The conference tournaments in the smaller “one-bid” leagues are about to start, and so you’re naturally looking at the brackets.
Which team is the number one seed?
Where’s the sleeper in the bracket?
Which matchups in a potential semifinal or final could be thorny for the higher-seeded teams?
Those questions will be explored over the course of the week here at The Student Section, but for now, let’s consider how these tournaments are arranged in the first place. This piece is not a criticism of the conferences that fail to meet a given standard; it marks an attempt to praise the one-bid conferences that get it right when scheduling their tournaments.
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Before discussing the one-bid leagues, let’s look at different kinds of conferences.
The Missouri Valley Conference is sometimes a one-bid league, but it is often good enough to get two teams into the NCAA tournament, specifically as at-large teams. Such is the case this season, as both Wichita State and Northern Iowa will be safely in the field of 68 even if they fail to win the tournament. Heck, the Shockers and Panthers could lose in the quarterfinals and still not have the slightest worry in the world.
When a conference is contentious to the point that it expects to get multiple teams into the NCAAs (the West Coast Conference, with BYU joining Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, is another such example), it makes more sense to create a neutral-site tournament as a magnet for fans of all teams to flock to. A neutral-site tournament, for any conference that holds itself in high regard, represents an attractive ticket for fans.
However, the real reason why a neutral-site tournament makes sense for the comparatively stronger conferences is as follows: The regular-season champion — by not having to win the conference tournament to make the NCAAs — is not saddled with do-or-die pressure. Accordingly, its NCAA tournament fate is not being endangered in the event of a quarterfinal loss. Sure, that regular-season champion might lose two seed lines, but it will still get in.
If you’re making the Big Dance from the Missouri Valley, you’re doing really well, regardless of seed. The Valley has a good thing going with “Arch Madness,” its very popular annual party in St. Louis. A neutral-site tournament works for that and other leagues with similar or greater degrees of heft. Wichita State and Northern Iowa don’t need a tournament win to gain safe passage into the Big Dance. Therefore, they’re not being severely disadvantaged as programs.
This discussion turns, however, when focusing on the conferences that are always going to bring just one team into the NCAA tournament.
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For a one-bid conference, the two months of regular-season play merely serve as a prelude to the week which really matters.
The value of the regular season in one-bid conferences is found in two realities: First, a higher seeding is supposed to mean a more favorable bracket path in the conference tournament. Second, winning the regular season title secures an automatic bid in the NIT if the conference tournament is lost. However, teams build their hopes — and their seasons — around making the Big Dance, not the little one. Since there’s no hope for these conference champions of making the NCAAs if they fail to win their conference tournaments, they should be afforded the protection of getting home-court advantage for their games. They should also be given the chance to rest between games.
It’s a very basic concept: If two months of labor mean anything, that high seed should lead to as many advantages as realistically possible.
The neutral-site tournament, therefore, punishes the regular-season champions in one-bid leagues. Being a top seed leads to a better draw, but other than that, the benefits can be few and far between. Some conferences recognize that being a top seed should mean more than just a more beatable set of opponents, and that’s what we’re here to praise:
North Florida has never made an NCAA tournament. The Ospreys would desperately love to crash the party in a couple weeks. The Atlantic Sun Conference has made it easier for UNF to put on its Dancing shoes. The A-Sun gives home-court advantage to higher seeds in each stage of its tournament. North Florida will have to win three A-Sun tournament games, but they’ll all be at home. That seems fair and appropriate… because it is.
Similarly, the America East Conference also routes all of its tournament games through the campus sites of higher seeds. Both the A-Sun and America East also install days off between games, so that higher seeds are appropriately rested and can re-charge for their next tournament contest. These two leagues get it right.
So does the Horizon League, but with a few twists.
The Horizon League might have the most enlightened approach of all. It places a premium on being the regular-season champion, because it gives the top two seeds a bye into the semifinals while putting those semifinals in the home building of the regular-season champion. Being a 2 seed offers an extra day of rest and a reduced workload, but that 2 seed has to play in a neutral-court environment. The top seed gets a true home game.
The other aspect of the Horizon League’s setup which is particularly wise is that the semifinal bye for the top two seeds is accompanied by a tournament schedule in which the lower seeds have to play second-round games the day before. In this year’s Horizon League bracket, for instance, you can see that the second round is held at the site of the top seed on March 6 (Friday). Third-seeded Oakland and fourth-seeded Cleveland State will play first-round winners in those games. The very next day, Oakland and Cleveland State (or their opponents) will have to face the top two seeds, No. 2 Green Bay and No. 1 Valparaiso. The lower seeds will be tired, while the higher seeds will be fresh. It is clear that the Horizon League recognizes the value of a top seed. That’s how a conference should honor two months of work.
Assuming Valparaiso holds serve in the semis, it will host the title game as the highest remaining seed. If the Crusaders lose, though, Green Bay would then be able to host the title game should it win. The tournament format does recognize Green Bay’s achievement as a second-place team, but it does so in proper proportion to what Valpo achieved as the regular-season champion.
Three cheers to the Atlantic Sun, America East, and especially the Horizon League. These single-bid conferences have arranged their tournaments in ways that offer their champions a just reward for work done in January and February. March is a little less maddening — for all the right reasons — when a tournament bracket is constructed with a little more thoughtfulness.
