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Charles Fischer

Can Someone Tell Me "WHY" a Conference Tournament?

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In the Canzano article, he brings up a really good point about pitcher and team burnout from the Pac-12 Baseball Tournament.  But what about ALL the conference tournaments?  You play a 20 game conference schedule in Mens/Womens Basketball to have the automatic berth go to the tournament winner?    You play 30 conference games in Baseball...for what?

 

The only reason I can come up with is...the conference tournament is a scam by all the conferences to possibly get another team into the NCAA tournament?  You can't tell me that the gate receipts and TV contract offset the travel costs of 11 or 12 teams?

 

Exposure on TV?  Everyone is watching their own conference, their own team--that's it.

 

Helps your ranking?  If the top team does not win the tournament...then it gets graded down, and thus the tournament hurts the regular season winner.

 

In the end...Oregon would be hosting a regional, were it not for the tournament.  And Stanford and Oregon State were at great risk of losing their high seeding if Oregon and UCLA had a hot day.  The pitchers are burnt, and no profit?

 

Why are we doing this?

 

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Mr. FishDuck

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You know what, Charles, I can't think of a single reason for a conference tournament in any sport. The possibility of a team that struggled during the season getting hot, winning the tournament and getting the automatic bid makes no sense at all. Oregon was No.4, first they lost to 5, which isn't crazy, but Oregon just finished sweeping No.5 Arizona a week earlier, then Oregon lost to No.8 ASU. So yeah, why play the season? It's just as silly in basketball.

 

 

 

 

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 Got to have something to do with money. Oh wait it does. Absolutely no reason to burn pitchers arms up at the end of a grueling season. Most of the guys that dream this crap up never played sports past the 9th grade.

 The Ducks would have a huge turnout compared to Louisville. Seems crazy for sure.

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The reason? The obvious one. Somewhere, somehow, somebody is making a lot of money.

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Just a thought .. conference tournaments prepare the teams for the venue of the national tournament. 

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The tournament is new to the Pac 12, but it is along the lines of we have always done it that way.  ACC, SEC and B1G TEN all started in the late 1970s or early 1980's.  Big 12 joined them in 1997.  As Charles said, they can't be possibly making any money from these games.

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Who are we kidding it's all about the money!

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I just got off the phone with Todd Miles, the Assistant AD of Communications for Baseball.  He acknowledges there is no money in the tournament, and that in the end...it gives the Pac-12 a chance to get another team into the NCAAs.

 

So I asked him, "just because everyone else is scamming the system...that means we should?"  He said that yes.. if it gets another conference team into the NCAAs.

 

He said that now, for the first time, the nation is watching Pac-12 Baseball during conference tournament week, when nobody did before.  I said, "baloney, as everyone is watching their own team and their own conference and is not watching the Pac-12.  Win in the NCAA tournament, and that will make them notice."

 

When I asked about the pitchers getting their arms burned out...I got the same answer about everyone else having the same issues over that week in other conferences.  When I told him that if a team wins the Pac-12 tournament that shouldn't....that will downgrade the best teams in the conference.  Oregon moving up would come at the expense of someone else, and thus a Top-8 ranking could be lost.

 

He said to me...."I could not disagree more with you, Charles."

 

     I'm not getting anywhere with this...

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Mr. FishDuck

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And....we will have the link to ESPN+ later in the week.  I like Todd, and he is killer on the stats, but this is how they think up there....

 

So he says, "so you must think that Basketball Tournaments are wrong as well, Charles?"  You could tell by the tone of voice that he thought he got me on that one.  I told him,....

 

"yeah....basketball conference tournaments are a crock....just another way to scam another team in after 20 conference games? How dumb is that?"

 

He says,..."I could not disagree with you more, Charles..."

 

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Mr. FishDuck

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At least Todd is consistent, Conference Tournaments are a Crock! The late Lute Olson thought they were ridiculous, and since his Arizona Wildcats basketball teams were winning the conference regularly, he had good reason too. The coaches whose teams weren't as good had a more favorable opinion of them as their team could win and steal a bid. The worst claim by Todd was that "people are watching the Pac-12 tournament", unless they had the Pac-12 network they weren't, and I just watched Oregon's games.

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Oregon & Gonzaga both played their way out of a chance to host this weekend.  The West Coast got the shaft (again), with only 2 hosts (Stanford & OSU).  Although, nobody out West really stepped up down the stretch anyway.  Maybe some day Oregon can stop shrinking in the shadow of Beaver Baseball.  They are fairly even in most respects, but for some reason Oregon is scared of them when they play.

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Did he give you TV numbers to back up his position?  Pretty simple way to back up his position.

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     At least with BB, jumping on the tournament bandwagon seems to have been a perception thing based on dance success coming off their tourneys for both the Big East and ACC.

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Guest Axel

Who won the first Pac-12 conference baseball tournament? No one. That's who.

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There’s no tournaments in baseball.

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