Quote:
Originally Posted by TomBarndtsTwin
There’s isn’t a perfect system to determining a champion in ANY college sport. Basketball continually expands the field letting in more teams further watering down the field and allowing for ‘Cinderella’ teams to make deep runs in the tourney. And you hardly ever end up with the best 4 teams in college basketball in the Final Four. Heck, in just the last 5 years alone, we’ve seen two 11 seeds make the Final Four. A middling UCLA team that farted around all season in the PAC 12, barely squeezed into the field and then got hot at the right time. We’re they one of the 4 best college basketball teams in the country in 2021? Of course not. Did that matter? Nope.
And what about you guys? As a usual top 1-4 seed, you’ve been knocked out by the likes of Bucknell, Bradley, Northern Iowa, etc. Were they better teams than Kansas? Was their overall body of work for the whole season stronger than yours?
And as far as the college football playoffs and deserving to be there, this is what I know. It’s been going on for 8 years now. 4 times a Big 12 team made the final 4 (Oklahoma). Each time they went one and done. Didn’t matter if they were playing the SEC, ACC or Big 10. They promptly got booted out (usually in blowout fashion) And now your most consistent and strongest team year to year overall is leaving the Big 12 for the SEC (along with Texas), further shifting the balance of power towards the SEC.
The Big 12 is a superior conference in basketball, but they don’t measure up in football. On field results speak for themselves. And no ratings system is gonna convince anyone (besides Big 12 homers) otherwise.
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Of course there's no perfect system, but March Madness/NFL playoffs/etc give all high-level teams a chance. You can't say that there are only 4 high level teams in CFB each year. Therefore, terrible format. Especially given all the inherent biases.
In CBB, you don't lose your chance at a nat'l championship because your star player misses a game in the regular season, or because of a tough early season loss when you weren't playing your best ball. Or because some idiots just don't perceive you to be on the level of a few other teams.
UCLA is actually a better example of my point than yours. Here was a team that finished with a few more losses than the top teams (a couple of which were very fluky losses under wild circumstances) and they were perceived to play in a weak conference, so they were given an 11 seed by a subjective committee. Turned out the Pac-12 was far better than people realized and they dominated the tourney, with a lot of convincing wins over much higher-seeded teams. They were a way underrated conference and they proved it. And the best of them was UCLA. If not for a half-court prayer at the buzzer (vs one of the best teams in recent years), they'd have played for a national title. Anyone who says that UCLA didn't deserve to be there is foolish.
Now let's imagine if CBB used the same system as CFB. Last year's playoff selection would have been Gonzaga, Baylor, Arizona and KU. Only one of them even reached their regional final. Are you telling me that Baylor would have deserved it more than UNC? Baylor was a shell of what they were early on. And by any metric, UNC was playing as well as any team in the nation for the last month of the season. That SHOULD matter a lot more than what happened early in the year. You shouldn't be penalized for peaking at the right time. They mowed through the tourney field and had KU down 15 at halftime of the nat'l title game. Yet, in a 4-team playoff, they would have been about the 30th team considered.
And Duke was probably the most talented team in the country, yet they wouldn't have made the cut either. Gonzaga was an overrated team that was there more due to reputation than achievements. And Arizona was another slightly overrated team that feasted on a fairly weak schedule.
A four team system is a joke. Period. For a thousand reasons.