I’m just discovering the Better Bracket, and I’m absolutely loving it, thanks Eli and David!
My wife and I had discussed something similar about having to be at least .500 in conference, since this is supposed to be about earning your way in to the tournament.
We debated adding a second method, which would be reaching a certain threshold in your conference tournament, to mirror the conference tourney auto-bids. Something like having to finish top-quarter in your conference tourney, “rounded up”, maybe? Rounded up here meaning in a twelve team conference, top-quarter would be a third place finish, which isn’t typically played, so we’d round up to a top-four semi-final appearance. This would of course still only act as a minimum threshold, we thought the focus should still be on quality of your overall resume.
Would be curious what your thoughts are on something like that! Regardless, this was a good read, and I especially loved the lengthy rant about Texas.
The Texas rant was my favorite thing I've written in a while, so I'm glad someone else found joy in it.
I'm giggling thinking of the implications your criteria would have as it relates to conference tournament format. I have to imagine it would result in many of the upper mid-major leagues adopting the WCC-esque double-ladder format so its best teams either automatically reach the semifinals or only have to win one game to do so.
Edit: Never mind, just read the rest of your reply chain with David. So making it to the semis could save you if you had an otherwise unqualifying year. Kinda like this year's Delaware (though obviously they would have been nowhere close)?
This is a very intriguing idea to me because of the down-line implications. It’s rare, but sometimes top low-major seeds get bounced early and would then wind up on the outside even if the metrics may have them close.
Love this. Might have to sketch out a concept wherein top-quarter performances play to advantage.
Let’s take the SEC - are you saying just the top four would go in your example? Not against it, but I do wonder how far it goes.
Sorry I was unclear, we were thinking of this as an alternative option! So you’d have to be >.500 in conference OR make it to your conference semis (in most cases). We were thinking of this as a way to account for teams that have drastically improved as the season has gone on, or had untimely injuries in conference play, to still have a viable path.
Our concern was that you may dilute the effects of the >.500 in conference play condition TOO much, but it intrigued us nonetheless.
I’m just discovering the Better Bracket, and I’m absolutely loving it, thanks Eli and David!
My wife and I had discussed something similar about having to be at least .500 in conference, since this is supposed to be about earning your way in to the tournament.
We debated adding a second method, which would be reaching a certain threshold in your conference tournament, to mirror the conference tourney auto-bids. Something like having to finish top-quarter in your conference tourney, “rounded up”, maybe? Rounded up here meaning in a twelve team conference, top-quarter would be a third place finish, which isn’t typically played, so we’d round up to a top-four semi-final appearance. This would of course still only act as a minimum threshold, we thought the focus should still be on quality of your overall resume.
Would be curious what your thoughts are on something like that! Regardless, this was a good read, and I especially loved the lengthy rant about Texas.
The Texas rant was my favorite thing I've written in a while, so I'm glad someone else found joy in it.
I'm giggling thinking of the implications your criteria would have as it relates to conference tournament format. I have to imagine it would result in many of the upper mid-major leagues adopting the WCC-esque double-ladder format so its best teams either automatically reach the semifinals or only have to win one game to do so.
Edit: Never mind, just read the rest of your reply chain with David. So making it to the semis could save you if you had an otherwise unqualifying year. Kinda like this year's Delaware (though obviously they would have been nowhere close)?
This is a very intriguing idea to me because of the down-line implications. It’s rare, but sometimes top low-major seeds get bounced early and would then wind up on the outside even if the metrics may have them close.
Love this. Might have to sketch out a concept wherein top-quarter performances play to advantage.
Let’s take the SEC - are you saying just the top four would go in your example? Not against it, but I do wonder how far it goes.
Sorry I was unclear, we were thinking of this as an alternative option! So you’d have to be >.500 in conference OR make it to your conference semis (in most cases). We were thinking of this as a way to account for teams that have drastically improved as the season has gone on, or had untimely injuries in conference play, to still have a viable path.
Our concern was that you may dilute the effects of the >.500 in conference play condition TOO much, but it intrigued us nonetheless.
You’re all good!! That’s on me just needing to clarify what you were saying. I like it, though - let teams have their run if it’s there.