FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Here's hoping that Dukie -- the school that loves to throw their own players under the legal bus --fails to make it to the tourney next year and the years after and the team hits a dark period. Even better if it's found that Coach K engaged in recruiting violations.

There is no doubt that the ACC is a better league than say....the CAA.

that being said- if they do get their way & conference strength is added-
they should als make it MANDATORY that you have a WINNING record in your conference.....

if you can't be over .500 in your conference- you are at best in the bottom half-
If you can't beat teams in your own conference, why do I need to see you in the tourney? Why should bottom feeders- or middle feeders- be rewarded?

You should NOT rate the teams based on the conference they play in. Each individual team needs to be compared against the other teams in consideration for at large bids. Not the conferences ranked against each other.

I agree you should be required to have a winning record against conference opponents. I have seeing 7-9 or 8-10 teams making the NCAA Tourney when teams win their conference regular season and miss the NCAA's because they get upset in their conference tourney.

Personally I think they should get rid of the NCAA bid to the conference tourney champions and give it to the regular season champ. A conference tourney champ could win 3 or 4 games despite being terrible all season, while a team could have only 1 or 2 conference losses and miss the NCAA's because they got beat at the wrong time.

A loss should be counted as just that A LOSS. Right now a loss in the first game of conference play isn't the same as a loss in the conference tourney.

Here is a novel concept: If the tournament is about finding the best team in the country, should't they select the best 64 (or however many) teams? throw the automatic bids out... for everyone.

Throwing auto bids out? That's ridiculous. Why even play the season? Why even have conferences, why not then just have a free for all? That's not ever going to happen, and it shouldn't.

As for losses being losses, that's ridiculous. I went to school in a mid major conference, and even I know that my school getting 3 or 4 conference losses wasn't the same as an ACC school getting 3 or 4 losses. If 8 or 9 of the top 64 teams are in the ACC, and you play a 16 game conference schedule, do the math: if you're the 8th or 9th best team in that conference, you could easily have a 8-8, 7-9 or even 6-10(if you play some of those schools twice) record in the conference. Doesn't mean you're not as good as say Butler or St. Marys, which played a mostly cupcake schedule.

Throw out auto bids? That's ridiculous. Why even play the season then, why even have conferences? That's stupid, and would make the NCAA selection process more like the BCS system in football - an utter mess. It would never happen, nor should it.

And a loss isn't necessarily a loss, not when you're a major conference member versus a mid major. I went to a mid major school, and even I realized that 3 or 4 losses by my school wasn't the same as 3 or 4 losses in the ACC.

Do the math: if 8 or 9 of the top 64 schools are in the ACC, and there's a 16 game conference schedule, and you're the 8th or 9th best, you could easily have a 8-8, 7-9, even 6-10(if you play some of those schools twice) record in conference play, and you wouldn't be ranked, but you could still be better than a Butler or St. Marys, who played a cupcake schedule.

I'm not in favor of letting schools in simply based on name, the way Kentucky got in when Az State didn't. But both of those schools were from the weaker major conferences. The Big East and the ACC are the premier leagues for a reason, and at least 6 teams should come from both almost every year.

Whoops, didn't mean to post twice.

The Big Ten was a very weak conference. You need to look at the over-all work of each team in the conference.

1) You should be over .500 in the conference to at least be eligible to get an at-large bid.

2) The automatic bid should be to the conference REGULAR season champion, not the tourney champion.


When it comes to selection of at-large teams, The overall work of the opponents is included in the selection process. The top conferences have better teams in them, meaning you have played better opponents. You get credit for that in the RPI as the season goes on.

When it came to the selections for the 2008 tourney, I really saw very few problems with the teams left out.

Which ACC team deserved to be in and who should have been left out so that team could get in?

Left Out: Virginia Tech

They lost to Penn St (a BAD Big Ten team), to Richmond (a mid-pack A-10 team) as well as some decent mid-major schools. They got beat in the conference by NC State and Georgia Tech, teams that didn't perform that well in the conference.

Who should have been left out so this ACC Power could make the tourney?

heard it all now. wonder if would they trade Duke's ridiculously high seedings for more bids?

heard it all now. wonder if would they trade Duke's ridiculously high seedings for more bids?

Maybe the ACC coaches should have taken a closer look at how their conference got embarrassed in the tournament last year before they complained about how many teams they got in.

PatrickD is right. ACC was overrated last year. North Carolina was the only good team and they got spanked once they left thier state and fans. after playing there for 4 games. ACC coaches quit crying.

Is Swofford starting to feel guilty about shafting the bottom half of the ACC?

Expanding the ACC has been bad for both football and basketball. Bring back the old Southern Conference.

adding more conference games will HURT seeding chances because ACC teams will just be beating up on each other -- what they need to do is schedule more games against the other three 'big' conferences so that more ACC teams can get some 'quality' wins -- like the ACC-BigTen challenge -- I like Duke and NC, but I wonder how the other ACC teams would do if they played more games against the Pac-10 or BigEast

ACC got exactly what it deserved last year. UNC was good, but if Duke was the second best team in that conference then that should be a good signal that the conference was down.

ACC football stinks and basketball is not much better. WVU absolutely crushed Duke. WVU was middle pack BIG EAST and Duke was the #2 ACC team . . . give me a break. The -ball side is playing like the football side - POORLY. Oh, did I mention how stinky I think the ACC football side is?

The ACC is terrible. For years, there have only been two really good teams, Duke and UNC. The rest of the conference is mediocre. The NCAA already takes conference strnght into account. Strength of schedule is a factor in the RPI. The ACC coaches should stop whining.