NCAA Men's Playoff Expansion

College - Mens
1

To maximize exposure+revenue, NCAA playoffs are expanding across sports. Men’s water polo is the only sport where the 3rd ranked team can be excluded from the playoffs. The rules committee should template the women’s tournament and add a 3rd at-large bid. This would balance the tournament and boost the sport. The timing is right because this could apply to a number of terrific teams this year playing at such a high level.

The group had the chance to do this last year. Instead, they folded both east coast teams into the 8-team seeding, after years of having an east coast play-in.

Re-inserting the play-in doesn’t have to be regional. The 9th team and 8th team could play-in, as NCAA basketball does with its new “first four.” This might be the eastern teams but not always.

This doesn’t require new structure. Last year the playoffs originally had 9 slots (including the play-in). When a conference dropped, the committee shrank the bracket instead of making the better choice to boost the sport.

This would also help balance the tourney in years when one team draws a weaker “side.” In the long run, using the women’s 3 at-large template is much better for the sport.

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Disagree, adding a 3rd at-large would just result in making the sport stagnant with the same rotation MPSF teams consistently making the tournament at the expense of the SJSU / UOP / Princeton / Fordham’s of the game, I personally think it’s exciting when Stanford misses the NCAA tournament. It’s good for the game to have Princeton and UOP make the NCAA semi-finals.

The women have a few more teams than the men, I don’t know if that matters for the number of teams in the tournament field.

Men Women
Big West 6 8
CWPA 7 6
MPSF 4 7
NEWPC 7
WCC 7
WWPA 7 8
MAAC 9
GCC 8
Total 38 46
Not counted (D3)
SCIAC 9 9
CWPA D3 9
MPSF 4
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Thank you for putting up the men’s and women’s conferences that’s great background. I don’t quite understand your logic because the teams you mentioned are precisely the teams which would benefit today if they lose to a #2 in their conference tourney. A third at-large bid helps them most.

This isn’t about a team or conference. The NCAA signed a huge deal with ESPN. One goal is to expand visibility and playoffs. An NCAA berth pumps up any school. Men’s Water Polo is strange because it’s the only sport where a Top 3/4 team can be excluded. A third at-large bid increases competition and broad support.

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I think what Rational is trying to get at is, water polo is stagnant if they same 4 teams make the top 4 every year. When one of the top 3 misses the tournament every year it gives one other team a trip to the semis. I would propose no more than 2 per conference. Add another one great but no more than 2 teams per conference make it. So top 2 in MPSF, Big West and WCC would probably make it. This could potentially increase the parity by having some kids chose big west and wcc teams that they could play on vs redshirting and not playing until they are juniors.

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Yes - imagine a world where every single Men’s NCAA Basketball championship ever since it became a sport in 1969 featured at least one team from Duke, UNC, Michigan State and Michigan … and over 70% of the championships pitted 2 of those 4 teams against each other. That’s where we are as a sport.

School Champ Games
California 25
USC 25*
UCLA 22
Stanford 22
Pacific 2
UC Santa Barbara 1
Pepperdine 1
San Jose State 1
Long Beach State 1
UC San Diego 1
Pepperdine 1

Our last “new” champion was 27 years ago (Pepperdine). Other sports have addressed parity with rule changes, but water polo has never made an attempt.
I agree, at-large bids should be restricted by conference.

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Your numbers are helpful context, and the women are even more top heavy (three teams). As a next step the sport has the opportunity to live telecast its semi-final games on ESPNU, in addition to the finals, by shifting to Friday away from a more crowded Saturday television schedule. Applying additional constraints based on team history lowers competition in the future.

We agree that diversification is good for the sport, and roster limits will increase the parity we are seeing this year. My basic point is that a wider net should be cast by adding one or two play-in games, as other sports have done, while still allowing for the best Final Four to showcase the sport as the women do. Certainly going forward that won’t be the same four schools.

I understand your point about “stagnant” finals, but that history is known only by polo insiders. Applying that to other championships, you could argue that Scandinavia should be limited to two XC ski qualifiers. Or that in Men’s water polo, Europe should give up two qualification spots to the Americas and Asia. It’s always a balance. A final four with a wider base does the trick. Cheers.

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If you add play-in games, it’s important to remember who has to play those - it won’t be the at-large teams (Big 4) - you’ll essentially have 2 conference champs playing each other for a spot. So the Big West champ now has to win the Big West AND the CWPA in order to make it to the tournament, all so Stanford (or some other Big 4) can have a perpetual spot held for them at NCAAs? I don’t see how that helps the game.

If the at-large teams had to participate in the play-in games, as a “punishment” for losing their conference, that would be okay - but the NCAA won’t go for that.

Consider the 2023 season: Pepperdine beat UCI in their only game - if you add 2 more at-large teams creating 2 play-in games, here is how it probably would have been seeded:

11/22 Ranking School Bid 2023 NCAA Tourn Rank New
3 University of California-Los Angeles At-Large 1 1 1
2 University of California At-Large 2 2 2
1 University of Southern California MPSF 3 3
3 Stanford University At-Large 3 4
5 Princeton University NWPC 4 5
7 Pepperdine University At Large 4 6
6 University of California-Irvine Big West 5 7
8 San Jose State University WCC 6 8
12 Fordham University CWPA 7 9
26 Biola WWPA 8 10

The Play-ins would have been Big West Champ v WWPA Champ and WCC Champ v CWPA Champ - end result is an all Big-4 semi finals - Yayyyyy!!!

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