***2026-27 Mens College Basketball Thread***

What the hell. Krivas holds his hand up doesn't want the ball on the freethrow line. Official tosses it to him, he tosses it back. NEVER seen that before. Not sure if that is delay of game, but what a dumbshit /prima donna move.
 
the whole college basketball world has become too brainwashed with analytics if there was ever serious discussion of 17-16 auburn being in the tournament

If Auburn or Indiana make the tournament, there should be a petition on Monday to contract the tournament back to 64. Cause if there aren’t more deserving teams, then the tournament is too big.
 
Auburn and Miami-Oh both could be in field, it doesn't have to be either/or. That would require dropping at least one of Indiana and SMU.

Matrix isn't the end-all, but the latest update had Miami about 5 slots above Auburn.

Who knows how much adjustment for seed line re: Miami w/ the UMass loss.
 
So more high major schools can get in, and play on TV on Tues and Wed night. Iowa should be one of those 11's this year.
This sounds contradictory. Aren't the eight teams in Dayton the last 8 teams into the tournament? Yet two of them get seeded at 11 if they win. That seems irrational. So 4 of the teams are in the last 8 chosen. But if they win in Dayton, they get seeded at 11, ahead of 20 other teams, while the other two winners in Dayton get seeded at 16. There has to be a logical explanation.
 
This sounds contradictory. Aren't the eight teams in Dayton the last 8 teams into the tournament? Yet two of them get seeded at 11 if they win. That seems irrational. So 4 of the teams are in the last 8 chosen. But if they win in Dayton, they get seeded at 11, ahead of 20 other teams, while the other two winners in Dayton get seeded at 16. There has to be a logical explanation.

Because it's two different groups of teams.

Teams 65-68 (16 seeds) are all automatic qualifiers from terrible conferences (SWAC, MEAC, etc.). They pit those 4 teams against each other so 2 of them can say they won a tournament game before getting rolled by a 1-seed.

The other group is the last 4 at-larges (11 seeds). Those are the ones effectively playing their way in to the "real" bracket.
 
Because it's two different groups of teams.

Teams 65-68 (16 seeds) are all automatic qualifiers from terrible conferences (SWAC, MEAC, etc.). They pit those 4 teams against each other so 2 of them can say they won a tournament game before getting rolled by a 1-seed.

The other group is the last 4 at-larges (11 seeds). Those are the ones effectively playing their way in to the "real" bracket.
And I have a hunch it was structured that way to open the possibility of eventual expansion, like a "test case" (a step set initially when it expanded to 65 in 2001(?), although I think that happened because # of leagues increased so the power teams felt it needed to maintain the then-current at-large slot).

It was almost like a compromise that kept the basic 64 framework w/ lowest auto-bids at 16, and "narrowly miss" at-larges in 11-seed area.

If four more at-large wannabes are added, moving it to 72, it'll shove all the lowest auto bids onto 16 line (so we'll have a First 8 split between 16 and the current at-large lines).

I realize that's probably not the most well-constructed analysis, hopefully it makes some sense.