Reason being for me not liking them is the regular season has no weight except for seeding. You throw away whole regular season for a team to get hot for 3-4 games and make big dance. You should make regular season champs more important than NIT bid. Like Murray St, won't make big dance so their 25 game winning streak means nothing. If Furman beats Wofford then 11-22 team makes big dance. Stupid! Make regular season mean more than the **** tournament. Let big 6 have there tournament because your top seeds are already in, but not little guys.

Or let you top 2 seeds play it out. Or just do what IVY league does.

They render the regular season conference games irrelevant and I hate it.  The Ivy League has it right

Well, I don't think they render the regular season moot at all.  They are no different than the big dance itself.  I mean, when NC State was a 7 seed, did they deserve the National Championship .. not based on the Regular Season.

In fact, the seeding (in the CT and the NCAA Tourney) makes it very hard for a Cinderella team to win.  They have to face the hardest team every step of the way forward.  Look at the SEC Tourney and the lowest seed (#14 Missouri) ... they have to face and beat #11 South Carolina, then # 5 Texas A&M, then #4 LSU, then #1 Kentucky in 4 consecutive nights.  You don't think that any team who could run that gauntlet on 4 days in a row does not deserve to be one of the top 64 teams in the nation?

Or the ACC Tourney:  Virginia Tech (the 14 Seed) would need to beat Wake Forrest, followed by Miami, then Notre Dame, then the Duke .. if they do that, they should be in.

Have you called the small conferences and told them you hate how they pick their champion? I'm sure you'd be happy to provide them with the revenue they make from holding their conference tournament as well.

I'd like to see the conference tourney winners receive the top 32 seeds, with the remaining teams getting nothing better than a # 9 seed. Of course, that will never happen - but i'm tired of seeing the # 1 team get a virtual bye for the first round or two...poor MEAC champs get fed to the wolves, or in this case, the Wildcats - every season.
Place more emphasis on Conference Champions.

Posted by acn24 on 3/11/2015 5:56:00 AM (view original):
Have you called the small conferences and told them you hate how they pick their champion? I'm sure you'd be happy to provide them with the revenue they make from holding their conference tournament as well.

That's exactly the issue. I'm sure most conferences would prefer that their best team represent them in the NCAA but the conference doesn't want to give up the money....or the TV exposure.  Last night I watched the Horizon and Summit League championships...first time all season I'd seen those conferences. 

Some conferences have tweaked their CT so there's more advantages for the regular season champion.  The OVC, for instance, gives their #1 and #2 seeds byes into the semi-finals. But, in the case of Murray State, the #1 seed, they still had to play the CT in Nashville, home of Belmont. It was a neutral court but was packed with Belmont fans.

Another conference  reseeds their teams for the semi-finals so that the top seed plays the lowest seed. 

Others give home court advantage to the top seed. That didn't work out so well for St. Francis last night, losing at home to Robert Morris

Being a Xavier fan, I really hated it 20 years ago when Xavier was by far the best team in the little MCC (now known as Horizon) conference. If Xavier would get upset in the conference tourney, it would likely exclude them from the dance (although I believe we won the conference tourney like 7 times in a row, so luckily it was not an issue). Now that they are in the Big East, it is not nearly the same factor, so as a basketball fan, I enjoy watching the conference tourney games where I do not have a dog in the race.
I know the argument could be that these fringe teams would not really content for a national title anyway, and that may be true. However, when you are in a small school, making The Dance almost feels like winning a title...and if there was no conference tourney, a large number of schools would be playing out the string in the 2nd half. Having a chance to make The Dance allows them to still dream a little, and give the coaches a tangible goal for the student/athletes to continue to try to improve.

The Big Sky lets their regular season champion host the entire tournament.  There was concern a couple of weeks ago when Sacramento State was in 1st place. Their gym only seats 1,000 and the league decided it wasn't satisfactory for the tourney.   The conference accepted their alternate site.....Sacramento St. would move a portable floor and 3,000 temporary seats (borrowed from the Kings) into their Wellness Center. 

 Montana ended up winning the conference, eliminating the problem.

The Big Sky I think does it well if you are going to have a conference tournament for a non power 5 because the conference games do mater.  This Weber State fan though has seen too many Damian Lillard years wasted by the conference tournament where he should have been in the dance because his team won the conference.

Don't get me wrong here I love watching the CT and I know the revenue/exposure is great for these small schools, but outside of the BIG 6 it's a one bid pony for these smaller conferences. Like some people suggested setup the 1 seed for achievement not failure.  Make regular season count more and give 1 seed home court advantage, byes into semi final, or realign so there regular season means something and not just a NIT berth.

North Carolina Central, who'd gone 16-0 in the MEAC with an average winning percentage of 16.5 ppg, was upset yesterday by Delaware State and will go to the NIT instead. 

not to be a **** stirrer per se, but realistically how many times has a team lost in a non major conference CT that would have been a legit S16 or better type team? I mean, I get that sometimes the best team from those conferences gets the shaft, but its not like the conference as a whole gets knocked out faster most of the time or anything because of it is it?

I admit that as I've gotten older I watch less and less basketball, so maybe I am completely out of touch - but like al's example above - was NC Central a threat to get out of the first round even without a big upset? Now maybe they can win the NIT...I know that sucks somewhat, but how exciting for the Delaware St kids, right?

Something I never got about polls like these, why do they always no matter who constructs them, seem to have two levels of like a neutral, and ONE level of dislike?

Why not something like
Love
Like
Don't care
Dislike
Hate.

So there is the same gradation of choices on both sides of the middle?