NCAA Basketball: The potential disaster impact of losing autobids in NCAA Tournament

More Undeserving Teams

This one is going to seem like I am grasping at straws because there are undeserving teams that make the NCAA tournament every year, and every single one of them comes from one of the big six conferences. It is hard enough for mid-majors to make the tournament that usually when they get in as an at large their resume is good enough to get in. There are always some questionable choices from the power schools every year.

This is where the low to mid-majors always get a team with a losing record to qualify for the tournament and if you don’t win more games than you lose you should be ineligible comments are going to come. I will listen to those, but the fact of the matter is that only 18 teams have ever made the tournament with a losing record and another six have gotten in with a record of exactly .500. Every one of those teams but 1 was given a 16 seed, and since they won their conference tournament and received the bid within the rules they should qualify.

Currently, the average record for an at-large team sits at 23-8. As we all know not all 23-8 records are created equal. Rutgers has made the tournament the last two seasons with under 20 wins and this year their inclusion in the field was questionable along with Michigan and Memphis. Those were teams who I didn’t feel did enough throughout the regular season to be included. Michigan as we all know went on the run.

Keep in mind that a mid-major auto bids won four games in the first round and three schools in Chattanooga, Colgate, and Akron had late leads against a power school only to finally lose. Do we all want that to go away?  Eliminating the auto bid means giving more teams with questionable resumes an at-large bid into the tournament which means a team like 2017-2018 Nebraska with their 22 wins but not many of that much quality would be let into the tournament. The bad bids would be double and maybe even triple given which teams would be eliminated without the auto bids.

While we may all know the 1991 16-14 Villanova squad or the 2020-2021 15-13 Michigan State squad because they have a name are, they worthy of a tournament bid with that resume or that record?  That is a question we should all get answers to soon enough but if this plan comes to action the 68-team tournament is going to be next and it will likely be a 16 or 8-team tournament just like the football playoffs, which do not come anywhere close to crowing a true champion.