In Reply to: How unfair is the phony NCAA ''regional'' system? posted by Section2Rocks on March 18, 2025 at 19:39:13
Up until 1978, each regional consisted mainly of teams in that area. After that the names of the regional referred only to where it was played. So for most of the early years, a western team came out of the west regional into the final four. Of course a western team made the Final Four 33 out of the first 40 years. The other seven were midwestern teams since there were only East and West regionals. (They didn't go to four regionals until 1956.) The East had more teams and was considered more competitive. In the next 20 seasons western teams won 11 titles. However, the UCLA dynasty completely skewed the numbers. If we had won just the first two without Alcindor and Walton, western teams would have won three of the 20, not much different from the first 20 years (five) and the same as the next 20 (1979-1998) three.
It was actually 1975 when the started sending eastern teams to the West regional when they expanded to 32 teams. Seeding began in 1979 to create a more balanced, fairer tournament. What's wrong with that?
So if you want only western teams in the West, this season we get:
Gonzaga (8)
Montana (14)
Saint Marys (7)
UCLA (7)
UCSD (12)
San Diego St (11)
Utah St. (10)
BYU (6)
Grand Canyon (13)
Arizona (4)
Colorado St (12)
New Mexico (10)
So how is this fair compared to other regions? In order to balance the regions you would have to include #1, 2 and 3 seeds from other regions. Otherwise we would have a great chance to make the Final Four. Is that what you want?
You don't like the best western teams getting sent to other regionals, but plenty of the best eastern teams get sent to the west. Is that fair for them? The eastern teams win the most titles because they have the best teams. Only UCLA, Gonzaga and Arizona have been western programs that have had championship capabilities for many years. That's why the west has had much fewer F4's and championships, not because of the regional system.
We've lost in the tournament to Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky, not because of where the games were played, but because they had better teams. Period.