NCAA competition system (and other newbie questions)

[Levenspiel]

Sigma
03-01-2005, 05:56 AM

Newbie question #1:
Can anyone explain or give a link how NCAA div1 basketball competition works (who advances to play-offs, what about lower divisions etc)? In other words how teams reach to F4.

Newbie question #2:
What is March Madness - NCAA playoffs?

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mvblair
03-01-2005, 07:15 AM

Newbie question #1:
Can anyone explain or give a link how NCAA div1 basketball competition works (who advances to play-offs, what about lower divisions etc)? In other words how teams reach to F4.

Good question. I think that the NCAA organization asks people in the media/coaches/ex-players to rank the best teams in the country. Then the NCAA creates a "seeding system" with 4 divisions. Each division has 16 teams, ranked from 1 to 16. They play a single-elimination tournament to find the winner of each division. Then those 4 winning teams are in the "Final Four."

That's the basics of it. I will try to look for a good web-site that describes it.

Newbie question #2:
What is March Madness - NCAA playoffs?

Yes, March Madness is the NCAA playoffs. In the US, you can turn on the television and watch two or three good games every night starting March 17th (it used to start earlier).

A lot of US Americans really prefer the NCAA university basketball to the NBA. The players aren't as good of course, but the game is much more pure and really exciting because if the team loses once, they are finished.

Matt

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mvblair
03-01-2005, 07:16 AM

Has a brief description of the tournament selection and several links (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Madness)

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worldbasketball
03-04-2005, 09:52 PM

I love to watch the March Madness season and have the chance of seeing a great number of exciting players who look more like basketball players than millionaire cry-baby brats that NBA has become.

I take pride in small details like relevant heart-warming family stories that the season brings and little snippets of life as a young athlete / student and some dream come true situations.

Yet the players we do see remain real people that we feel close to and identify with instead of the unreal MTV / NBA generation that you mostly see in their favorite voyeuristic / narcicistic program called "My Crib" whatever value system that brings.

Particular favorites of mine are the truly intelligent student players who excel in academics as well. Just give me such bright players any time.

I like it also since it's so much like FIBA type of basketball I am used to watching. If only NCAA would adopt the 4 quarters (10 minutes each) formula instead of the two-halfs (20 minutes each), it will even be better and more identified with FIBA rules. We do need uniformity in rules as much as possble.

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narrator
12-06-2005, 03:49 PM

I love March Madness (it truly is the best time of the year) but I think you're overstating the value most of the players put on education. Yes, there are actual student athletes (Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison, and Jameer Nelson are three [I'm watching Kansas-St. Joe's on TV right now and they're the first three that came to mind :laugh:]) but they are the minority. Most players put in one or two years and leave. Do you think they go to class? The only thing they have to do is keep their GPA above 2.3 to be eligible (and then they have tutors go to class).

That said, I love March Madness because of its raw intensity. One loss and you're done. Can't get much more life or death than that. The emotions reach a fever pitch and it's pretty much the best sporting environment I've ever been in (having attended different rounds over the past 10 years or so).

But I don't think anyone should overstate the myth of the student-athlete: these kids are not amateurs by any stretch, not when you get shoe contract money at age 15 and there are magazines ranking the best 10-year-old players in the country. That aspect makes me sick but the NCAA can't (or, more likely, won't) put its foot down and fix it.

A purer amateur competition exists in Canada, where the AAU teams don't exist and there are no athletic scholarships.

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sariss
12-11-2005, 10:52 AM

another newbie question:

is there an upper age limit for NCAA players? or is it enough to be enrolled at a university?

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mvblair
12-11-2005, 11:54 AM

Honestly, I don't think there's an age limit. Israel Sheinfeld, who currently plays for Hapoel in Israel, played when he was 26-years old at Wright State. And there was talk about Lee Benson, who is now 30-years old, going back to college to play (but since he played professionally, he can't).

However, if players are competing in "organized competition" (which is not exactly defined by the NCAA), they lose one year of eligibility for every year of "organized competition" after their 21st birthday.

NCAA Eligibility FAQ (http://www1.ncaa.org/membership/memb...yone_year_rule)
In Division I only, if a student-athlete has participated as an individual or as a team representative in organized sports competition, that kind of participation during each 12-month period after his/her 21st birthday and prior to initial full-time collegiate enrollment will count as one year of varsity competition in that sport. Any participation in organized competition during time spent in the U.S. armed services will be excepted.
So, as long as players aren't participating in "organized competition," they certainly can still play!

Matt

[YYY]

This thread seems like a perfect place to ask stupid newbie questions about NCAA. Many young Lithuanian players choose NCAA, so I have always wondered how strong is this league? Could you compare it to any European competitions or any National leagues in Europe?

[YYY]

Does someone ever read this thread? Or maybe my question was too hard?

[mktackabery]

More Stuff than you ever wanted to know about the Final Four

Digging around and found this old thread - March Madness is not just the NCAA playoffs, sariss. March Madness is when all leagues have their individual playoffs. The first weekend is March is the very last weekend of regular season collegiate play, then all leagues have their conference championships in the following week. Immediately after the conference championships, the NCAA has selection Sunday for the top 65 teams in the country, and the NCAA tourney starts the Thursday of the next week, with the 65 team playing the 64 team on Wednesday night. Only the top 31 teams in the country are guaranteed a NCAA bid. The next 34 are picked by committee. Rankings are primarily based on RPI, so teams are weighted on strength of schedule, their winning percentage, and their opponent's winning percentages (so it's not good to beat a team that loses a lot, you need to beat a team that rarely loses, or after they play you they have to lose a lot). The Final is usually the second Monday in April I think. The rule is survive and advance. The second week is the Sweet Sixteen, the third week is the Elite Eight, the fourth weekend is the Final Four. So if you make it, you have been playing championship basketball for six straight weeks against the toughest guys in the country who don't get paid for it. Yeah, they get goodies from sneaker manufacturers and iPods and God knows what else, but by the end of it they look like death warmed over and probably collapse and die for a week, and only one team gets the trophy. Just one. There is no second place. There are divisional championships, but nobody remembers those.

For the fans, it is all basketball, all the time, for six weeks, and there are no other sports. From Thursday through Sunday you are watching the games, from Sunday through Thursday you are agonizing about your team. Me, I'm worried they are getting the flu and not sleeping, like a mother hen. By the time NC State made it to the Elite Eight last year, I was a complete and total nervous wreck. In my office, we have an ACC tourney pool and a bracketology for the NCAA and our firm takes it so seriously . . . I'm talking big, big money. Last year a lawyer cleared $2k in our bracketology pool. I never really know how we get any work done in March . . .

The top 64 teams are seeded by the NCAA into four divisions, East, West, North and South, which determines where they will play the first week of the single-elimination tournament. Teams that fall below the top 64 may be invited to the NIT which some people consider a loser's bracket, however teams that consistently get to the NIT usually get up to the NCAA fast after. Bracketology for the tournament is pretty confusing. I think it's based on some arcane Druidic principles, tarot cards, computer models programmed in Fortran, and a guru in Tibet makes the final call. just kidding.

Each of the top three teams in a conference have to be placed in different divisions. This is how a Final Four can happen with teams in the same conference playing each other for the championship. However, it can really suck if your team is not #1 in the conference because they will usually get placed the farthest away. Last year we lucked out, NC State played in New York then I think Atlanta? I never remember, anyway all their games were the same time zone, thank God. Rules are exactly the same as regular NCAA play, only the refs from a conference cannot officiate for a school in their conference. So the play-calling is a major source of complaining of course because things guys get away with at home they get called on immediately away from home. The big stories are always the Cinderella schools that no one ever paid any attention to that manage to get farther than anyone thought, and you find yourself pulling for some tiny little school like Seton Hall or Wofford which is about as big as my apartment complex (in fact, I think my apartment complex beat Wofford in football last year), about to get clobbered by the big Goliath like Connecticut. It can make Adam Morrison cry (and did).

Principles for Brackets

Tournament History Stuff

RPI Formula

p.s. I cannot compare the NCAA to a European league, I haven't watched enough European ball; however personally I think most of the top seeded teams in the NCAA could kick any NBA team up and down the court all day long . . . not that that is much of an accomplishment particularly. In the NCAA, though, defense and free-throw shooting win tournaments.