While I would love to have some of these teams come to the Convo or even play on a regular basis, it simply isn't worth it to them.  The risk is huge and the reward little.  The recruiting pecking order would go OSU, Cincy/Xavier, Dayton, then it would come to the MAC and Horizon league schools.  Obviously we would be at the top of that tier.  If we were to beat Dayton or Xavier, that would give us a nice little piece to tell recruits.  Those schools certainly don't want to give us that chance.  

 

This is the best argument for getting to a legitimate conference in hoops. Getting some big name teams into the Convo would be incredibly worth it.
 

I am encouraged to see Cincy coming to Peden in football. Would love to play them in hoops. I would absolutely take a 2-1 with a program of that level to get them into Athens just 1 time.
Or a 1-1 with a 3rd neutral game in Columbus or Cleveland!

I disagree with this.  If it's done based on Borna's theory -- regular season champs, and tournament champs both getting auto bids -- then it's still special.  That would be 2 of 12 MAC teams getting in annually, which would mean either Ohio had a great year and won the conference, or got hot and ripped through the conference tournament.  Either way is still great in my book.

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1) How about doing a statistical analysis on how many times we won the MAC regualr season since the tourney let the Big 6 eat up all the at large spots.  I suspect you will find that we are not the one that won the regualr season and missed the tourney beat out by a hot team. I

2) The regular season champ deserves to be there.

3) the emphasis on playing well dow n the stretch is an anomaly. I suspect any analysis would show that outside of us, us and us...the number of teams that go on a roll and advance in the tourney is not huge...leaving the one the won the regular season and was consistent but had a bad game in the tourney finals or worse lost in a game where officiating may have come into play (and maybe the best one to rep the conference by advancing) at home watcching

Prior to 1975 only one team per conference got in. Fans asked for more as there were hugely successful teams that were sitting at home watching a tourney that only had 22-25 teams (and the NIT was still enjoying huge success based on their rep as being the tpurney some teams chose top play in rather than the younger NCAA tourney) so there were 2 pretty decent toruney s we all watched back then....before the spectacle the NCAA has become and the dollars were very large.

The number of teams playing in one or the other ....and really good teams in many cases....was a decent percentage. The fans saw the inequity and asked for change while many said "by going to 32 teams you will water it down and make it too easy to get in" . Lesss than a decade later they were at 64 where it has basiclally been for almost 3 decades (with a little pandering to the masses)


As Division 1 grew the tourney did too but not proportionally. I have not looked lately but Centenary dropping while other U's are coming on leaves somewhere around 350 schools. Does not take a math whiz to look at 64 of 350 being a small number and the number of legit teams not getting out of a conference tourney (similar to what brought change/expansioon in the 60's) while average teams of the Big 6 get in based on SOS/RPI and such that are inflated because Big 6 teams will not play a good mid or gets the advantage of beating them at home makes all the difference in the world when looking at a resume.

I hardly think including the conference champs and regular season champs will degrade the level of play. Unfortunately it willinclude some more big 6 teams that are farther wdown the food chain but more importantly it gives the mids a bigger peice of the pie based on who is advancing and taking some of the automatic money going back into the war chests of the Big 6.

For those who talk about dragging the tourney out......it is one more effing night. One round more round on the same night as the Dayton play in to reduce the feild to the 64. It bumps the number to somewhere around a third of the teams earning a berth. Sheesh if that is too many then include the regualr season champs of the mids and limit it to 96 instead of 128.
But it gives the game of basketball a chance to see the regular season mids who earned the right all year long in their conferences by playing consistently. It also give a chance for the mids to play if they have to on the road .....OTOH....the spectre of further dividing the revenue and giving the mids a shot at ssome real money may just scare the big guys to change the rules and force them to come out of the friendly confines and give us what we wnat ....which is a real chance to go head to head without the home court factor that has been well documented in referee circles. OHIO is in a real quandry. We are good enough no one wants to play us yet we are not good enough to consistently get on a roll and dominate 4 days in March. It affects scheduling, recruiting, facilities and many things down the line.......

As stated above ....the evolution has transpired to where a program like UD,UC, CLeve State has no reason to play us and every reason not to. We should be capable of elevating OU to a level that we are competitive every night. WE have a great fan base, a great facillity, a great U to attract recruits yet we are fighting an uphill battle if we can not get folks in our house, on the schedule or get in a position to get a peice of the ever expanding pie ot keep our coaches paid, facilities competitive and fans seeing teams they really care about playing.

What about playing OSU at Nationwide arena and half the tickets are allotted to Ohio University? I know it's still in columbus but at least it's not in the Schott.

Yes 1/3 of the teams is way to much. Look at the new playoff for college football. It is 4 teams out of 120 of .033%. Personally I think that is still too small. 16 would be ideal for football but still even that is still 13% of the field. Going off the final RPI of last year had the tourney been 128. Akron Kent and Ohio would have made the tourney. That is just too many. I saw nothing of Kent last year that made me think I wanted to see them against top team and "showcase" their talent. Mid majors get to showcase their talents in the conference tourneys. The year before we would have 4 MAC teams. Akron Kent Buffalo and Ohio. Plus you also add teams like 15-18 Nebraska from last year who all of the bigger schools have already played and dominated. For many teams you would be forced to beat a team 4 times in a season. Why is that necessary you already proved you beat them. The point of the tourney is to put the best against each other and find a winner. Not put the mediocre and the best together.

I would see that going to an at large berth. If the second team in the conference has built an OOC resume and has the SOS/RPI and good record then they would be vying for one of the additional at large spots. I would think if a team was 22-4 only losing to their conference foe and another OOC game or so they would be more than able to compete on the numbers for that bid over a 7th or 8 Big Ten team.

From a recent article and confirming what has been written in several acccounts/Articles in the Mess, Dispatch, Enquirer, StarMess speaking of Matta, Coles, Sendeck, Christian, Whitford et al and the ever growing coaching tree


"Matta was an assistant under coach Herb Sendek. Ohio coach Jim Christian joined the staff for the 1995-96 season, and Matta and Christian shared an office for about a month before Matta moved on to Butler"

Thanks, guys, that info is helpful.  I think it bodes well for the future of this series.  Just one man's hunch.