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Conference Tournament vs. Regular Season Title

FirstDownB

FirstDownB

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Oct 12, 2015
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Which is more important? Which one is more "official"? Is change inevitable?

It is my understanding that there are 2 separate B1G conference titles each year - 1 for the regular season and 1 for the tournament.

I live near South Bend and they have been calling Notre Dame last year's ACC champions. They finished 3rd in the regular season but won the tourney. So, I looked it up and apparently the ACC has considered their tournament champ the one and only official conference champ since 1961.

Conversely, the B1G didn't even start a conference tourney until 1998, so obviously the regular season championship has a much longer and storied history. But it makes me wonder if this confusing duality will continue or will the regular season title eventually be made unofficial as in the ACC?

I like getting a trophy when we finish the regular season as #1 in the conference.. who doesn't.. But there isn't even a trophy for finishing the regular season #1 in the national polls. Even now football has a conference championship game. Unbalanced schedules with 14 team conference just add to the problem. Seems to me like the regular season title is slowly being phased into less and less significance.
 
Unfortunately I think a change has already begun in favor of the tourney. It generates additional money, has more exposure and generates additional money.:D

Plus all the points you made. The college game is slowly becoming a shell of what it once was.
 
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In my mind, you have a regular season champion and a tournament champion. Just keep the distinction between the two. That simple.
 
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FirstDownB said:
Which is more important? Which one is more "official"? Is change inevitable?

It is my understanding that there are 2 separate B1G conference titles each year - 1 for the regular season and 1 for the tournament.

I live near South Bend and they have been calling Notre Dame last year's ACC champions. They finished 3rd in the regular season but won the tourney. So, I looked it up and apparently the ACC has considered their tournament champ the one and only official conference champ since 1961.

Conversely, the B1G didn't even start a conference tourney until 1998, so obviously the regular season championship has a much longer and storied history. But it makes me wonder if this confusing duality will continue or will the regular season title eventually be made unofficial as in the ACC?

I like getting a trophy when we finish the regular season as #1 in the conference.. who doesn't.. But there isn't even a trophy for finishing the regular season #1 in the national polls. Even now football has a conference championship game. Unbalanced schedules with 14 team conference just add to the problem. Seems to me like the regular season title is slowly being phased into less and less significance.
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I assume that there is no longer a regular season trophy in football? [Not much of a football fan] I personally think that the Big Ten is gradually doing away with the regular season trophy. The NCAA seems to have already moved away from paying as much attention to the regular season winner and toward more attention to the tournament winner. Plus there is more publicity from the media for the tournament winner. And, as BBG points out, additional revenue.
 
So.. If the regular season title eventually does go the way of the dinosaurs, it begs the question how will regular season titles be viewed decades from now? Particularly those titles won after implementation of the BTT in 1998.

This whole thing is starting to remind me of the NIT/NCAA tournament evolution (from what I've read), and how some of the old NIT titles are viewed with less regard nowdays than when they were won.
 
Winning an unbalanced regular season is still better than winning a tournament. Winning the tournament requires you to beat potentially only 3 teams and there's no telling how strong those teams will be based on upsets. I will always value the regular season more. I know we've won the BTT before and I couldn't even tell you what year it was. I still think the winner of the regular season has a much stronger claim of being the best in the league versus whoever is hottest for a weekend in March. Face it, if we were champs right now we would not be apologizing for it. The easy solution is let's just win both next year.
 
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I hear you, yes it is worse now that the greed of the B1G has many more teams. And I also value the BT regular season more than the BTT as well. I just do not like the relative scheduling unfairness that come with it now. But that said, Purdue was it's worst enemy this season in not winning the regular season championship. Good for IU for both taking advantage of their schedule and minimizing their lost opportunities.
 
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BoilerBulldog said:
We've been unbalanced for 20+ years though. Did it ruin it for you when we won it since then? Not me. I know we're more unbalanced now but the days of the round robin are long gone.
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Big difference between playing 8 of 10 teams twice compared to 5 of 13 but yes we've been unbalanced since adding Penn State.
 
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The more I think about this, the more I come to the conclusion that if you were to jump into Doc Brown's DeLorean and go 30 years into the future, the sports almanac (or whatever web version we'll have) will probably list a single conference champion for each year whenever possible. After decades of existence IMO the tourney title will probably be viewed as crowning official champ since 1998.

With that in mind, here is what the current tally looks like if you combine pre-1998 regular season titles with post-1998 tourney titles (2016 still tbd):

Purdue 22 (21+1)
Indiana 19 (19+0)
Ohio St 19 (15+4)
Wisconsin 17 (14+3)
Illinois 15 (13+2)
Michigan 12 (12+0)
Michigan St 10 (6+4)
Iowa 10 (8+2)
Minnesota 8 (8+0)
Northwestern 2 (2+0)

Regardless of whether this comes to pass, at the very least teams will not get double credit in the record books for winning both the regular season title and tourney title in the same year. The tally of years with EITHER title currently stands as follows:

Purdue 23
Indiana 22
Ohio St 21
Wisconsin 19
Illinois 18
Michigan 14
Michigan St 14
Iowa 10
Minnesota 8
Northwestern 2
 
Regular season BIG is more important than tourney BIG champs to me. B1G tourney is just a chance to boost your seed a bit, but otherwise, it doesn't mean a lot to me other than another chance for injury heading into the real tournament. Put another way I'd rather finish 1st in the B1G regular season and 5th in the B1G tourney than 5th in the regular season and 1st in the B1G tourney. I think that would equate to a better NCAA seed 90% if the time and you are remembered more for being regular season champs.
 
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Winning the reg. season, is just that, ok, you have the best record amongst an unbalanced unfair schedule. what pleasure would one garner from that? You are correct, it doesn't mean anything any longer, it's the tourney that determines the winner of the Big Ten. You can't have two different teams be the winner of the Big Ten, ROTFL, that's just a farce and we all know it. So let's say this happens. The reg. season record winner plays the team who came in 2nd in the reg. season,,,,in the championship game of the Big Ten Tourney. OK, even though they won't make it there let's say IU gets to the championship game (hypothetically) and plays MSU, which is VERY likely to make it to the championship game. And MSU wins (which they would)....... so who is the champ? I think we all know the answer to that question. IU who went 0-2 vs. MSU , or MSU who went 2-0 vs IU? You are correct and I don't even have to tell you the answer.

But here is actually how this will shake down...... MSU vs. Purdue in the championship game. And the victory goes to the Boilers. Boilers > MSU > IU (see what I'm saying?)
 
Correct me if I am wrong, but the official NCAA Tourney bid goes to the winner of the BOIG tournament. All other bids are at-large. If so, the BIG tournament is the recognized champion of the BIG. I don't like it, but I think that is the situation.

:cool:
 
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mathboy said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but the official NCAA Tourney bid goes to the winner of the BOIG tournament. All other bids are at-large. If so, the BIG tournament is the recognized champion of the BIG. I don't like it, but I think that is the situation.

:cool:
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I like it and that's correct. You don't get a lock-slotted bid to the NCAA for getting handed the best record in the big ten after your 18 games are played. You get one for the B1G Tourney held in Indianapolis, Indiana at Banker's Life Fieldhouse for the year 2015-2016, held next week. To the victor go the spoils. That's just a little dig at my Hoosier friends out there. Congrats on having the best record in the B1G, now may the real challenge start.
 
honey_badger said:
Winning the reg. season, is just that, ok, you have the best record amongst an unbalanced unfair schedule. what pleasure would one garner from that? You are correct, it doesn't mean anything any longer, it's the tourney that determines the winner of the Big Ten. You can't have two different teams be the winner of the Big Ten, ROTFL, that's just a farce and we all know it. So let's say this happens. The reg. season record winner plays the team who came in 2nd in the reg. season,,,,in the championship game of the Big Ten Tourney. OK, even though they won't make it there let's say IU gets to the championship game (hypothetically) and plays MSU, which is VERY likely to make it to the championship game. And MSU wins (which they would)....... so who is the champ? I think we all know the answer to that question. IU who went 0-2 vs. MSU , or MSU who went 2-0 vs IU? You are correct and I don't even have to tell you the answer.

But here is actually how this will shake down...... MSU vs. Purdue in the championship game. And the victory goes to the Boilers. Boilers > MSU > IU (see what I'm saying?)
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Your predictions have been spot on so far! And for the record..I still think you are a sociopath, and a mildly retarded, IU fan.
 
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FirstDownB said:
The more I think about this, the more I come to the conclusion that if you were to jump into Doc Brown's DeLorean and go 30 years into the future, the sports almanac (or whatever web version we'll have) will probably list a single conference champion for each year whenever possible. After decades of existence IMO the tourney title will probably be viewed as crowning official champ since 1998.

With that in mind, here is what the current tally looks like if you combine pre-1998 regular season titles with post-1998 tourney titles (2016 still tbd):

Purdue 22 (21+1)
Indiana 19 (19+0)
Ohio St 19 (15+4)
Wisconsin 17 (14+3)
Illinois 15 (13+2)
Michigan 12 (12+0)
Michigan St 10 (6+4)
Iowa 10 (8+2)
Minnesota 8 (8+0)
Northwestern 2 (2+0)

Regardless of whether this comes to pass, at the very least teams will not get double credit in the record books for winning both the regular season title and tourney title in the same year. The tally of years with EITHER title currently stands as follows:

Purdue 23
Indiana 22
Ohio St 21
Wisconsin 19
Illinois 18
Michigan 14
Michigan St 14
Iowa 10
Minnesota 8
Northwestern 2
Click to expand...
Why would our ability to accurately report championships decrease in the year 2046? We seem to be doing pretty well at keeping the two straight right now places like Wikipedia and College Basketball Reference. Will paper and bytes become scare resources and force us to combine wherever we can?
 
JetpackJunky said:
Why would our ability to accurately report championships decrease in the year 2046? We seem to be doing pretty well at keeping the two straight right now places like Wikipedia and College Basketball Reference. Will paper and bytes become scare resources and force us to combine wherever we can?
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Good stuff. Of course its not whether the records CAN be kept, its whether the relevance of each title will be preserved to the point that both WILL be kept side by side with equal pomp and circumstance. I just don't see other instances of multiple methods of crowing a conference champion in other sports or even with how national champions are crowned within the sport of college basketball. My point about the almanac is I think as a simple snapshot of history people will generally want to list a single champion from each year, and in that case who gets the nod? Think about the NCAA/NIT stuff from the 1940's.. at the time some of the best teams chose to play in the NIT and both champions were celebrated, but if you go by the official NCAA records today only the NCAA winner is recognized.

Of course in 30 years the B1G and conferences as we know them will be a distant memory, so it's probably all moot anyway.. And at the very least with teams changing conferences, how do you even keep a fair tally? We have more Big Ten football titles than Penn State and Nebraska combined after all!
 
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I pick the tournament as more important, based on it being at end of season, and team playing the best at tournament time wins it. And it's on a neutral site.
 
FirstDownB said:
So.. If the regular season title eventually does go the way of the dinosaurs, it begs the question how will regular season titles be viewed decades from now? Particularly those titles won after implementation of the BTT in 1998.

This whole thing is starting to remind me of the NIT/NCAA tournament evolution (from what I've read), and how some of the old NIT titles are viewed with less regard nowdays than when they were won.
Click to expand...
Its just like everything else in life, we no longer know what we are talking about, eventually.
 
cprh9u said:
Regular season BIG is more important than tourney BIG champs to me. B1G tourney is just a chance to boost your seed a bit, but otherwise, it doesn't mean a lot to me other than another chance for injury heading into the real tournament. Put another way I'd rather finish 1st in the B1G regular season and 5th in the B1G tourney than 5th in the regular season and 1st in the B1G tourney. I think that would equate to a better NCAA seed 90% if the time and you are remembered more for being regular season champs.
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What a shocker you sided with the IU side of things. You were exposed in the other thread and this just proves it furhter that you are a iu troll and not a Boiler.

The regular season title is meaningless now and is nothing but the equivalent of a participation trophy. Period. End of story. And there is even more evidence because the brackets just after iu won showed your school with a terrible seeding based on your moronic expectations. You were the benefactor of a unbalanced and easy schedule yet have a terrible RPI and SOS.

Now go back to peegs with the rest of the pedophiles and quit trying to pass yourself off as a Boiler. No one buys it.
 
LOL! The Automatic bid is out there so Teams have something to play for in all these Conference tournaments. If you didn't have that automatic bid attached, what would they play for?? You guys continue to talk about the unbalanced conference season, well how unbalance is the BTT when you don't play half your league. To compare the two is crazy, one champion has to play 18 games to win it and the other maybe 4 games. Ok, I get it. You don't like IU and the fact that they won it this year. But don't take away the success and grind of 2 months , for one weekend.
 
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Boilermagi said:
What a shocker you sided with the IU side of things. You were exposed in the other thread and this just proves it furhter that you are a iu troll and not a Boiler.

The regular season title is meaningless now and is nothing but the equivalent of a participation trophy. Period. End of story. And there is even more evidence because the brackets just after iu won showed your school with a terrible seeding based on your moronic expectations. You were the benefactor of a unbalanced and easy schedule yet have a terrible RPI and SOS.

Now go back to peegs with the rest of the pedophiles and quit trying to pass yourself off as a Boiler. No one buys it.
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Don't be an idiot. CPR is welcome to express his opinion here, just like you. He isn't taking the "IU side of this debate". Stop being so binary about this issue. The regular season is very important, and so is the BIGT. As for who might be a troll...
CPR:
Messages: 2,195

Magi:
Messages: 45

Frankly, like CPR, I also think the regular season means something. So what? This debate has nothing to do with IU, who happen to win this year's regular season. We might win the next one.

The BIG Tournement gives a team that started slowly and turned red hot a way to get a bid to the NCAAT that they might not have received otherwise. That's a good thing. It can also tarnish the seeding of a team that is dropping in capability toward the end of the year. (See the awful year Robbie tore his knee). It is also great preparation for the Tournament in that you play 2-3 games in the space of a long weekend. All this does not imply the regular season is "meaningless".

:cool:
 
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mathboy said:
Don't be an idiot. CPR is welcome to express his opinion here, just like you. He isn't taking the "IU side of this debate". Stop being so binary about this issue. The regular season is very important, and so is the BIGT. As for who might be a troll...
CPR:
Messages: 2,195

Magi:
Messages: 45

Frankly, like CPR, I also think the regular season means something. So what? This debate has nothing to do with IU, who happen to win this year's regular season. We might win the next one.

The BIG Tournement gives a team that started slowly and turned red hot a way to get a bid to the NCAAT that they might not have received otherwise. That's a good thing. It can also tarnish the seeding of a team that is dropping in capability toward the end of the year. (See the awful year Robbie tore his knee). It is also great preparation for the Tournament in that you play 2-3 games in the space of a long weekend. All this does not imply the regular season is "meaningless".

:cool:
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Don't get mad at me just because you buy his weak crap. He was long exposed as an iu troll even going back to last year. Don't like me calling him out? Tough. I don't care. What you think of me or what I have to say has all the relevance of a rooster fart. You're one of the weakest posters here so anything you have to say that is critical of any other poster here is laughable at best.

The regular season title is meaningless because it can be won with a weak schedule. IU is a perfect example of that and ultimately their seeding in the NCAAT will further prove that. Again, don't like it? I don't give two craps. It's a simple fact. Get over it and yourself.
 
mathboy said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but the official NCAA Tourney bid goes to the winner of the BOIG tournament. All other bids are at-large. If so, the BIG tournament is the recognized champion of the BIG. I don't like it, but I think that is the situation.

:cool:
Click to expand...
You're correct with the first statement - the tourney champion gets the auto-bid, not the regular season champion. And all other bids are at-large. Not sure about the statement in bold though... I don't think the tournament winner is the "recognized champion" of the conference; I think the recognized champ is generally viewed to be the regular season champion. Case in point, as this season was wrapping up, the B1G network on many occasions put up the list of B1G titles showing Purdue at 22 and IU at 21. It just said "BIG Conference Championships". So to me, that clearly indicates that the B1G views the default - for lack of a better word - champion to be the the regular season champion. And this also goes hand in hand with the fact that anytime it's mentioned that so and so won the conference tourney championship, they specifically state "tourney" champion. If they have to specify "tourney champ" when talking about it, then that is the "ancillary" championship of sorts, while the regular season champion is the "default" when talking about the conference champ.

That said, if we ever get to a college basketball system where there are 4-5 super conferences with 20 teams each and not even playing every other team once, perhaps the default switches sides to the tourney championship.
 
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I'd also add that the conference tournament - while being the mechanism for awarding the auto-bid for the big dance - is largely a cash grab by conferences and TV networks. They could just award the auto-bid to each conference's champion and do away with the conference tourneys altogether. The downside of course, is that (as @mathboy mentioned), the NCAA tourney would likely exclude any smaller conference teams that wouldn't otherwise get a bid, but caught fire in their tourney.

And sometimes its cool that a tourney winner gets in when they're not the reg season champ, but the downside risk is it gets in a team with a losing record and pushes out a team that would have otherwise gotten an at-large spot (due to the fact that whoever is the champion in the conference would probably get an at-large bid anyway). I've been to the B1G tourney a few times and think it's a fantastic event. I enjoy it a lot because you get to watch a lot of games and interact with other fan bases. But it's really just a money play by the league and networks.
 
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mathboy said:
Don't be an idiot. CPR is welcome to express his opinion here, just like you. He isn't taking the "IU side of this debate". Stop being so binary about this issue. The regular season is very important, and so is the BIGT. As for who might be a troll...
CPR:
Messages: 2,195

Magi:
Messages: 45

Frankly, like CPR, I also think the regular season means something. So what? This debate has nothing to do with IU, who happen to win this year's regular season. We might win the next one.

The BIG Tournement gives a team that started slowly and turned red hot a way to get a bid to the NCAAT that they might not have received otherwise. That's a good thing. It can also tarnish the seeding of a team that is dropping in capability toward the end of the year. (See the awful year Robbie tore his knee). It is also great preparation for the Tournament in that you play 2-3 games in the space of a long weekend. All this does not imply the regular season is "meaningless".

:cool:
Click to expand...

I was trying to figure out who you were replying to and what it had to do with me, but then I saw one word, "Magi", and I realized why I didn't see that post. I'd rather not use the ignore button but in a very few cases, it's very helpful.
 
Appreciate, mathboy, the statement about this not being a binary issue (or even one to which there is a correct answer). This thread was intended to welcome opinions on the subject and maybe use our imaginations a bit on where this is all headed.

If I could break my opinion of this topic into a time periods it might look something like this:

Past (pre 1998): Regular season title was the final word. Officially and unofficially undisputed champion. Often there were ties with no official tie breaker, meaning anyone tied for 1st got a full title of their own.. So, although there may be multiple champs there was only one means of crowing champs, the regular season.

Present (1998-2016): Feels like we're in a transitional period.. 2 official titles, regular season and tournament, but neither one overrides the other. But do they diminish each other in some way? A single team can win both -- does that then count as 2 titles or 2 halves? Which one is more important? Is what started as a cash grab becoming more of an accepted means of determining the champ? Knowledgeable people can disagree on these questions, but it seems the tide may be slowly turning.

Future (2016-??): ???? Were we truly in a transitional period? Will the B1G at some point decide to do away with the tourney ($$not likely$$) or will they stop officially recognizing the regular season champ (possible)? If so, how will media view previous post-1998 regular season titles be viewed? Maybe the answer is simply that separate tallies will be maintained. But then what becomes of all the old regular season titles in a new era where only the tournament title counts...:confused:
 
honey_badger said:
Winning the reg. season, is just that, ok, you have the best record amongst an unbalanced unfair schedule. what pleasure would one garner from that? You are correct, it doesn't mean anything any longer, it's the tourney that determines the winner of the Big Ten. You can't have two different teams be the winner of the Big Ten, ROTFL, that's just a farce and we all know it. So let's say this happens. The reg. season record winner plays the team who came in 2nd in the reg. season,,,,in the championship game of the Big Ten Tourney. OK, even though they won't make it there let's say IU gets to the championship game (hypothetically) and plays MSU, which is VERY likely to make it to the championship game. And MSU wins (which they would)....... so who is the champ? I think we all know the answer to that question. IU who went 0-2 vs. MSU , or MSU who went 2-0 vs IU? You are correct and I don't even have to tell you the answer.

But here is actually how this will shake down...... MSU vs. Purdue in the championship game. And the victory goes to the Boilers. Boilers > MSU > IU (see what I'm saying?)
Click to expand...


I have mixed feelings about this issue but I have to agree 100% that you can't have two winners of the Big Ten
FirstDownB said:
Appreciate, mathboy, the statement about this not being a binary issue (or even one to which there is a correct answer). This thread was intended to welcome opinions on the subject and maybe use our imaginations a bit on where this is all headed.

If I could break my opinion of this topic into a time periods it might look something like this:

Past (pre 1998): Regular season title was the final word. Officially and unofficially undisputed champion. Often there were ties with no official tie breaker, meaning anyone tied for 1st got a full title of their own.. So, although there may be multiple champs there was only one means of crowing champs, the regular season.

Present (1998-2016): Feels like we're in a transitional period.. 2 official titles, regular season and tournament, but neither one overrides the other. But do they diminish each other in some way? A single team can win both -- does that then count as 2 titles or 2 halves? Which one is more important? Is what started as a cash grab becoming more of an accepted means of determining the champ? Knowledgeable people can disagree on these questions, but it seems the tide may be slowly turning.

Future (2016-??): ???? Were we truly in a transitional period? Will the B1G at some point decide to do away with the tourney ($$not likely$$) or will they stop officially recognizing the regular season champ (possible)? If so, how will media view previous post-1998 regular season titles be viewed? Maybe the answer is simply that separate tallies will be maintained. But then what becomes of all the old regular season titles in a new era where only the tournament title counts...:confused:
Click to expand...


Nice summary of the issue and of the history. The fact that other conferences no longer have a regular season champion is a harbinger of what is to come in the Big Ten. As we move to a 20 team conference the regular season champion will be phased out. What is happening to basketball [$$$] makes me sad.
 
The bottom line is that the Conference play throughout the season is the champ. If you get a little tougher schedule, deal with it. If you get a cakewalk schedule, like michigan state... pounce on it.
 
This is a very easy question. If Purdue wins the regular season B1G title, then that is the most important. Conversely, if they happen to win the BTT, then obviously that has more value. If they win both, they are of equal importance.
 
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Chuchumutha said:
This is a very easy question. If Purdue wins the regular season B1G title, then that is the most important. Conversely, if they happen to win the BTT, then obviously that has more value. If they win both, they are of equal importance.
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And if Purdue wins both it counts as two titles! :D
 
FirstDownB said:
Future (2016-??): ???? Were we truly in a transitional period? Will the B1G at some point decide to do away with the tourney ($$not likely$$) or will they stop officially recognizing the regular season champ (possible)? If so, how will media view previous post-1998 regular season titles be viewed? Maybe the answer is simply that separate tallies will be maintained. But then what becomes of all the old regular season titles in a new era where only the tournament title counts...:confused:
Click to expand...
This is a really good discussion... I'm squandering too much time at work thinking about this!

I'm a little old school and reluctant to change on this. I love the conference tourney as an event, but hate it as it relates to producing a meaningful award (outside of the auto-bid for NCAA, which is fine). Regarding the notion of 2 champions, I'm certainly of the opinion that 2 champions of the same league for entirely different purposes is dumb. If it were up to me, the championship would be the prize for the regular season, and the only award for the tourney winner would be the auto-bid (unless a better prize idea came to be), much like it is today.

But I do respect that that view is not held by everyone. And it would seem that this sillyness of a championship + a tourney championship has to end at some point. So if there someday can only be 1 champion... I will say there is an element of cool to giving the championship to the tourney winner, to me at least, but that's probably driven only by my love for the event (re: thinking with my heart instead of my head). It would definitely be an exciting way to award the title. The practical side of me says that route presents a greater risk of doing a disservice to the B1G championship than the inverse. For example:

1 - IU is the 1-seed this year. Suppose Purdue is a 4 and Wisconsin is a 3 (just making these up). If IU doesn't win it, and instead it goes to Purdue or Wisconsin (or anybody for that matter), how much damage is done to have proclaimed IU the B1G champion? Some, for sure, but a lot? But should 1 loss in the tourney undue the body of work that is the regular season? For objectivity sake, try to ignore the fact that it's IU in this year's #1 spot :) Let's pretend Purdue is #1.

2 - Conversely, imagine if the champion on record was solely based on the tourney championship. Again, pretend Purdue is the regular season champ and #1 seed. And in comes lowly Nebraska or Northwestern to win the tourney (perhaps Purdue gets knocked out by a good team, and that team blows a game to to Nebraska in the final). They'd finish the year with barely a .500 record AFTER adding in the tourney wins, yet they'd be declared the official champion. Then forever you look back at the record books and each time you see Nebraska in 2016 you're like "Nebraska... that's weird... oh wait, now I remember".

It just seems to me if you had to pick one of the 2 above, you'd have to go with #1 because it would the lesser of two evils. Sure, imbalanced deludes the title race a little, but not nearly as much if an 8 or 9 seed were to win the tourney for some dumb reason and be declared the league champion with a 7-11 record or something.

As an alternative though... if I were in charge I might consider an alternative hybrid model that gives the official championship to the team with the best record after including the B1G tourney results. This is attractive to me because it pretty much ensures one of the top 4 or 5 teams in the regular season gets the title because lower level teams couldn't amass enough wins in the tourney to beat the better teams' records. Another benefit would be that because of the byes and double byes, different teams will have different number of games played, which would inevitably reduce some of the craziness with tiebreaker scenarios.
 
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Statey said:
This is a really good discussion... I'm squandering too much time at work thinking about this!

I'm a little old school and reluctant to change on this. I love the conference tourney as an event, but hate it as it relates to producing a meaningful award (outside of the auto-bid for NCAA, which is fine). Regarding the notion of 2 champions, I'm certainly of the opinion that 2 champions of the same league for entirely different purposes is dumb. If it were up to me, the championship would be the prize for the regular season, and the only award for the tourney winner would be the auto-bid (unless a better prize idea came to be), much like it is today.

But I do respect that that view is not held by everyone. And it would seem that this sillyness of a championship + a tourney championship has to end at some point. So if there someday can only be 1 champion... I will say there is an element of cool to giving the championship to the tourney winner, to me at least, but that's probably driven only by my love for the event (re: thinking with my heart instead of my head). It would definitely be an exciting way to award the title. The practical side of me says that route presents a greater risk of doing a disservice to the B1G championship than the inverse. For example:

1 - IU is the 1-seed this year. Suppose Purdue is a 4 and Wisconsin is a 3 (just making these up). If IU doesn't win it, and instead it goes to Purdue or Wisconsin (or anybody for that matter), how much damage is done to have proclaimed IU the B1G champion? Some, for sure, but a lot? But should 1 loss in the tourney undue the body of work that is the regular season? For objectivity sake, try to ignore the fact that it's IU in this year's #1 spot :) Let's pretend Purdue is #1.

2 - Conversely, imagine if the champion on record was solely based on the tourney championship. Again, pretend Purdue is the regular season champ and #1 seed. And in comes lowly Nebraska or Northwestern to win the tourney (perhaps Purdue gets knocked out by a good team, and that team blows a game to to Nebraska in the final). They'd finish the year with barely a .500 record AFTER adding in the tourney wins, yet they'd be declared the official champion. Then forever you look back at the record books and each time you see Nebraska in 2016 you're like "Nebraska... that's weird... oh wait, now I remember".

It just seems to me if you had to pick one of the 2 above, you'd have to go with #1 because it would the lesser of two evils. Sure, imbalanced deludes the title race a little, but not nearly as much if an 8 or 9 seed were to win the tourney for some dumb reason and be declared the league champion with a 7-11 record or something.

As an alternative though... if I were in charge I might consider an alternative hybrid model that gives the official championship to the team with the best record after including the B1G tourney results. This is attractive to me because it pretty much ensures one of the top 4 or 5 teams in the regular season gets the title because lower level teams couldn't amass enough wins in the tourney to beat the better teams' records. Another benefit would be that because of the byes and double byes, different teams will have different number of games played, which would inevitably reduce some of the craziness with tiebreaker scenarios.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your thoughts. Now you have me thinking the current model could potentially exist as is for quite awhile into the future.. The official website does explicitly say that the conference champion is crowned in the regular season and the tourney is only for purposes of the automatic bid. So, maybe there aren't really 2 titles, just a title and an empty trophy. And maybe that never changes.. Just seems unlikely as it sort of flies in the face of the recent trend. But then again, the Big 10 11 12 14 has never shied from doing its own thing.
 
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