All college basketball fans know that the Power 6 conferences dominate the selection and seeding in the NCAA Tournament each year and make tons of money annually. The rich get richer and the "little guys" are generally left to claw for the dregs.
The following is an interesting article about a creative scheduling strategy that could boost the rpi of mid-major programs so that they could be more competitive in NCAA Tournament:
That's an interesting article. Not sure an extra game or two against UCI or CSUF instead of Poly and UCR would make too big of a difference in the NCAAT seeding, but I do like that some mid-major conferences are trying to do something creative.
It might not make that much difference in the BW Conference since there's generally close parity between the top and the bottom teams. I think the author made a good point in the article when he pointed out historically just how much of a difference it makes being a 12 seed playing a 5 rather than being a 14 seed playing a 3: a 12 seed has a 37.5% chance of winning vs 15% chance for a 14 seed.
Anything that can help boost the rpi for small programs will certainly be a welcome change. It gets old seeing the same programs in the higher seeds year after year. Those programs pretty much have a lock on the tournament.
I've long though that there should be a separate division for the mid majors, a 1AA or something. It would allow teams from the SWAC, Big Sky, WAC, Big South, etc. and of course the Big West to have a real shot at a national championship. I imagine no one favors it because of all the money involved and the mid-major leagues like the chance for the glory of knocking off a Virginia or Arizona. Still, splitting Division 1 into two would allow more major teams into the tournament as well as giving the mid-major teams a separate champion.