Todd’s Take: Big Ten Tournament Format Is Least Of Postseason Basketball Worries

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Back in early February, Hoosiers On SI began doing a weekly Big Ten Tournament update. We thought it would be a good reference point for fans as conference tournament time approached.

What I should have known is that most fans don’t think much about conference tournaments until the tournament is imminent. Among other things, many fans asked why we were doing a tournament tracker when every school makes the tournament anyway.

A-ha! But this year was different! Both the men and women’s Big Ten Tournaments featured only 15 of the 18 member schools. When we started doing the tracker, Indiana’s men’s basketball team was struggling mightily, and there was an outside chance it might miss the conference tournament.

Most fans shrugged, and as it turned out, Indiana righted itself enough to erase that concern. But with the Big Ten Tournament starting Wednesday, people are finally noticing not every Big Ten team is there.

It became a kind of theme last weekend during some broadcasts and certainly in social media spaces. The Big Ten was criticized for not giving every team a chance. Penn State coach Mike Rhoades – whose Nittany Lions missed the tournament – colorfully referred to the new format as “horse shit.”

Believe me, folks, the Big Ten Tournament format is the least of our worries as basketball fans right now. There are bigger fish to fry when it comes to what’s wrong with the college basketball postseason.

But before I get to that, let’s address the not-all-comers Big Ten Tournament – I’m completely fine with it.

For one thing, the Big Ten has plenty of company. The ACC adopted the same format this season. Mid-major leagues, like the Ivy and the Mid-American Conference, to name just two, don’t include every school. It’s not a crime against humanity to leave the dregs out.

As far as the fairness factor? If you can’t make it out of the bottom three in a 20-game league schedule, you really have no room to argue much of anything as far as inclusion is concerned. At this level, everyone does not get a reward just for participating.

One side-effect of the new format I liked was how it created some intrigue at the bottom of the Big Ten standings. As a fan of English soccer, I appreciated the kind of relegation vibe of having teams trying to avoid the bottom three. The Big Ten game I watched Sunday was Iowa-Nebraska as it was a winner-take-all game to get in the Big Ten Tournament. It’s unlikely I would have watched it otherwise.

Finally, from purely an aesthetic point of view, do you really need to see Washington play basketball again this season? Is your enjoyment of the conference tournament adversely affected by the absence of Penn State and Nebraska? Unless you’re a fan of those teams, they won’t be missed by anyone else.

So I’m fine with the way the Big Ten Tournament is structured. I’d have included 16 teams to create a fourth game on day one, but that’s a very minor quibble in the grand scheme.

My ire is saved for the NCAA Tournament and the consolation tournaments that will take place later in March. I mean … what are we doing here?

Selection criteria for the NCAA Tournament has evolved over time, but what it’s coalesced into now is a mess.

Have you looked at the resumes of some of the bubble teams? I have, and mediocre doesn’t begin to describe some of these teams. Indiana, with four Quad 1 wins, looks impressive compared to Xavier (2-8 Quad 1), North Carolina (1-11 Quad 1), SMU (0-4 Quad 1) and a few others.

Not all of these teams are going to make it, but that they’re in the conversation at all is very telling. Meanwhile, mid-major teams that have far better records pull their hair out as they’re told they didn’t play anybody when the teams they need to play to refuse to play them. Would you rather see a flat North Carolina team or an up-and-comer underdog like UC San Diego?

The quad system, well meaning in theory though it is, contributes to the notion of mediocrity.

Truth be told? There’s always been mediocre teams in the field, but we didn’t have the data to show it. When you’re below .250 against the most competitive teams in the land, how does it make any sense to then choose those same teams that have proven that they can’t compete against their most competitive peers for a tournament in which you’re expected to compete against the best of the best?

Data is misused. I love Kenpom and Barttorvik.com. They do amazing work, and their predictive elements are often hauntingly accurate. But I don’t want their data picking teams based on what they might do instead of what they have done. Predictive metrics should help with seeding, not with selecting.

Ohio State is still a bubble team partly because their analytics are friendly, but when does the good old win-loss record count for something? The Buckeyes are 17-14 – they have NIT written all over them.

Or it would normally mean a NIT bid. Not this year. If fans don’t pay attention to the conference tournament, you can bet your savings that they don’t care about the consolation tournaments until the day the pairings are announced.

Someone (cough, Fox Network) got the bright idea that we needed two of these tournaments. The College Basketball Crown will take place in Las Vegas after the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 weekend, and the Big Ten will send its also-rans there.

The term “ill-conceived” was invented for things like the CBC. For one thing, it starts one week after the transfer portal opens. So it’s conceivable some teams won’t have a full complement of players.

It also begins after also-ran teams that want to make a coaching change would most likely have done so. If Indiana has to settle for the CBC, is Mike Woodson going to coach in it? Why would he want to? Why would Indiana want him to?

No one has provided a definitive answer on it, but unlike the NIT, teams supposedly can’t opt out. Fox wants its partner leagues – the Big 10, Big 12 and Big East – to be fully committed.

Who was asking for NIT 2.0? Were you? I wasn’t. I’d be all for the expansion of the NCAA Tournament to swallow up both tournaments before opting for this fiasco.

I get the TV rationale for it – Fox schools were playing in the NIT, an ESPN property – but my goodness, the ratings can’t be that great for either tournament to start what amounts to a NIT civil war.

So, you see, the Big Ten Tournament having 15 out of 18 teams is but a minor quibble in a college basketball world with bigger beefs to concern oneself with.

The landscape that college basketball has created for itself doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it doesn’t really reflect any notion of competitive fair play. Quaint notions when the almighty dollar is the one and only non-negotiable when it comes to how the sport is run.

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