College Basketball: Time to Reform the Exempt "Tournaments"

Mississippi State earned a nice victory over Texas A&M Thursday night in the semifinals of the 2K Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden in a preview of an SEC West conference game next year.

There's only one problem with the story. Mississippi State shouldn't have been there.

Mississippi State lost earlier in the tournament on its home court to Akron, 68-58. But the four participants in the championship round of the 2K Sports Classic were predetermined. No matter what happened in the regional games, St. John's, Arizona, Texas A&M and Mississippi State were guaranteed to advance.

What was Akron's reward for beating Mississippi State? A home game against Division III Hiram and two games in the Valparaiso subregional against the host Crusaders and Duquesne. The 2K Sports Classic "bracket" is such a mess, it somehow includes a game between the University of the District of Columbia and Indiana University-Kokomo.

Akron wasn't the only team to fall victim to an exempt tournament's predetermined scheduling.

Northeast Ohio neighbors Cleveland State went on the road and defeated preseason No. 7 Vanderbilt in the opening round of the Legends Classic. Once again, the mid-major school will get shipped off to a campus site subregional (in this case Rhode Island), while the power conference school goes to the championship round at the Meadowlands.

Oregon State is one of the exempted schools in the Legends Classic. What have they done to deserve such an honor besides belonging to the Pac-12 and being coached by President Obama's brother-in-law?

Oregon State hasn't appeared in the NCAA tournament since Gary Payton patrolled the backcourt in 1990 and haven't won an NCAA tournament game since 1982. Each of the seven Division I teams that were automatically sent to the subregional "consolation" rounds—Boston University, Rhode Island, Cleveland State, Bucknell, Morehead State, Princeton and Hofstra—have appeared in the NCAA tournament more recently than Oregon State.

Even some of the longtime holiday tournaments are getting into the act.

The Maui Invitational started a mainland round this season that saw each of the seven traveling teams get a home game against a "lesser" opponent.  Again, another mid-major team pulls an "upset," this time Middle Tennessee State routing UCLA by 20, 86-66, in Los Angeles. UCLA gets a trip to the islands, MTSU hosts the "mainland" bracket with Towson, UNC Greensboro and Belmont, who almost defeated Duke at Cameron Indoor.

It's a tough enough road for mid-major schools. According to midmajority.com, schools that are members of the 24 mid-major conferences only beat schools that are members of the eight largest conferences in basketball around 17 percent of the time, about a one in six shot.

Why should the power conference teams get even more of an advantage?

Of course, it's about the almighty dollar. Promoters of these "tournaments" don't want to risk losing ticket sales on "no-name" teams that won't sell tickets at their championship site. Better to play it safe and guarantee "big-name" teams a spot in the championship round so they can promote the matchups and sell tickets well in advance instead of a week before the event.

There are only two ways that this will change.

One, change the NCAA Bylaw (17.3.5.1.1) that allows these events. Currently, the bylaw's only conditions for an exempt event are 1) they are sponsored by the NCAA, a member institution or conference, and must take place in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or a United States territory; 2) the event includes no more than four games per team, and takes no longer than two weeks to complete; and 3) only one team per conference may participate in the event and a school may only participate in the event once every four years.

Placing more restrictions, such as approved tournament formats, could correct this situation.

Two, the mid-major teams should boycott these types of events. These events need the smaller schools to survive, since you can only invite one team per conference. Admittedly, that's a tough ask.

Mid-major teams often have a hard time getting games against the big-time teams and need these games to boost their NCAA tournament profile. Also, the promoters of these events usually provide a nice paycheck for these teams to participate.

There are still preseason tournaments where the winners actually advance. The five tournaments that ESPN runs all adhere to the traditional eight-team, three-game guaranteed format, where winners play winners and losers play losers.

The NIT Season Tip-Off still runs a true 16-team bracket. Texas-San Antonio almost punched their ticket to a game at Madison Square Garden at the expense of Oklahoma State. There are even some smaller tournaments that feature four teams that play a round-robin format. These are true tournaments, not glorified exhibitions to make promoters money.

In the meantime, enjoy the early festival of college hoops that the first few weeks of the season produces. Just remember, if Mississippi State, Vanderbilt or UCLA is holding up a trophy at the end of one of these "tournaments," they aren't the true champions.