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Let's Fix NCAA Tournament Now, Before The Complaints Roll In
Published: 2/8/2008 9:29 AM
Last Modified: 2/8/2008 9:29 AM

Oral Roberts is by far the best basketball team in the Summit League and the shame of it is that the the Golden Eagles may not get to represent the league in the NCAA Tournament, unless they can win three consecutive conference tournament games in March.
What a shame it would be if an entire season's body of work is wiped out by one bad day at the office in the Summit League tournament. Only the conference's postseason tournament champion gets an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The regular season champ will be considered for an at-large bid (and ORU's RPI was a very decent 53 to start the week), but regular season champs are guaranteed only an NIT invitation.
It's time to fix the system and give every conference regular season and postseason champion a guaranteed spot in the NCAA Tournament. Even the tiny conferences? You bet.
I would rather see a 65-team NCAA bracket populated with conference champions than a bracket populated by at-large teams from alleged power conferences who finished seventh or eighth in their leagues. Sure, the teams from the big conferences will wail like a banshee if they get left out, but you've really got no complaint if you can't finish at least in the upper half of your league.
Let's make the NCAA Tournament a tournament of champions, not a tournament of schools who think it is their birthright to play in the NCAA Tournament just because they are members of an upper class conference.





Reader Comments 6 Total
Zach (5 years ago)
If ORU is as good as people think, they should have no problems winning three straight games in March. If they don't, it is called a "choke" and they have only themselves to blame.
Many high school teams could give some of the Summit league teams a run.
Lee (5 years ago)
Well said Jimmie
Terry (5 years ago)
I like the idea, but it will never happen. In fact, the major schools are going the other direction. There is a plan to have a '2-tier' system - with the smaller schools cut out of the NCAA Tournament and relegated to another (NIT?) tournament. Follow the money.

I agree that ORU should take care of business, but anything can happen in a conference tournament. IUPUI is a very good school and could definitely beat TU and OSU - and probably OU. Just like ORU.
jwit (5 years ago)
Well said, Jimmy! What is a better body of work, a conference championship of the regular season or a lucky shot at the end of the conference tournament? The regualr season champion of all conferences should receive the automatic bid and NOT HAVE TO PLAY in the conference post season tournament. Then let the tournament champion in as well.
Matt (5 years ago)
Good point, Jimmy. I never have understood why a whole season's work can be wiped out due to a bad final game. I would rather see conference champions play in the NCAA tourney and the post season champs play in the NIT. Would be a just reward for the conference champs.
Mark V (5 years ago)
YES! This is what the NCAA basketball tournament should be: Pitting the champions of each conference against one another. If not for television ratings and cash considerations, this would have been the model all along.
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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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