Every year when the bball 64 is announced, some obviously good teams are
left out.  My colleagues here and I joke that it would only take a couple
more rounds to invite all the teams that play Div I roundball.  It is not
really a joke. Why not?  This would probably create some REAL cinderella
stories each year.  I recall, from my six years in grad school at U of
Ill, that the state used to go crazy over the prep bball championship, in
which all schools started evenly, from scratch, all 500+ of them.  One
year, at tiny school from Cobden, I believe, the Appleknockers, kept on a
roll, made it to the finals in Champaign, I believe, whereupon they were
wiped by Thornton of Harvey or somesuch, like 152 to 7.  The point is the
hockey tourney could easily do something like that.
 
Use the league tourneys and regular season championships for seeding
purposes, say seed the top 12 or 16, then spend the first few rounds as
one game winner-moves-on, then when you get down to the top 16 go over to
best 2 of 3, etc, much like it is now.  This would give everyone a chance,
of course there would be occasional major upsets (sniff, sniff!) but what
the heck, it is only a game, right? :-{)
 
This way, if you truly believe your 6th place team could beat the 2nd
ranked team in another (weak) league, you could prove it!  The only hassle
would be the seedings, and for that, I leave it to people more closely
connected to the game!
 
On another topic, any hopes ESPN might show some college hockey?
 
Tony Buffa, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics
Calif Poly St Univ, San Luis Obispo
RPI '64, Univ of Illinois (C-U) '66 and '69
 
Go Engineers!