I’m with you on giving the top teams more byes, but I actually like the tourney having only the top 8. I’d enjoy seeing something like this:

Tuesday -
Game 1: 5 v 8
Game 2: 6 v 7

Thursday -
Game 3: 4 v (Game 1 winner)
Game 4: 3 v (Game 2 winner)

Friday -
Game 5: 1 v (Game 3 winner)
Game 6: 2 v (Game 4 winner)

Saturday - Championship

Double byes for top 2 seeds, single byes for 3 and 4. Makes the regular season more important both for qualifying and for seeding, without being too insane (see 2025 Sun Belt bracket).

*Edit: and I agree Saturday finales could be good (though Spring Break negates some of that). Teams could play early afternoons and then have 3 and a half days until the Tuesday night tournament games.

I am against any format that asks a team to potentially play more than three games in just as many days while someone else may only have to play two games in two days. I think that wears too much on fatigue and feels less like a tournament. I also sort of miss the first round home game as it made tiers of qualifications between bye, home game, and road game. Right now it seems as though we are destined to play Toledo in a 4/5 game but it doesn't matter who is the 4 and who is the 5.

My ideal tournament is all 12 teams with a bye to quarterfinals for the top four seeds. On-campus games for the bottom eight BUT after the first round, re-seed (if the 12 happens to beat the 5, the 12 plays the 1 instead of the 4).

Absolutely agree on 1-2 regular season finishers get byes into the semis. Seems like a no-brainer.