Thursday, March 4, 2010

Are Conference Tournaments Necessary?

The calendar says March and it's time for March Madness. But for me, it really isn't officially March Madness for about two weeks. That is when the NCAA Tournament begins.

First we must endure numerous conference tournaments dressed up as March Madness. Conference tournaments are beneficial for the conferences, member schools and TV. It's the cash cow philosophy. Yes, the tournaments help determine NCAA bids, but frankly they wouldn't need to declare qualifiers.

Oh, I grant you the smaller conferences might generate some excitement as the tournament winner generally becomes that conference's only NCAA Tournament participant. But frankly, I think the big conference schools go through the motions during league tournaments.

What's really the point of running a full conference regular season and then playing each other in a postseason tournament? As I said before, it's all about the money.

Why not return value to the conference season? Declare the regular season champion of all the conferences the NCAA automatic representative. Then let the rest of the teams fight it out based upon the total season resume.

It sounds too simple and too old fashion. But then truly deserving teams would offer us genuine March Madness.

What do you think about conference tournaments?

No comments: