The NEC kicks off single elimination college basketball tonight with a play-in game between Central Connecticut and Fairleigh Dickinson. So let's talk conference tournaments.

Check out the tournament bracket for the WCC.

https://wccsports.com/documents/2022/2/27//2022_Universit...

Single, double, and TRIPLE byes. Talk about protecting your top teams and valuing the regular season. Not like Gonzaga and St. Mary's need the help. This would be a good format for a league with a top team that's not at-large worthy but could still maaaaaaybe do damage in the tournament with the right matchup. Like the NEC where Bryant and Wagner are clearly their best teams. At the same time, this doesn't exactly feel like a true tournament. And I'm not so keen on a format that makes playing five games in six days a possibility.

I like the Horizon format:

https://external-preview.redd.it/3WIaYMdAURJXZmjQZu3q6CBO...

Single byes for the top four seeds. First round played between the next eight on campus sites. Then re-seeded for the quarterfinals so the #1 seed plays the lowest remaining seed. The quarterfinals are still played at campus sights of the higher seeds, so that's kind of cool that home fans of the best teams still get one more game on campus. Then re-seeded again for the semis so the top remaining seed plays the lowest remaining seed. Seems like a happy medium between what the WCC does and what we do.