Dumb Rules, Saving The NCAA Tournament Committee And Hilarious Fans - We Once Again Saw Why Mid-Major Title Games Are AWESOME

Sorry to throw a lot in that headline, but, welcome to March. Three mid-major title games all tipped at 7. All were awesome. I'm not even saying that to try and hype up mid-majors, they all delivered. You had NKU/Cleveland State being a beautiful disaster. You had Merrimack with some late plays and fouls to hold off FDU. You had Charleston and UNC-Wilmington exchanging run for run. 

But here's the thing. There's always something extra when it's a 1-bid league. I said it on Twitter earlier tonight, but it felt like every single one of these games were life or death on every possession 6 minutes into the game. You can just *tell* there's something different with the fans. They are holding their breath when the game is 2-2, because they know it's their chance. They also all look like NKU fans, which is now my favorite fanbase to watch: 

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By the way this block was fucking awesome.

But back to the headline. What's the dumb rule? This, the exact scenario I blogged about on Sunday: 

I don't want to recap it too much, but Merrimack is part of the transition rule still. If you move up to Division I you are ineligible for the NCAA Tournament for four years. It's so fucking stupid because of this exact scenario (or Bellarmine last year). Merrimack won the NEC regular season. They won the NEC Tournament. The team they just beat gets the bid. 

FFFFFUUUUUCCCCKKKKK (I really hate doing that, but wanted to emphasize it) THAT. 

If you are good enough to win your conference, you're good enough to play in the NCAA Tournament. Put Merrimack in you cowards. I hate it so much. I still just say we cap the amount of teams in Division I instead of letting 363 teams in and let them all compete for the NCAA Tournament. Pretty simple. 

Then there's saving the Tournament committee. What do I mean by that?

Charleston.

They were 30-3 coming into this game. There's a good chance they don't make the Tournament if they lose to Wilmington. They were 51 in NET, 75 in KenPom, 0-1 in Quad 1 games. The committee 100% would have taken a 17-win Big 10 team over them and Charleston would have been the first 30 win team to not make the NCAA Tournament. Part of the game. But now the committee doesn't have to stumble over their words to explain why they were left out and we don't to have the pointless argument all week about them. 

So shout out Charleston, NKU and Merrimack (I refuse to shout out FDU). Don't ever, ever get rid of these. While we all know the major conference tournaments, these are the ones that really make this week special.