A response to Michael Beller's Bubble Showdown Series

Before going further, be sure you've read Michael Beller's article on SI.com. Here it is: https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2019/03/13/march-madness-ncaa-tournament-bubble-bracket-format

You're back? Good.

First of all, I like Michael's stuff and I learn a lot from his articles. I'm not pretending that I have anywhere near his level of knowledge or experience in this area, I'm just an amateur bracketologist thinking through what he said. So all due respect to the idea and its creativity.

Since Michael asked us to ignore the elephant in the room (the gobs of money that the conference tourneys reap and would likely lose through his BSS), I won't address that concern either. I just think there's a simpler solution: tweak the play-in games themselves. Here are the tweaks:

1. No AQs can play in the play-in games. This will mean that the 16's will not be involved in the play-ins. Instead, they will go straight to the round of 64, which is what they should get as an AQ. We'll finally have true play-in games that involve teams that haven't earned anything as of yet, and they will play for the last four spots in the bracket.

2. With eight teams involved, at least four MUST be from conferences that otherwise only have their AQ team in the tournament. This will mostly help the mid-major conferences, though occasionally a league like the Atlantic 10 or even the Pac 12 might benefit.

That's it.

Let's look at it in practice, using SI's latest bracket as an example. Their "last four in" are St. John's, Florida, Arizona State, and Belmont. Their next four out are Indiana, Clemson, Alabama and UNC Greensboro. In my scenario above, you would include Indiana and UNC-G and find two more teams from this year's one-bid leagues. Say, Davidson and Toledo (two "almosts" from the Bracket Matrix). Seed them any way you want.

St. John's vs UNC-Greensboro
Florida vs Davidson
Arizona State vs Toledo
Belmont vs Indiana

Clemson and Alabama might squawk (we'll leave alone the funny fact that those two schools just played for the national title in football...again) but really, they aren't among the best teams in their own conferences. They had their chance to prove something.

Bid thieves would cut into this the same way they do now, but would only affect the multiple-bid league teams, not the others. So if West Virginia steals a bid in the Big 12, Indiana would drop out, and the at-large above St. John's would drop into the play-in.

This change would not be as drastic as Beller's, nor would it cost anyone any money (except a couple of power conferences already rolling in it). In fact, it would distribute a little more money out to the middle class of conferences, and that's not a bad thing. Feel free to comment below.