EASTERN TIME

As much as I love women's CBB, first round games are almost impossible to watch. There is such a signficiant disparity between the higher and lower seeds. Better seeds win almost every game by double digits.

You could make a strong argument the women's tournament should be 32 teams.

SFA with an 8 point lead on GaTech with 8 minutes to go and have scored 2 points since. Now tied 48-all with 27 seconds.

My niece just texted Kiss My Axe

Want a sneak preview?
9 pm CT tonight

The better seeds have won every.................single.........................game today. Wash St, #9 seed, is the last hope of a weaker seed winning, but they now trail #8 seed USF 52-47 with 7 minutes to go in the game. So it looks like every better seed will win today.

DanaDane said:

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The better seeds have won every.................single.........................game today. Wash St, #9 seed, is the last hope of a weaker seed winning, but they now trail #8 seed USF 52-47 with 7 minutes to go in the game. So it looks like every better seed will win today.

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Top seeds go 16-0 today. 13 of 16 games decided by double digits.

Today's games were unwatchable.

And that's why TV revenue and ratings aren't even in the same ballpark.

There was definitely some that were improperly seeded like ok state. #8 Ok st is rewarded after blowing out their 9 seed opponent by getting to go against #1 overall Stanford.

txrangers said:

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Today's games were unwatchable.

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Hi txrangers, I respectfully disagree with you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I took yesterday off to enjoy Day 1 of WBB from 1 pm-11 pm. Best sports viewing day for me in over a year.

I started with Middle Tennessee to see former Lady Bear Nina Davis (MTSU assistant coach). I enjoyed watching MTSU's Anastasia Hayes score repeatedly against her former Tennessee team during the first half. I was interested in watching former Longhorn Rellah Boothe.

The Baylor game was awesome. We had the opportunity to see 91 minutes of Baylor bench play. I especially enjoyed the 20 minutes of Jordyn Oliver. We followed Jordyn's early commitment to Baylor ... and it is wonderful to see her blossom in her sophomore year.

I had Texas Ranger season tickets for years. One of my friends that went to the games with me viewed the game differently. He enjoyed detaching from his first-responder job by enjoying the fresh air; anticipating the next Rangers home run and animating himself in an attempt to catch the TV cameraman's eye. Simultaneously, I would enjoy the game by watching the infielders shift with every new batter. I brought a small radio with an earplug to hear the PXP thru professional eyes as I enjoyed the game live. We both left the game having a wonderful time.

DanaDane said:

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You could make a strong argument the women's tournament should be 32 teams.

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I initially agreed, but then on second thought, I am thinking that this would not solve anything and would only hurt teams that are in the good-but-not-great category.

The reason is that the biggest disparity is between the highest seeds and the low seeds from mid-major conferences. Assuming we want to keep the automatic qualification for one team from every conference, then cutting the field in half would still result in those kinds of teams getting blown out by the top 10 teams. It would not be the former that get cut out of the tournament; it would be the power 5 teams that don't win their conferences - including ranked teams. So Utah Valley and Jackson State still get in, but Texas and West Virginia do not. The major disparity problem doesn't get solved, and teams that actually have a reasonable chance of making a deep run do not play.

Now, we could completely rethink the conference and replace it with an entirely new model. I don't know exactly how that would work. Just that in its current conception, reducing the field would not accomplish much.

You make some great points.

Eliminating the auto qualifiers is basically the gist of the argument I'm talking about (although I didn't specifically state) when I say there's an argument that could be made to make the tournament 32. There's just too big of a disparity between the haves and the have nots in women's basketball and there's 30+ years of data that now supports this. There's rarely a Cinderella double digit seed story that even makes it to the Sweet 16 in the women's game, and the double digit seeds referenced are typically those mid-major auto qualifiers. 90+% have been eliminated in the first or second rounds over 30 years. And, sadly, the games usually aren't even close to being competitive. Moreover, it damages the reputation of top tier schools who play good sound basketball and have strong programs because you have viewers tuning in for the first time in many instances to the women's game (since not as many women's regular season games are televised nationally) and they see absolutely putrid basketball being played in some of these games. They flip the channel and just assume all of women's basketball looks this bad, when you and I both know it doesn't.

I get that it's nice to reward the young ladies from smaller schools who have worked hard and achieved, but in the overwhelming majority of the cases they're being set up in an easy-to-see mismatch that's almost embarassing by the time the final buzzer sounds and they've lost by 20-50 points.

Here's why I would still hesitate to dispense with the automatic qualification. I think it would effectively preclude any mid-major team from ever making the tournament again, unless they already have built up a national reputation (in other words, UConn). You start with the perception that those conferences are weak, so there is very little attention given to them from the beginning of the season. We'd like to believe the committee would not be influenced by that, but the reality is there are only so many hours in the day to watch all of the games which have been played. So when we reach the time to set the tournament field, mid-major teams would not be seriously considered (often-times, rightfully so, but I think a few deserving teams get left by the wayside without receiving due consideration).

This then turns into a feedback loop. Mid-major teams have almost no shot at being in the tournament, so talented players will go elsewhere (or start there and transfer at the first opportunity) so they have a realistic chance of making the tourney. Which effectively means that those mid-major teams are doomed to stay weak, and the level of competition becomes even more stratified than it already is. Once the tournament starts, then you don't have the wide disparity so readily apparent, but it certainly exists.

I think there's an obvious counter-argument to everything I'm saying: the system is already heavily slanted in favor of the rich getting richer. Look no further than who the relaxed transfer rules benefit. Yeah, I get it, this problem is not going to be solved soon. My thinking though, is that I would want the mid-majors to at least have a fighting chance. Without that, I don't see how a small program ever becomes relevant again, and I do not see that eventuality as good for the sport.

Truthfully, I'm not sure how I would solve it. All I can say is I would want some mechanism to for mid-major teams to have a meaningful chance to play in the tournament. If the AQ method is doing more harm than good, then eliminate it, but do replace it with something.

My suggestion would be to take what some of the larger conferences do in their tournaments, but on a larger scale. Give the top 32 teams a bye for the first round, and the top 16 teams a double bye through 2 rounds. Have the lowest 16 auto qualifiers play the lowest at-large bids or something like that. That gives everyone a spot, and gives the Jackson States of the world a chance to actually win a game. The second round, bring in the next 16 teams. Only in the third round would the top 16 teams actually play. This would make for more competitive games the first weekend, and eliminate a bunch of inevitable blowouts.