Spoiler: Not every team is in it
Y’all know how I can’t stand all the changes in the college sports landscape, right? Well, here comes another one that I am not pleased with. The Big Ten offices announced this past week the configuration for the Big Ten Basketball Tournament starting this coming season. As you know, the Big Ten is expanding to a ridiculous eighteen teams with the additions of UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington. Accordingly, the geniuses in the league office had to figure out how to reformat the conference basketball tournament. Their solution, in my humble opinion, is garbage.
The big idea they had was to not have all eighteen conference teams in the tournmanent. Instead, the bottom three teams from the regular season standings will be left out altogether. From there, they are taking the top 15 and holding a tournament that looks almost identical to what we have seen with a 14-team Big Ten, except now there is a third first-round game, which will be the 9 vs. 15 game, with the winner of that advancing to play the 6-seed in the second round. Previously, the 6 vs. 9 game was set for the second day of the tournmament without the 9-seed needing to play on opening day.
Yeah, I think this is wrong to not have every team in the tournament. And for those of you who are saying a tournament could not be structured to include all 18 teams, well, to that I say you are wrong. In fact, there are two different ways it could be done, one with preserving double-byes for the top four teams, and another with a pair of “play-in” games before a standard bracket determines the rest. Here is what the Big Ten could should have done.
1. Double-Bye Version
In this model, there would be a jam-packed first day of the BTT featuring 6 games. Okay, this may require a second venue or maybe they split this up over two days. I know my written description of this may be a little tough to follow, so I have inserted a hand-drawing of what the bracket would look like at the end. On the first day, the pairings would be as follows: 7 vs. 18; 8 vs. 17; 9 vs. 16; 10 vs. 15; 11 vs. 14; and 12 vs. 13. On the second day, there would be two new teams added to the field and four total games. The 5-seed would play the winner of the 12/13 game, and the 6-seed would play the winner of the 11/14 game. In addition, the 9/16 winner would face the 8/17 winner, and the 10/15 winner would face the 7/18 winner. Then, on day three the top four teams would enter the mix. The 1-seed would take on the 8/9/16/17 survivor, the 2-seed would get the 7/10/15/18 survivor, the 3-seed would face the last team standing from the 6/11/14 section, and the 4-seed would play the team from the 5/12/13 section. And, of course, there would be a normal semifinals and finals after that.
Please keep your disparaging comments about my artistic capabilities to a minimum.
2. Play-In Version
The second alternative would look a good deal like a standard regional in the NCAA Tournament, including play-in games. In this case, we would see Big Ten teams 15 and 18 play each other and teams 16 and 17 face off against one another. The 16/17 winner would go on to play the 1-seed and the 15/18 winner would get the 2-seed. From there, the BTT would proceed as a 16-team bracket over 4 days. Similar to the double-bye version, the conference could elect to use two venues or to split this round over two days. If they split it over two days, then the men’s tournament would have the play-in games on Tuesday, the first round on Wednesday and Thursday (maybe let the top four teams play Wednesday?), have the quarterfinals on Friday, and then the medal rounds on the weekend.
I guess I had some spare time today to figure out these models. Let’s hear from you which you like best.