For those just joining, here's the backstory to the Bill Walton Championship:
-jk
Okay, Ky beat Duke and now UCLA has beaten KY.
Trying to see where UCLA may get tripped up, but at 5-3 I guess the answer is "anywhere"
Next two games are hosting Long Beach State, then they go to the Zags December 12. So my guess is, the Zags may be next in line. Long Beach State is 4-4 though, so they may catch UCLA in a let-down game.
For those just joining, here's the backstory to the Bill Walton Championship:
-jk
That previous thread mentions the silly NBA Championship Belt, to be passed from team to team. The same could be done here. I suggest this belt for the Bill Walton Champion:
waltonbelt.jpg
It's simple. Root for Long Beach State to win at UCLA this Sunday, and for Duke to beat Long Beach State on December 30. Then Duke gets the belt back.
The only flaw in this logic is that Long Beach State has to KEEP the belt in between, which is tricky. They have a road game against Pepperdine, a home game against Tampa, but then play at Oregon and at Arizona. (Their schedule is nuts. UCLA is the second game they play this weekend.)
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Nothing incites bodily violence quicker than a Duke fan turning in your direction and saying 'scoreboard.'
Do all of the conference tournaments include all teams? That is, do any have, say, 12 teams but only the top 8 play in their tournament? I think this was the case for some conferences at one time or another but I'm not sure if it still is.
If so, that would be another way the Walton belt would not converge on the NCAA champ.
I support this being a regular DBR thing. Note that it could also be Northern Iowa, based on the preseason #1 method.
I haven't seen the scorecard on how many teams make it to the XYZ conference tournament, but you are correct that in the past (including 2015), many conferences' tournament formats (for example the Ohio Valley Conference) have fewer than all of the teams invited to the tournament. On top of that are the schools who are ineligible for their conference tournament for one reason or another. This year, I know that Alcorn State, Florida A&M, Stetson, and Central Arkansas are ineligible because of APR issues. [Stetson is a duck-billed platypus here, because they ARE eligible for the Atlantic Sun Conference tourney, but ineligible for the NCAA's; if Stetson wins the conference tournament, the regular season champ gets the automatic bid, unless Stetson is the regular season champ, then it goes to whoever came in second.]
At least one team, Southern Mississippi, is ineligible because of a self-imposed ban. Also teams are ineligible because they are still transitioning into Division 1. I think these are all related to the D-1 transition: Massachusetts-Lowell, Northern Kentucky, Abliene Christian, Incarnate Word, and Grand Canyon.