The Observer, March 21, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 21
University Athletic Association one of two conferences without a basketball tournament
There are two conferences in the NCAA that don't have a basketball tournament to decide who gets an automatic bid to the Div. I, II, or III national championship: the Ivy League and the University Athletic Association, of which Case is a member.
Which begs the question, why doesn't the UAA have a conference basketball tournament?
"Because we don't want one," said Dick Rasmussen, the association's executive secretary.
Joking aside, Rasmussen elaborated on why he feels the UAA's current system, the double round robin where each school plays conference opponents once at home and once on the road, is best.
1. Cost of travel.
The UAA is one of the two most geographically spread-out conferences in Div. III. Another road trip would be costly and difficult to arrange.
2. The full season is the best way to determine the conference champion.
"If you play everyone at home and away over the whole year and you have the best record, then you're the true champion," said Rasmussen.
3. A conference tournament would mean a longer season.
"There's a major difficulty with student athletes being out of class," said Rasmussen. The alternative to a longer season is a schedule with fewer non-conference games. That's unlikely because some UAA schools, especially Rochester, value playing local rivals.
4. Tradition.
According to Rasmussen, the reason UAA institutions came together was to play against other schools that share similar educational experiences in regular season competition.
Here are a few more important reasons that Rasmussen didn't touch on:
1. A tournament would mean more losses for teams hoping to secure an at-large bid.
The NCAA hands out at-large bids based in large part on a school's winning percentage in its region. The conference is considered a part of a school's region even if, for example your school is in Cleveland and another, school in your conference is in, lets be a little zany here, Atlanta. If you don't win the tournament, your winning percentage will fall.
The current setup has paid off, helping UAA schools get into the national brackets. Both the men and women sent four teams to the national championship this year.
2. It's good for schools at the top of the UAA.
Why would you want to risk an upset and possibly lose a bid to a team that gets hot for a couple days?
3. The grind of a tournament.
A UAA team that gets to the national championship will be better rested because they didn't have to play the extra games with added intensity that other schools do.
4. The coaches haven't come to a consensus.
"If the coaches can't agree, then there's no way that it's going to get to an administrative level," said Case's head coach Sean McDonnell, a proponent of a UAA tournament.
The last time a UAA tournament was seriously discussed was, according to Rasmussen, "five or six years ago." Since then, it hasn't been an issue and it isn't likely to become one. "[It's] very unlikely that we'll change from the double round robin. What we have works very well for the UAA," said Rasmussen.
But if it works so well for the UAA, why is everybody else doing something completely different? In Div. I, the answer is money. Arenas get filled and ESPN broadcasts the games. People aren't going to pack the Garden to see Emory vs. Rochester, though the game would probably draw more viewers than Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith used to.
What it comes down to for a Div. III school is that a conference tournament is the most exciting way to crown a conference champion. It's not a great way to figure out who the best team is. Neither is the NCAA tournament that determines the national champion through a series of single elimination matchups; anyone, if they're lucky or get hot at the right time, can go deep. That's what's fun about college basketball this time of year.
"A conference tournament would give an underdog a better chance to make it to the [NCAA] tournament," said Case freshman guard Colin Mulholland. "One of the best things about sports is that they allow the underdog to have success."
