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…
This post does not reflect the views of the blog authors or SB Nation.
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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.
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.
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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