Midmajor conferences need to protect regular-season champions

If you’re one who likes specifics, it’s used for transmitting moving images in two or three dimensions and sound.

The TV is a mass medium for entertainment, education, news, politics, gossip and advertising.

And also why Illinois State’s basketball team was left out of the NCAA Tournament.

The time has come when stumping for the little guy in March Madness is a useless exercise in frustration, as more and more the selection committee has made clear the certainty that college basketball has in most every way followed the Power 5 lead of its football counterpart.

There is no use, then, complaining about something that is only going to become more evident with each passing Selection Sunday. It’s on the conferences to fix things, to better protect those teams that prove themselves the best over an entire season.

This isn’t about comparing the resumes of Illinois State and Monmouth and other midmajor programs against the likes of Southern California and Kansas State and Wake Forest, among the final group of teams placed into this year’s draw.

It’s about leagues at nonpower levels continuing to bow at the feet of TV demands by awarding their automatic NCAA bids to whoever wins the conference tournament.

It’s about disregarding what happens over nearly three months for what transpires over three to four days, about not guaranteeing your league has the absolute best opportunity to win games when it really matters and the country is really watching.

I get it. Coaches and players and athletic directors want conference tournaments for the chance they might be the ones who are shown for 10 seconds on national TV jumping around a court in celebration. Seriously. That’s it, because there is absolutely no chance midmajor leagues are making a significant amount of money (if any at all) by having league tournaments.

Did you see the tiny crowds at the Mountain West this past week? Come on.

But it’s a tradition that dates to the glory days of the Big East Conference, when it needed a way to create excitement and for people to watch Lou Carnesecca wear ugly sweaters. Enter TV.

It’s also why leagues such as the Mountain West agree to ridiculous contracts that call for tournament semifinals to tip off at 9:30 p.m. on the West Coast — make that 9:55 for San Diego State against Colorado State on Friday at the Thomas &Mack Center once scoreboard issues were fixed.

Change. Be drastic. Stop accepting a reality of irrelevance. Immediately advance your regular-season champion to the tournament final and make everyone else fight it out for the right to meet it for the automatic bid.

Crazy? Not any more than selling your soul as the Mountain West has for each school to earn $1 million to place among budgets that reach $40 million.

It’s unrealistic now to believe smaller leagues will simply award the automatic berth to the regular-season champion and scrap the league tournament. We hoped the Ivy League would remain the one sane midmajor league standing, but then it added a four-team league tournament this season.

Why? TV.

Las Vegas played host to several conference tournaments again this year, and within a short walk you plainly saw the difference between the sport’s big-time (Pac-12 at T-Mobile) and its opposite (Mountain West), its haves and have-nots.

I’d even argue the West Coast Conference at Orleans Arena has surpassed UNLV’s league for excitement and atmosphere in March.

Fortunately for the Mountain West, its best team in UNR followed its regular-season title with three wins here, earned the automatic berth and was placed as a No. 12 seed in the Midwest Region of the NCAA bracket. Had the Wolf Pack lost in Las Vegas, it would have been preparing for a National Invitation Tournament game.

That’s where the champions of the Missouri Valley (Illinois State, co-champs) and Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Monmouth, won league by four games) and Sun Belt (Texas-Arlington, won league by two games) and Ohio Valley (Belmont, won league by five games) are headed, all having fallen victim to the curse of conference tournament upsets.

Maybe their resumes were good enough for the NCAAs. Maybe they weren’t.

It doesn’t matter. This is how things are, meaning it’s on each conference to do whatever it can to assure its best team has the opportunity to make headlines when it counts most.

I understand most still believe the little guy has a chance, that unlike in football, when many teams reach November and are merely playing out a season with no hopes of a bowl game, magic can occur over those three to four days at a conference tournament.

If you’re on that side, fine.

But if not, maybe it’s time to fight back against the allure of TV as the world continues to evolve and the internet becomes just as valuable and powerful an entity.

It’s on the conferences to change things and better protect their top teams.

The selection committee has spoken time and again, which is to say in this Power 5 world, Cinderella will almost never be handed a shoe that fits if she stumbles trying to reach the ball.

Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.