Erik writes:
>This is puzzling.  Who will make the decision?  Will each conference
>form its own committee to decide which team gets the second bid if
>the same team wins both championships?
 
Dave Fischer cleared this up for me.  He said:
 
d>According to Rick Comley, each of the four Division I leagues will get two
d>bids, one going to the regular-season champion and one to the playoff
d>champion. If the two are one in the same, the committee will revert back to
d>the criteria to pick the second guaranteed league berth.
 
This makes the most sense - the only effect of the "2 automatic bids"
is to insure that both the reg season and tourney champions get bids.
 
If the same team wins both, then that team is the only one to receive
an automatic bid from that conference that season.  All other teams
from the conference go into the running for the remaining at-large
bids (of which between 4 and 8 will be given out, depending on what
happens in other conferences).
 
I think this also answers the concerns of Jason Solinsky, who wondered
if a conference could or would intentionally award the bids to lower
ranked teams in order to guarantee more bids to that conference.  I
suppose it *could* happen - but it won't.
 
It does raise another question, though.  Does the new practice of
insuring bids to the reg season and tourney winners mean that the
previous requirement for each conference to have two teams receive
bids, is no longer there?  In other words, a conference could now
receive only one bid if the same team wins both the reg season and
tourney, and no other team earns an at-large bid?
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93
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