is it better to manage for the extreme, or is it better to have a system that rewards "champions", recognizing that sometimes a team that might not belong (e.g., Villanova1985 basketball champs) might win or a deserving team (Maryland 1974 MBB) might be left out?

Recall that Swofford's proposal to allow flexibility in determining conference champs was rejected. So why then is it up to some other conference champ (a team that won the games it needed to win) to step aside because the SEC's method of determining it's champion left one of it's best 2 teams on the sideline? Why is it better to apply subjectivity after the conf champion is determined rather than before?

If the conferences are fine with the NCAA overruling the conference champion process ("hey, we were stupid, can you fix it for us?") like they did last year, then that I suppose that is their purview, i.e., taking Bama ahead of the Ga/Auburn winner in your extreme, or taking OSU over PSU last year.

But I don't agree that penalizing conference X's champ for conference Y's failings is "as good as it gets". Might one of the best 4 teams be left out? Sure, but they are not definitively better, unless they also happened to already defeat all the other conference champs being omitted from the tourney in their OOC schedule (another caveat for your extreme).

The best team doesn't always win the NCAA MBB tourney. But somehow we have no trouble recognizing and celebrating the champ and ranking them #1.

In your extreme, Bama had a clear route to the SEC title and they lost. But they wouldn't be getting screwed by anyone but themselves. I don't think subjectively righting a perceived wrong at someone else's expense is "as good as it gets".






[Post edited by daveinop at 12/11/2017 11:50AM]