I agree too. You want to have the best teams in the NCAA Tournament. Once they're in there, that's where the madness should begin with the upsets and one-and-done fun. But Conference Tournaments just put bad or average teams in the NCAA Tournament at the expense of good teams who might be able to pull an upset or two.

"'Oh, we're the champs.' What a phony thing that would be. We were the champs of that four-game tournament."
That's exactly the point of conference tournaments. Xavier won the A10 regular season championship, if St. Louis wins the conference tournament why belittle it. If he's suggesting automatic bids come from regular season champions, that's fine, just don't make the conference tournaments out to be worthless.
As far as the Pittsburgh point goes, they didn't prove they were the best team because they didn't beat all of the other contenders. If you get rid of the tournament it becomes college football with the BCS all over again. The NCAA tournament is a much better system, let the teams decide the champion on the court.

Happens in all sports like when the #6 seed Steelers won the Super Bowl a few years ago and in MLB when the wildcard has won the World Series a number of times.

Plain and simple, conference tournaments are just a money grab. You determine your conference champion over a 14-, 16- or 18-game schedule, not by a 4-day weekend tournament. Its a joke that a team with a sub-.500 record can get an automatic bid to the NCAA tourney.

Majerus is just like that because he never won the conference tournament wiht the Utah Utes.

Majerus can eat the tourney

In the "olden days" he might have a point. Back when each team played home-home with every other team in the conference. But today, its not so clear cut. Not ever team in a conference plays the same schedule. In the ACC, some teams only play another team once instead of twice. In the conferences that have 78 teams like the Big East, you really only see another team once. It could work out that a particular team ended up playing the top 5 teams in the conference at home, and the bottom 5 on the road. Another team in the conference, just the opposite. Also, with the "only once" schedule of most conferences, obviously you play some team at the beginning of January while others the first week of March. In a single game, was there an injury, was it early/late in the year, did someone shoot the lights out insanely (only game of the year they did it).
In the mega conferences, the conference tournament does mean something. In many cases, its the first time some teams may have met since the freshmen got out of diapers, or the only time they played a team other than on it's home court. Conference tournaments don't mean much but since conferences rarely do home-home against every team, it does mean something.

He never said noon EST. You said noon EST. And you're wrong. It's noon EDT. Remember when you set your clock forward a few days ago?

You are missing the coaching strategy Majerus is using. "It would be a shame if we won". He is not telling his team that, now, or before the game. He is smart enough to attempt to get Xavier to relax, and not give them added incentive. A guy named Lou Holtz was the master of this strategy.

actually, my razorbacks used the conference tournament to play their way into the big dance last year by winning three conference tourney games. georgia won the sec tournament and got in - not so if they hadn't won it. so, don't say the conference tourneys don't make any difference or are irrelevant. they're fun, they matter, and a school gets a banner to hang! sheesh, majerus just doesn't get it

uh.....I just like watching them.

The Syracuse-UConn 6OT game last night kind of rendered Majerus' argument moot.
Long live the Tournaments!

#11. great point!!!!!!!!! yes, the conference reg. season is what it should all be about(take note bigeast... louiseville won the reg season, yet everyone still talking about pitt, ucon..wtf?) however, when a team plays their way into the big dance by winning their conference tourney the way the razorbacks did last season, that is an accomplishment in itself. with 65 teams in somebody somewhere should be able to actually play their way in in the last few days before selection sunday.

Rick Majerus just ate everything.

I think pitt proved they are one of the best teams in the big east which does not cover all of college basketball even though the east coast media is sure to disagree

He's just bitter because we whooped up on his silly team again. Xavier IS the better team. But you know what? I like the conference tourney. Even if we lose, it's still fun to watch conference play for just a little while longer before the big dance. Also, I like watching Xavier beat up the Bilikins. You shall rue this day, Majerus. Don't mess with a Musketeer! GO XAVIER!!

When at Utah, Majerus used to go so far as to say he hoped the Utes would lose in the first round of the conference tourney, thereby giving them a few extra days to rest before the big dance...definitely makes sense. But now he should be embracing the conf tourney, as it's his only hope to get it!

The fact that the conferences have tournaments as a money grab does not mean they are not fun for fans, 4 hours and 6OTs is amazing. It does give a team one last chance to get in to the NCAA tournament, and maybe make a point. Just be sure that it is about the money as far as the conferences are concerned.
What ever else we do, let us not let basketball go the way of football where no cinderella will ever win a national championship no matter how good they are. Putting 6 or 7 teams in the NCAA tournament is the best the "major" conferences will be able to do to ensuring no one else gets a national basketball conference championship. Yes I am a fan in a "minor" conference, and I realize that the "major" conferences have stronger programs and that those conference have an overall higher level of game, but they still have managed to stack the deck in their favor for tournament play.
As food for thought what if instead of the NIT as the almost made it tournament, we had 8 conferences (of about the same size) in each of 4 regions. Then the best 4 teams from each conference would go to the appropriate regional tournament. (Instead of teams from 2000 miles away.) The NCAA championship tournament would be the best 4 from each region in a double elimination tournament to crown the national champion. This way 124 teams instead of 96 or 97 teams would go to a tournament, and the national champion would have to prove by winning twice they were the best. Hey and if we broke the almost strangle hold of the "major" conferences have on basketball; the complete strangle hold on football might fall apart too.

Any playoff/tournament system is a money grab. Why not just have the various division winners in professional football, basketball and hockey play each other. MLB could do the same thing if they cut down to two, or expanded to four divisions in each league. No need for wild cards. To be honest, I like the NCAA basketball system just the way it is. Of course, there will be teams left out that should be in and vice versa. That's why they play the games. For me, it's just plain fun. Play On!

Simple solution. Re-arrange the conferences so that each has 12 teams. That will give us 30 conferences ( add a few D2 teams to get to 360). Then the Conference champ as well as the Conference tourney champ can get automatic bids, with 4 at large bids left for the losers. Plus it would allow a mathamatical comparison to be made between teams. Each team plays home and away against their conference for a total of 22 games. Of the 8 remaining games, 4 would be scheduled by the NCAA, 4 by the school. 2 home, 2 away. The 4 scheduled by the NCAA would be done by conference, So the #4 team by last years results from conference A would play the #4 team from conference B, C, D, and E. ETC.
If a system like this was set up, then a predictor system like Pomroy or Sagrin would work to determine the comparative rankings of the various teams AND Conferences. Wouldn't need bogus opinions anymore because we would have cold hard facts to go by.
You think Pitt is the cat's meow, I don't. I see a small, weak, slow team that lives off hustle. Hustle is good, but the day they run into a big, strong fast team that also hustles, they will lose. On a neutral court, Butler, Xavier, Memphis, Gonzaga, et. al. will crush Pitt.
Of course, this will never happen. It would prevent CBS from manipulating the system to get teams with huge market shares ( Big East) in the tourney, they think that would cut back on the revenue stream. It would actually increase it, but the folks that run CBS are STOOOOOOOOOPID. I say that because they have a sure thing monopoly and they lose money anyway.
After all, March madness isn't about Which team is the best. It's about pouring ad dollars into the CBS accounts. CBS needs the money since they are otherwise going broke.
The so called sports writers would hate it too. Bear Bryant was correct about sports writers. In his day there was no WWW, so there was a demand for people that got paid to watch sports and tell those of us with jobs what was happening. Today, there is cable and the Web. I get a cable package every year that allows me to watch out of market games. I am retired and addicted to college hoops, so I watch several hundred games a year. There are days where I watch 20 hours of hoops. The "Sports writers" (yes, sneer quotes) seem to only watch the big market games. That is why you have mediocre teams like Pitt ranked where they are. Louisville is the best team in the BE. Lots of good guards, several of which are Pro sized. A powerful front line that is strong , quick and has good hops. A coach that has experience and a full court philosophy. I'm predicting an all Metro Conference final. Memphis vs Loserville. Calapari vs Pitino. All the over hyped teams ( over hyped to boost TV ratings) will fall by the wayside.

If you are a good coach with a young team, that happens to get off to a bad start because of this, here's what you need the fans to know.
You need that half year or so to catch up to that veteran team that laid All-McDonalds guys in front of their Poster coach.
The Orange, with it's 3 seniors has done that, and needs the tournament to show they've done that. If you don't have the end of the year showcase for these teams they might as well tank it at mid-season because there is no hope no matter how hard they keep working. (and don't give me that do it for pride crap).
The great coaches are those who get increasingly better as the season develops to be the best in the end. MOMENTUM BABY.
Maybe thats why Rick don't like it, cause "the Coward" Doliac and Bogat were never ready to finish what they started in Utah.

The only reason for a conference tournament I can see is, say for the SEC where they have more than one division in the conference. So they have a 1 game playoff to determine the top dog. Otherwise the tournaments are just designed to make some money out of the madness.

I agree when it comes to the conference tournaments that it would be unfair to bounce a team out of the NCAA tournament if they win the regular season but not the conference tournament. The guarenteed spot in the NCAA should go to the regular season winner with the conference tournament performance possibly being the tie breaker. The winner of the conference toournament should improve their chances of getting into the NCAA but not be guarenteed a spot. As for the fairness of the NCAA tournament, that is a whole new season, so to speak. The seedings are based on seasonal play but after that it is, and should be, a free-for-all.

I think the Conf. Championships are awesome and it makes it even more exciting that a mid- or lower-level conference team has a chance to play at the Big Dance. But that's not the only effect the Conf. Tournaments have - they can push a team up or down in the bracketology game so they should be perceived as important to most team's at least in the powerhouse conferences.