[onlooker]

Coppin State 16-20 (MEAC)



This is the only bad thing about automatic bids by winning your conference tournament. You have the chance of a team like this getting in. This just kills it for a team on the bubble that is way more deserving of a berth.

How does everyone feel about this?

[robmpink]

It sucks for a bubble team, but I like the concept. It give teams one last hope if they are having a dismal season.

[andrewaxia]

Hope they are ready to play Tuesday in Dayton :-)

[rjt721]

Coppin State 16-20 (MEAC)



This is the only bad thing about automatic bids by winning your conference tournament. You have the chance of a team like this getting in. This just kills it for a team on the bubble that is way more deserving of a berth.

How does everyone feel about this?

How's this the bad thing about conference tournaments? If Coppin State didn't win tonight, Morgan State would have gotten the automatic bid from the MEAC, and it's not like they were an at-large candidate. Why not reward teams from lesser known conferences, rather than rewarding teams like Virginia Tech, who finished 9-7 in a ridiculously overrated ACC this season, as well as doing nothing in their non-conference schedule? Teams from major conferences that are on the bubble have no beef at all IMO. Finish better than the middle of your conference and you don't have to worry about getting left out of the dance.

[bigboydan]

Reminds me of the amazing run that Florida International had back in the late 90's. They were basically in the same type of situation, and won their conference tournament.

[dwaechte]

Absolutely nothing wrong with this. If a team pulls it together long enough to win their conference tourney, they should get the pass. Think about what this means to those kids who truly earned it when it mattered.

I hate bubble teams bitching about not getting in. If you want in, make a damn case for it. Absolutely no team should be able to bitch this year after team after team on the bubble absolutely blew it down the stretch.

[dwaechte]

Oh yeah, and as rjt pointed out, this particular case does nothing to harm bubble teams, only Morgan St. and everyone else they beat.

[rjt721]

It sucks for a bubble team, but I like the concept. It give teams one last hope if they are having a dismal season.

How does it suck for a bubble team? The fact Coppin State lost 20 is irrelevant - the MEAC was getting one bid regardless of who won the conference tourney, so it's not at all a case of Coppin taking a spot from a potential bubble team.

[OLGC_Slayer]

If the last 3 days are any indication, they will probably make it to the Sweet Sixteen.

[turnip]

This is why I support the play-in game, and more play-in games in the future. In my opinion this is really like a 48 team tournament, but instead of giving the top 4 seeds byes, they pair them with conference champions of weak conferences..and of course it creates march madness as we know it.

[Illusion]

Hope they are ready to play Tuesday in Dayton :-)

Exactly, but who do they play? There are several other teams out there worthy of the play in game.

[turnip]

The two worst schools are Coppin St. and Miss. Valley St., but they won't both be in the play-in game because they're both historically black schools. One of them will play Mount St. Mary's, or possibly the winner of tomorrow's Southland championship.

[Doc JS]

Coppin State 16-20 (MEAC)



This is the only bad thing about automatic bids by winning your conference tournament. You have the chance of a team like this getting in. This just kills it for a team on the bubble that is way more deserving of a berth.

How does everyone feel about this?

Looker, since the MEAC champion gets an automatic and no one else in the MEAC is tournament worthy, I don't see how Coppin State knocks a bubble team from the dance. Someone from the MEAC was going to the tournament whether it's Coppin or the MEAC's #1 seed doesn't really matter since the conference was only getting one bid anyway.

Now, it's perfectly OK to not agree with the automatic qualifier system. I think we all agree that the 65 teams that make the tournament are NOT the 65 best teams in college basketball. The automatic qualifiers in the mid-majors and below see to that.

As far as feeling sorry for the bubble teams, I don't. If they'd taken care of their business during the regular season, they wouldn't be on the bubble now. I really don't want to watch ESPN interview Jim Boeheim on Sunday night explaining why his Syracuse Orangemen really deserved to be in the tournament. Uh, Jim...maybe if you guys had shown up and won a round or two in the Big East tournament, you'd have an argument...but you didn't!

[LLXC]

Would only matter if MEAC had a stud team that was going to the tournament regardless, which they did not. Doesn't hurt/help bubble teams.

[jackpot269]

64 teams or i guess 65 have a chance to be national champs thats a lot of teams with only a few weeks left in the season. How many football teams have that chance at the end of season?Just saying!!

[onlooker]

I must of worded it wrong, or it was read wrong.

I meant if there was no automatic bids for conference tourney champs, then the better teams that sit on the bubble would have a better chance. I didn't mean that the MEAC would get more then one in.

I just hate seeing teams under .500 making it in. Especially a team that lost 20 games. I thought 20 had to be in the winning column to get in.

It was more of a rant, then wanting the format changed.

[jackpot269]

I must of worded it wrong, or it was read wrong.

I meant if there was no automatic bids for conference tourney champs, then the better teams that sit on the bubble would have a better chance. I didn't mean that the MEAC would get more then one in.

I just hate seeing teams under .500 making it in. Especially a team that lost 20 games. I thought 20 had to be in the winning column to get in.

It was more of a rant, then wanting the format changed.

I agree that trying to get the best 64 teams in is not a bad idea but it is good for the smaller schools to get those bids also it could very well be to hi lite of there career!!

[Red_Sux]

Coppin State 16-20 (MEAC)



This is the only bad thing about automatic bids by winning your conference tournament. You have the chance of a team like this getting in. This just kills it for a team on the bubble that is way more deserving of a berth.

How does everyone feel about this?

ml the fav againt this team in the first round?

[LLXC]

Their schedule was harder than any other team in their conference...whoever decides for Coppin St. chose to do so because of the $ it brings in...

It shouldn't matter what their record is - you win the conference tourny and you should be in. I'm fine with that rule as long as the tourny is played on a neutral court.

[r2d2]

I think the rule should be that only teams with records of .500 and above can enter conference championship tournaments. This would mean that some tournaments would be shorter than others but it would also eliminate teams that don't deserve a bid from getting in.

EXCELLENT POINT. My thoughts exactly. the conf tourneys need to be more strict on who gets in. this would weed out the trash

[matskralc]

How "strict" is strict enough? Coppin State was the 7 seed in their conference tournament. They went 7-9 in conference and posted 20 losses because they got crushed in non-conference play (Xavier, Dayton, Ohio St, Arizona St, Indiana, Marquette)

What fun is a conference tourney of only 4 or 6 teams? Why should the non-conference record be relevant to who gets to be in a conference tournament?

[jjgold]

Does not matter these teams have no shot anyway, after the 1st 10 teams or so no one has a shot

[dwaechte]

I think the rule should be that only teams with records of .500 and above can enter conference championship tournaments. This would mean that some tournaments would be shorter than others but it would also eliminate teams that don't deserve a bid from getting in.

Orrr, the above .500 teams could actually take care of business and beat the sub .500 team.

Saying that there should be a limit doesnt make much sense in my opinion. You may as well give the bid to the regular season champ. If you're going to use the philosophy of even having a tourney in the first place, which means you want the bid decided by who's playing best at the time, there's no reason to not include every team.