If college basketball were run like college football...

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College football is way off the radar right now, but with everyone talking brackets and March Madness, I thought this might be a good time to point out the lunacy in the way in which NCAA Div 1A football chooses its champion.

Can you imagine what March would be like if college basketball did away with the postseason tournaments and used something like the BCS? There would have been no conference tournaments, no brackets, no Selection Sunday, no Internet bracket sweepstakes, no office bracket pools, no talk of seedings, no Sweet Sixteen, no Elite Eight, and no Final Four.

Instead, starting last week, a series of meaningless exhibition games would have been played. All across the country, pairs of teams would have gotten together and played basketball games that had absolutely nothing to do with the other exhibition games, and once the winner of each game was determined, the teams and their fans would go home, win or lose, and wait to watch the championship game on television.

Finally, after a week of these exhibition games, we would get down to the real game - the only one that counts. This year it would have been Illinois vs Kansas, the two top-ranked teams according to RPI, for the NCAA title. But controversy would abound. North Carolina, ranked #2 in one poll, would claim they should be playing. Duke, ranked #2 in another poll, would contend they should be playing. Louisville, Kentucky, Wake Forest, Washington, Gonzaga, Boston College, Utah, and Pacific were all Top 25 teams with fewer losses than Kansas, and they could all stake their claim to a place in the championship game.

Wouldn't that be fun?

[Cedric]

I love March Madness but I think college football usually has a better % of crowning a TRUE national champion than college basketball. One 6 game tournament that relies heavily on luck of your seedings and matchups doesn't seem perfect to me.

[Johnny Footstool]

I wouldn't complain about KU in the championship game. But I do agree that there should be a playoff system in College FB.

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I love March Madness but I think college football usually has a better % of crowning a TRUE national champion than college basketball. One 6 game tournament that relies heavily on luck of your seedings and matchups doesn't seem perfect to me.

Your point is well-taken, Cedric. I have an idea that would help basketball be more accurate in determining a champion, and that would be to make the Sweet 16 Tournament double elimination. The first two rounds would remain one-and-out, but then the double elimination would start after the field was reduced to 16. The current format takes 15 games to go from 16 teams down to 1, where this would take an additional 15-16 games (30-31 total) to go from 16 down to 1. It would certainly make for a long tournament, though, and I suspect that most people would subscribe to the "If it ain't broke..." philosophy.

[REDREAD]

I like the "sudden death" aspect of it. Yeah, it sucks when your team goes up against someone who seems to shoot 90% from the 3 point line on that night, but that's what makes it so exciting.

I really don't think the position of the seeding is that big of a deal.. sure, it might screw you out of a Sweet Sixteen, but in general I don't think it really produces a "cheap" champion. Any team that gets to the final Four has to be good.

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I like the "sudden death" aspect of it. Yeah, it sucks when your team goes up against someone who seems to shoot 90% from the 3 point line on that night, but that's what makes it so exciting.

I really don't think the position of the seeding is that big of a deal.. sure, it might screw you out of a Sweet Sixteen, but in general I don't think it really produces a "cheap" champion. Any team that gets to the final Four has to be good.

Well, it would be sudden death once they got to the loser's bracket, right?

I agree with you on the seeding, though. With upsets factored in, very often the seeds are a mess and irrelevant by the time they get to the round of 16. On the other hand, teams play four months of basketball for those seeds.