At-large bid

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An at-large bid is a bid or berth in a sporting tournament granted by invitation, not right. This term is most commonly used in the United States to refer to berths that the NCAA grants in its annual Division I men's and women's basketball tournaments, although at-large berths are granted in almost all championship tournaments the NCAA conducts. At-large bids are functionally the same as wild cards in other leagues.

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Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball through the defender's hoop while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one or more one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (overtime) is mandated.

Contents

This article focuses mainly on the most common use of the term, in reference to the basketball tournaments. However, a similar procedure applies in most other NCAA-sponsored tournaments, and in other tournaments that use an NCAA-style system.

College basketball

NCAA Division I

Each year, the NCAA grants automatic berths in both the men's and women's Division I basketball tournaments to the winners of 32 conferences. Since the Ivy League added a conference tournament in 2017, every conference's automatic berth is granted to the team that wins its conference postseason tournament.

Ivy League Athletic conference of 8 American universities

The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising sports teams from eight private universities in the Northeastern United States. The term Ivy League is typically used to refer to those eight schools as a group of elite colleges beyond the sports context. The eight members are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. Ivy League has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism.

The NCAA has established Selection Committees for both the men's and women's tournaments. Teams that did not win their conference tournament may be eligible to earn an at-large berth. At-large berths are determined by record, ranking, strength of schedule, and many other factors. A key factor in determining at-large berths is the Ratings Percentage Index, popularly referred to as the RPI.

The fields of 68 teams that participate in the men's tournament, and 64 for the women's tournament, are filled as follows:

After all automatic berths are filled, the teams that did not win their conference tournaments are studied to see if they can make the tournament anyway. Once conference tournaments are complete, the Selection Committee need not consider conference affiliations in determining at-large berths, making it free to select as many teams from one conference as it deems correct. Most mid-major conferences or smaller conferences will receive no at-large berths, and only the winner of the conference tournament will advance to the NCAA Tournament, making for some heartbreaking moments in the tournaments of smaller conferences.

Mid-major is a term used in American NCAA Division I college sports, especially men's basketball, to refer to athletic conferences that are not among the so-called "Power Five conferences", the Big East, the American, the Atlantic 10, and the Mountain West. These conferences are sometimes referred to as "high majors" by comparison. The term "mid-major" was coined in 1977 by Jack Kvancz, head coach of Catholic University's men's basketball team. Such a distinction is not officially acknowledged by the NCAA, nor does the NCAA use the terms "major" and "mid-major" to differentiate between Division I athletic conferences. It is considered offensive and derogatory by some fans and schools.

The conference tournaments of major conferences are generally less important, as most losers will make the "Big Dance" via an at-large bid, but often lesser big conference teams will sneak in using the conference tournament, stealing a bid from a deserving mid-major team in the long run.

At-large berths are not necessarily lesser teams than automatic berths. They simply did not play well enough at the time of their conference tournaments. Often, at-large berths will get higher seeds than the teams that beat them in the conference tourney, because the Selection Committee judges base their judgment on the entire season.

Division I independents do not play a conference tournament and therefore do not have an automatic berth, and can only receive an at-large bid to the tournament, which rarely happens in today's game. Sometimes, a team that is otherwise deserving of a bid may be ineligible for the tournament due to an NCAA post-season ban, applied only as a punishment for egregious violations of NCAA rules in that school's program in that sport.

With a 68-team field (64 for women), and 32 automatic berths, the Selection Committee must pick the 36 (men's) or 32 (women's) most deserving teams that are left, which ends up being a long difficult process, which culminates in one of the most intense days in U.S. sports, Selection Sunday. Selection Sunday is a televised event where the brackets are revealed. There are almost always interesting arguments about who should be in and who should be out because there are often more than 34 teams that could be considered deserving of a bid. Many final teams that make it, and final teams that are cut are often thought of as interchangeable. This ends up resulting, sometimes, in major surprises of who makes the tournament as at-large teams. At-large teams often will win the tournament which included the last three NCAA Men's Basketball Champions (Connecticut in 2014, Duke in 2015, Villanova in 2016 and North Carolina in 2017).

Conferences

The conferences that are known for many at-large bids are generally the so-called Power Five conferences that receive automatic places in the bowl games associated with the College Football Playoff—the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC.

In college football, the term Power Five conferences refers to five athletic conferences whose members are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of NCAA Division I, the highest level of collegiate football in the United States. The conferences are the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten Conference (B1G), Big 12 Conference, Pac-12 Conference, and Southeastern Conference (SEC). The term "Power Five" is not defined by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the origin of the term is unknown. It has been used in its current meaning since at least 2006. The term is also used in other college sports.

Bowl game post-season game in American college football

In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivision had avoided using a playoff tournament to determine an annual national champion, which was instead traditionally determined by a vote of sports writers and other non-players. In place of such a playoff, various cities across the United States developed their own regional festivals featuring post-season college football games. Prior to 2002, bowl game statistics were not included in players' career totals and the games were mostly considered to be exhibition games involving a payout to participating teams. Despite attempts to establish a permanent system to determine the FBS national champion on the field, various bowl games continue to be held because of the vested economic interests entrenched in them.

College Football Playoff Postseason tournament for the highest level of American college football

The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout tournament to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level of college football competition in the United States. The inaugural tournament was held at the end of the 2014 NCAA Division I FBS football season which was won by Ohio State. Four teams play in two semifinal games, and the winner of each semifinal advances to the College Football Playoff National Championship game.

Other conferences that receive multiple at-large bids on a regular basis are the high-major offshoots of the original Big East Conference, the current Big East and The American. The Atlantic 10 and the Mountain West receive multiple bids on a regular basis as well. The Horizon League, Mid-American Conference, Missouri Valley and West Coast Conference have also received more than just the automatic berth several times.

Certain conferences have never, and probably will not in the near future, get an at-large bid, simply because no team in the conference can ever be one of the best 68 teams in the country, and even if one does, two at the same time would be virtually unheard of. Therefore, it is also often argued that these very small conferences do not even deserve their one automatic bid and it should be given to a more deserving large conference team. Most argue that this would take away from the point of the 68-team large tournament style, that always gives the underdog the chance for an upset. These conferences include the Big Sky Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference. One of these conferences recently made an argument for their best team to make the tournament, even though it lost in the conference tourney. Oral Roberts of the Mid-Continent Conference blew through their conference in the regular season but lost in the conference tournament, ending with a conference record of 17-1. They did not make the tournament, and Oakland University won the bid. Utah State and Holy Cross also had arguments like this recently. A new way to solve the problem is to attempt to switch to a more prominent conference, a phenomenon that was especially prevalent in 2005 and the early 2010s. Many teams made significant moves in that period, with some making multiple moves. A few of the more notable moves were:

  • Butler (Horizon League to A10 in 2012, then to the new Big East in 2013)
  • Louisville (C-USA to Big East in 2005, spent one season in The American after the 2013 Big East split, then to the ACC in 2014)
  • TCU (C-USA to MW in 2005, then to the Big 12 in 2012)
  • UCF (Atlantic Sun Conference to C-USA in 2005, then to The American in 2013)
  • Utah (MW to Pac-12 in 2011)

Other tournaments

The NIT, held for the best teams that didn't make the NCAA Tournament, was at one time an entirely at-large event (hence its name, the National Invitation Tournament); new regulations, however, offer automatic bids to teams regular season conference champions which failed to win their post-season conference tournament. The College Basketball Invitational and CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament both seed their entire tournaments with at-large bids.

College football

At-large bids are sometimes used for bowl games contested between NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision teams. Most bowl games have tie-ins with specific conferences; for example, the Rose Bowl Game has traditionally hosted conference champions from the Big Ten Conference and Pac-12 Conference (or their predecessors). Due to bowl eligibility requirements and preferential selection of top teams by the New Year's Six bowl games, conferences are sometimes unable to provide a team to a bowl that they have a tie-in with. In such cases, bowl organizers will issue an at-large bid to a team in another conference or an independent team.

For example, the 2009 Humanitarian Bowl was meant to feature teams from the Western Athletic Conference and the Mountain West Conference. However, the TCU Horned Frogs of Mountain West were selected for the Fiesta Bowl (a New Year's Six bowl game), and the conference was unable to provide an alternate bowl-eligible team. As a result, bowl organizers issued an at-large bid, which went to the Bowling Green Falcons of the Mid-American Conference. [1]

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This is a list of qualifying teams for the 2014 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. A total of 68 teams entered the tournament. Thirty one of the teams earned automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. The automatic bid of the Ivy League, which does not conduct a post-season tournament, went to its regular season champion. The remaining 36 teams were granted at-large bids, which are extended by the NCAA Selection Committee. All teams are seeded 1 to 16 within their regionals, while the Selection Committee seeded the entire field from 1 to 68.

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This is a list of qualifying teams for the 2015 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. A total of 68 teams entered the tournament. Thirty one of the teams earned automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. The automatic bid of the Ivy League, which does not conduct a post-season tournament, went to its regular season champion. The remaining 36 teams were granted at-large bids, which are extended by the NCAA Selection Committee. All teams are seeded 1 to 16 within their regionals, while the Selection Committee seeded the entire field from 1 to 68.

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References

  1. ↑ "USC highlights non-BCS bowl teams". ESPN . December 7, 2009. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
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