10, 2010 6:18 AM PST up reply actions
Totally unworkable in the modern era...
This isn’t the 1970s and if you’re not in a conference, you’re hosed.
Think about it. Who are you going to get to play in January and February when everyone else is in the middle of conference season? You think Cal, Duke, etc. are going to break in the middle of their Pac-10/ACC battles to travel to Spokane and play you guys? Nuh-uh. You’d end up with home-and-homes with Cal State Bakersfield and NJIT and Seattle U.
by JoeVandalFTW on Mar 10, 2010 8:47 AM PST up reply actions
Very good question, though.
Just an opportunity for a team with their season on the line to play their best and get us when we are just playing for seeding…
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That pretty much sums up how i feel on it
An extra credit opportunity for WCC teams that failed to beat us during the regular season to get themselves into the tourney after we’ve already taken care of business
Taken care of business in THEIR arena, no less!
We blow them out in SMC and Spokane, they get us on a neutral court so our seeding will drop. This conference sucks.
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Overreact much?
Given, the WCC cripples us in terms of SOS and RPI and we ultimately are stuck in a no-win situation. If we go 14-0 and cruise through the conference tourney, we achieved what was expected of us and nothing more. If we lose, at all, ever in WCC play or our tournament, it is a huge blow and we drop 1, 2, 3 or even 4 seeds in Bracketology at least. We will never know how it actually affects the Selection Committee, but let’s assume that is the reality of the situation.
However, the conference tourney was “Gonzagafied” to all but ensure a bye to the semi-finals every year and that whoever we play will have had to have played at least the night before and, like this year, sometimes twice in the previous two nights. It is up to our boys to step up and finish, and to Few and the coaches to gameplan for two teams getting their third crack at upsetting us.
Also, what does going independent actually do to help? Are we going to be able to schedule 30 opponents that will give us a reasonable number of home games, improve our RPI (I think that is probably a “yes,” by the way,) while not burning the team out with an overly difficult schedule. How much grief does Few get every year that we have a very difficult November/December schedule? I don’t think we are going to get the Dukes, UConns, and Michigan States of the world to play us on a consistent basis in the middle of their conference seasons.
Their is no precedent for this working in basketball in the last 40 years at least, and to think that we can be mentioned in the same breath as Notre Dame football in the big picture (not just the last decade) is absurd. When they start making movies about our walk-ons and dying coaches, we can revisit that subject!
Bottom line: the WCC needs the TV exposure of the conference tourney and Gonzaga needs to just step up and win! Now, if we could ever realign into a stronger conference…(To quote Chandler from Friends: “Can open…worms everywhere!”)
Some great thoughts
I really liked how you summed up our WCC season in the first paragraph.
I will 100% agree Gonzaga should have gotta the job done last night. We are a better team than St. Mary’s but we played soft and let them dictate the pace of the game. To let them continually run the “UCLA” back-door play and the drive in, pass, bomb a three plays on us was beyond unacceptable. We let any team execute like that and they’ll crush us, I don’t care if we are playing against Kentucky or Gonzaga Prep.
I think it is theoretically possible to be an Independent. There are plenty of Mid-Majors, esp the Missouri Valley and the Mountain West, that would love to set up some series with us. If you think about it, we’d only have to fill in 12 more games than we arranged out of conference this year to just hit 30 games and we wouldn’t even have to play that many. Rough on the AD yes, impossible no. As a mentioned above in a response to Colorado Fan, it’s never going to happen because of our other sports teams and because i’m sure the school likes being affiliated with a conference in general. Like you said in the can of worms that you opened, it makes the most sense to join another conference like the mountain west or the MVC but lack of football pretty much makes that impossible. If we were to leave WCC, it’d pretty much have to be independents. But this is so hypothetical anyway…
As mentioned above...
Sure you can find teams to play you, but not in January and February. You won’t find 15 teams willing to stop in the middle of their conference season and play a hellaciously tough OOC opponent, either on the road or at home.
by JoeVandalFTW on Mar 10, 2010 8:50 AM PST up reply actions
We'll have to agree to disagree on that
I believer that there would be plenty of teams wanting to do this, especially from the Mid-Major conferences whose #2 or #3 teams are usually on the bubble. I see the MVC, Conference USA, Mountain West, and Horizon all willing to set up some series with us. Gonzaga has reached the point where we’re considered either a great win to have on your resume come tourney time or a solid loss that doesn’t hurt your RPI. A lot of the teams in the conferences I just mentioned have a tough time as it is lining up quality non-conference games so I really don’t see them declining a series with us. Are we going to get the michigan state or dukes to set up series with up? Of course not, but I’ve never been saying that’s what we’d do. We’d target the mid-majors and possibly Pac-10. We already have this going on with Memphis so i find it hard to believe that it’d be impossible.
Memphis does it
And we could pick and choose WCC teams to play home and homes with if need be. I just don’t like them all going at us kamikaze style twice a year. Butler would love a game with us in the Horizon, A10 teams would also do it. MWC has wanted a piece of Gonzaga for as long as we’ve been good. Not going to get a lot of big games late, but at least they will be real basketball teams which is a step up from now.
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Be careful what you wish for
What if the WCC was like the Big East?
This years group of not so experienced Zags might finish 8-8 in conference play and be on the bubble for a berth — IF we can get to the championship game in the League Tournament.
Would that be better than our present situation?
mjc
There are a lot of hypotheticals but
Yes, i actually would prefer to the WCC to be like the Big East. Each team in the conference gets tons of non-conference and conference games to prove they are worthy of being a tournament team. If you are on the bubble, it is your own doing. Gonzaga pretty much has to do this already with their non-conference scheduled but then gets shot backwards during WCC play unless they run the table in the league and the WCC tourney.
I really do understand where you are coming from though and i think it just boils down to preference. Would you rather see a Zags team underachieve during the year but still make the tourney because we get to play in a pretty poor conference or have them in a situation that gives them countless opportunities earn a top seed and get great NCAA tourney experience playing against good competition but not make the NCAA’s the years we weren’t as great and got a 7 or 10 seed.
I'd rather be on the bubble and be ready to play
than be a lock and get rocked on the first weekend because we have been playing D2 quality teams for 2 months. WCC teams are so one-dimensional and gameplan all year JUST TO BEAT US! It doesn’t make for good basketball when it’s one team against seven…
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Good question mjc
That’s just my opinion i bet you’d get a even split on that if everyone answered.
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The WCC tourney
Is pointless. Just a way for us to lose stock and get hurt. Can’t do anything about it, but by putting ourselves in such a prime spot nationally we have trapped ourselves regionally by having 7 teams who’s main goal is to beat Gonzaga, not to win the conference. I really think the tourney should be in Spokane until someone can hang with us, because right now we are IT in this conference. Vegas just has bad news written all over it, as if we won’t have refs betting on games if we do this for years on end, or just this year ;)
WCC is a lose-lose for everyone involved. I would rather play who we want out of it and play other mid majors with something to play for themselves. These teams we play in the WCC have no goals of their own. They play to get a miracle and beat us, so take that away and let them play for their own success!
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Why not change?
Gonzaga has already rewritten the rules regarding “mid-major” programs (play anyone, anytime, anywhere, and get W’s). No one thought a “mid-major” could become a consistent, national program that goes to the tourney every year either by auto-bid or as an at large bid; yet Gonzaga has become that program. So why not go against the grain again?
Gonzaga is unique, and may be the only team that could pull this off. The WCC won’t like it, but GU is too good in other sports (both men and women’s) for them to write off. Plus, I’m betting the top WCC teams will still get shots at GU during the season if GU chooses to schedule them. They could play the top two WCC, MVC, Conference USA, Mountain West, and Horizon seeds, along with some other easy games with local teams (UW…HAHAHA!!) that might ding our RPI but help with confidence; and that fills the league games missed. Put that together with a solid non-conference, and all of a sudden GU has a great SOS and no excuses for not being strong come tourney time (*note – team doesn’t really make excuses, we fans just do for them).
I think this makes so much sense. Stop waiting for the WCC to put on their big boy pants. The league is getting better, but it is at a snails pace. GU has been scheduling all of the quality teams they play every year for the most part anyway; why not just extend that for the full year and finish with a SOS around 60 or below for a change!
by trufflshuffl on Mar 11, 2010 2:19 AM PST up reply actions 2 recs
Duuuuude
That first paragraph is money. Cash money. I just think we need to look at Notre Dame in football. I know it’s totally different because of ND’s history, but what Gonzaga has done is so unique that it calls for unique treatment. The reason for a conference is to make money (the money you need, not extra money) and we don’t need this conference.
Bigger programs diss us for losing to garbage teams, but how often does Duke play @ a mid-major? Never. We lose to crappy teams in the WCC because they are familiar with us, and the more you play at mid-majors the more you will lose to them. Simple fact. We shouldn’t have to go on the road to play teams like USF and LMU in the first place. If Duke or Syracuse had to play away games at all the Colonial Athletic Assoc. schools every year, they would stack up some losses. It’s time to take the TV contract and run.
WCC is getting better, or is it? It looks good this year, but that is because the PAC 10 took the year off. SMC is just hyped because they have dominated us by winning 4 out of the last 30 meetings, if not for the ESPN contract they wouldn’t have been on the bubble.
Good points about RPI and re-writing the rules for mid-majors!
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Of course a result of a better schedule
would be that the Zags would have to play many more home games at the Spokane Arena. Like they should be doing anyway. The MWC would beg us to jump in if they saw us packing a 12,000 seat arena, they’d love to get in on the ESPN contract too. If we went independent it would be a way to get teams to come to town, no one wants to play in the Kennel.
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Conference Tourneys
I just wrote a blog post about this very question. I really don’t think that they make sense for the non-BCS conferences. More leagues should go Ivy League and award the automatic bid to the regular season champ, because that should be what really matters. The conference tournaments hurt teams in the non-BCS schools that don’t have the resumes of the BCS bubble teams.
good blog
i think the main reason the tourney is unnecessary for smaller conferences is that their RPI and SOS get killed enough by playing their regular season. A tourney after the season against those same teams just hurts even more, win (seeding) or lose (no auto-bid). Why not give the auto bid to the conference champion and then the top seeds help themselves by scheduling the top seeds of another small conference to fill the time and improve their resume’s for the big dance? This would help the seeding for the auto bid and the resume for any bubble teams.
by trufflshuffl on Mar 12, 2010 7:24 PM PST up reply actions
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