Fate of two conferences should change the way NCAA tourney is seeded

Fast-break points from the final weekend:

21. A Conference USA world. Don’t look now, but C-USA — a league that is being decimated by conference realignment-inspired defections — is enjoying a men’s college basketball postseason for the ages.

20. College Basketball Invitational. A C-USA school claimed the CBI championship trophy when Charlotte outlasted Eastern Kentucky 71-68 in the finals on March 22.

19. National Invitation Tournament. One C-USA school, North Texas, beat another league member, UAB, 68-61 Thursday night in Las Vegas to claim the NIT championship trophy.

18. National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament. A C-USA school needs two victories to claim the NCAA tourney championship trophy. Florida Atlantic (35-3) will go for the first of those wins when it faces San Diego State in the first NCAA Tournament national semifinal at 6:09 p.m. Saturday.

17. A bittersweet “Triple Crown.” If FAU were to give C-USA a sweep of the championships of the three primary men’s college hoops postseason tourneys, it will be a bit of a pyrrhic victory for the Dallas-based league (that includes Western Kentucky). Charlotte, North Texas, UAB and Florida Atlantic are among six C-USA schools that are moving to the American Athletic Conference next season.

16. Big Ten’s NCAA tourney futility. While Conference USA has been the surprise hit of 2023 March Madness, the Big Ten has played its familiar role of postseason bust. Of eight Big Ten teams invited to the NCAA Tournament, only one, Michigan State, even reached the round of 16.

15. A recurring Big Ten trend. Over the last three NCAA Tournaments, Big Ten teams have received 26 bids. Those 26 bids have combined to yield one team — Michigan in 2021 — that made it as far as the Elite Eight. Michigan State in 2000 remains the most recent Big Ten team to win an NCAA title.

14. The lesson that should be drawn. In a fairer system, C-USA’s postseason success in 2023 and the Big Ten’s continued NCAA Tournament futility would spark soul-searching over how NCAA tourney fields are selected and seeded. There is far too much inclusion of power-conference mediocrity and too little at-large-bid representation of excellence from “smaller leagues.”

13. A rigged system. That won’t happen because the selection process, with its metrics-based reliance on “Quad 1 wins,” is designed to favor the power leagues over “the little guys.”

12. UK’s bang for its bucks. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics database, the University of Kentucky spent $22,667,255 on its men’s basketball program in the 2021-22 school year (the most recent for which figures are available).

11. This year’s Final Four. The programs whose teams will play Saturday in the men’s Final Four are not in the same budgetary world as Kentucky men’s hoops.