BEARZ77 wrote:It amazes me that anybody at our level places much value or has hopes for significant movement based on conference realignment anymore. I thought yesterday was a defining moment that has been downplayed/overlooked in terms of a statement about the true direction of D-1 major sports. There was much debate about the 4th FBS playoff spot and who it should be, given the three major contestants were all pretty flawed. That Alabama, a team that didn't win it's division, didn't win a conference Championship game, and had no top 15 wins was chosen seems to have been accepted readily. Why this is a portent of the future is that you have an undefeated UCF team that won a top 6 conference title, won a conference championship game and was never in the conversation. They can call all the teams outside the Big 5 whatever they want, but it's clear they're not really D-1 FBS level because they have no way and never will have a way to play for the national Championship no matter what. This year was the perfect chance to see what would happen, and there it was.
I don't think it will be too far in the future when the NCAA does away with automatic qualifiers in basketball so that they no longer have to auto include teams from the lower 20+ conferences to the NCAA Tourney. A few mids might get an invite, but just as we see in football, the club will have exclusivity rules that make it very difficult. They don't really mind the other sports and basically need mids for things like baseball and most women's sports, but in the only two sports where the money is huge, they want it all and will get what they want.
The Big East in basketball and probably a few fringe teams in other conferences, Gonzaga etc, will find ways into the selection process probably by a last realignment move that defines the haves and have nots, but if you aren't someone who is exclusively basketball like Big East schools, Gonzaga, WSU and a few others, you ain't gotta chance. JMO
If that truly happens and the mid and low major schools get squeezed out - that will be a sad day. To me that's a lot of what makes the tournament (big dance) so special is seeing those teams go against and sometimes beat the power schools. How boring if it's all power 5 schools. I think that would be a big mistake. But what do I know?