The system would be better if they had a group to decide who belongs and 
provided some basic rules. Using a formula should be part of the system but 
to the general public its going to look pretty bad if a under .500 team 
wins the whole thing doesn't at least win something to earn their way in.

Even most HS leagues have rules you cant qualify without being over .500 
for regional or state competition.
Would it really hurt the system to add that to the mix?

Or perhaps the NCAA should take a little control and enforce something to 
make the leagues play more games in different regions and on the road. 
Mandate some games between all the conf.

>The system isn't perfect. There are compromises to accomodate certain
>"principles" (my word) and realities.
>
>Why do all league champions automatically get a bid to the tournament?
>Because they do. That is the "flip side" of the way the ratings are used
>to select the tournament -- the ratings show that teams ranked far below
>teams that did not make the tournament get in, by virtue of playing in a
>league that is not at the same level as other leagues. Is that fair? yes
>and no. it is fair, becuase temas don't have much control over which
>league they are in. but it is unfair to better teams that got "bumped"
>for them.
>
>Likewise, a team (like Wisconsin this year -- and yes, they are the team
>I cheer for) that plays in a "better" league and loses to very good
>teams has a chance to get in by virtue of the way the ratings attempt to
>take that into account.
>
>Is it perfect? no. Is it fair? yes. Is it perfectly fair? no.
>
>I'd like to see a switch to Krach for the ratings portion of the
>process. But the overall setup -- giving each league an auto-bid, and
>filling the rest with objective, relatively reasonable and
>straight-forward ratings, is better than it used to be. way better.
>
>We could take *just* the league champions from each league. One could
>make the case that they have all earned it, and no one else has, since
>they lost when they needed to win. But we don't do that, we pick a
>larger field. My criteria for judging the selection process has always
>been "are all the credible candidates for champion in the tournament?"
>I think the current systems does that (but one could argue that with 16
>teams, it would be almost impossible to miss that. which is another
>reason that a 16 team tournament is good).
>
>     --david