NCAA Rules

Does anyone know if that silly & unfair NCAA rule regarding the hosting of playoff games (and needing a certain number of teams within a certain radius) was ever changed?

This is the rule that kept UP from hosting playoff games previously, and playing in front of empty seats in Nebraska among other places.

I never heard about the rule again after it bit us in the behind...

The west coast looks strong, but if the rule is still in effect, I think we need another NW team or 2 to make the playoff field to assure we host... not to get ahead of ourselves. There are lots of games to play before talking playoffs....

I don't think it has changed. It is the same rational they use for figuring out where Basketball teams go in March. They try to reduce travel.

The explanation given is that they want to reduce travel *expense*. The problem with that is it is blind to the revenue part of the equation...

So, fly in an extra team to Portland and sell out 5,000 tickets, maybe televise the games, etc... or fly teams to Nebraska and sell 150 tickets. But hey, they saved on travel expense... The math just doesnt add up.

Why not open the process to bidding if a school so wishes, and if no one does, then default to the existing rule?! We all know the *best* answer is to have the highest seed host... so that will never happen!

NewUPFan is right in a way... they do the basketball tournament based on geography too. But the huge difference is that schools don't get to host games in their own gyms. And host sites are announced at least two years in advance, so basically the closest high seeds to the already announced host cities travel there. That's not the way it works for soccer.

Personally, I think the way they do soccer should mimic the way they do baseball. Correct me if I'm wrong, but for baseball, top 8 seeds always get to host the opening regional, and then from there it goes to a bidding process. (Usually goes to the higher rated team, but sometimes goes to a place with better facilities/revenue.)

Here's a link to this year's baseball bracket:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2884784

As you can see, Texas hosted a regional despite being grouped with Brown (Rhode Island), Wake Forest (North Carolina) and UC-Irvine.

If this were women's soccer, that wouldn't be allowed, which is ridiculous. I mean really... in what other sport is the consensus No. 1 team according to polls, seeds, and RPI heading into the tournament shipped off for the first two rounds when every other top seed gets to play at home. Totally unfair.

At the very least, a provision should be included that if you get a No. 1 seed (soccer gives sixteen seeds, four 1's, four 2's, etc.), you get to host no matter what. I can understand if Hawaii or Alaska or whatever gets a No. 4 seed and they don't want all the other teams to travel and choose a more central location, but to screw over the No. 1 overall seed? A complete joke.

Worst of all for UP, there are only three other D-1 teams within the radius... Oregon, Oregon State, and Washington. Gonzaga and Washington State (and Eastern Washington? Do they have a team?) are outside of the radius. So basically the only chance UP has to host the opening two rounds is if one of those three other schools makes it. How unfair is that? Name me another school that has to deal with that problem... Wyoming? Montana State maybe?

Ah... this always gets me riled up. It's obviously a problem when the NCAA is so myopic that they will blindly adhere to some stupid geographical rule instead of 1) rewarding the top seeds and 2) maximizing revenue and exposure. That geographical rule should be used as a guideline, not a hardened fast rule.

Myles Brand is a huge moron - he is a useless academic who demonstrates zero leadership in his organization.

From a recent release describing Brand:

Trained as a philosopher, Brand has studied the nature of human action with a focus on intention, desire, belief and other cognitive states, as well as deliberation and practical reasoning, planning and general goal-directed activity. He earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his doctorate from the University of Rochester.

Yea, that qualifies you to lead the NCAA.

Haha if that isn't the bio of a true sports aficionado I don't know what is...

To clarify where the teams go in the first two rounds- The NCAA will split up the seeded teams, then look for schools within 300 miles to pair up for a weekend to save travel expenses. If you don't have a school in the tournament nearby, you will travel.

What we need to root for is another NW team to make it into the tournament and be seeded lower than us so that we can host.

So- start rooting for U-dub, Washington State, Oregon State, Oregon, or Gonzaga to get into the tournament. If one of those schools doesn't get in, we'll travel. No way around it.


The other thing that needs to happen is for the NCAA seeding to be open and tied to performance. Last year, UP should have been seeded according to all the rankings and the RPI rating.

Backroom Politics dictated otherwise. In the interest of fairness, that has to stop.