Eliminate Conference Tournaments

This year, three undeserving teams made the field of 65 by receiving the automatic bids that come with winning your respective conference tournaments: Temple, Mississippi State, and Chattanooga. Each of these teams were fortunate enough to make the NCAA tournament by winning their respective conference tournaments. However, none of these teams deserved to make the field of 65 due to their mediocre regular season.

Temple finished the regular season with a record of 19-11 and only two key wins against Penn State and Tennessee. They also finished fourth in the Atlantic Ten Conference. Mississippi State finished 3rd in the SEC West and 6th overall in the SEC. Mississippi State had a record of 19-12 and had no meaningful nonconference wins. The final team is Chattanooga. They finished the regular season with a losing record of 15-16. They also finished 6th in the Southern Conference.

I believe conference tournaments should be eliminated. They serve no purpose. First, the top seeded teams in the conference tournaments have nothing to play for. Teams such as Duke and North Carolina, at the end of the regular season, usually have number 1 seeds locked up whether they win the conference tournament or not. On the other hand, mediocre teams are given the chance to make the NCAA tournament if they simply just win three games in a row. The tournament selection committee is allowing mediocre teams to enter the NCAA tournament by having automatic bids come from conference tournaments. I believe the regular season winners of each conference should get the automatic bids. This way, mid-majors and major conferences, are still represented equally and the selection committee can then weed out the undeserving teams from the field of 65.