-- [ From: Kepler * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- > > I think that the NCAA should either allow a larger ratio for sports with > > fewer sponsoring institutions It would be hard (albeit maybe not impossible) to construct a good argument for doing this. I presume the NCAA will say: "if you have enough sponsoring institutions to have a national tourny, then you have enough to accept the common ratio. If you have so few teams that this seems unfair, then maybe you shouldn't have a national tourny at all..." Well, actually, what the NCAA will say is "Zzzzzzzzzzz... Wha-- huh? Football? Basketball? Well, never mind then. Zzzzzzzzz........" The NCAA is just a union of institutional reps. Like any quasi-democratic system, minority interests tend to get screwed unless there are particular protections put in place. But just as with democracies, those protections are never put in place by "the people" -- the representative units themselves -- they're always imposed from some elite. In the case of the NCAA, there is no such power to appeal to, so presumably nothing will ever convince the majority of schools to have any special rule at all for a minority sport. Well, okay, one thing might. Conceivably, a majority of institutions may field teams in or or more minority sports, and therefore the majority might have a vested interest in applying some sort of lower standard for minority sports overall. But that would also require a degree of cooperation and intelligence that one does not often find in representative groups with a membership of greater than, say, 3 forwards 2 defensemen and a goalie. > or forget the autobids and just go for the > > best teams. This begs the question of "best" -- who gets to decide and how and that sort of stuff. But even if you take the most dramatic case -- say the worst team in a conference pulls out the tourny miracle and thus snags a bid, I still say keep it. The conference tournies are far more interesting to far more teams than the NCAA "usual suspects" show. Any move that tends to weaken the former is another unwelcome step down the squeakball road to hell. -- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Greg Berge * Portland, Oregon * [log in to unmask] * www.spiritone.com/~kepler * * "An theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene, * On which ther was first write a crowned A, * And after, Amor vincit omnia." * -- Lines 160-162, General Prologue, * The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer * HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.