Who isn’t a BracketBuster?

Sixteen conferences and 142 teams are participating in BracketBusters this season. While most people are making jokes about how everyone gets to play, it’s interesting to see which conferences aren’t present this season. For instance, the Atlantic 10, Great West, Northeast Conference and the Ivy League present four examples of why a conference would sit out an event that offers 26 schools a decent bit of national exposure (and the rest a home-and-home series).

For the Atlantic 10 the important word is prestige. The conference, with heavyweights like Temple and Xavier, doesn’t see itself as a mid-major conference that would benefit from the event’s format. This is probably true. No conference above the A-10 in the Pomeroy Rankings last season is participating in the BracketBusters either. Like holding its conference tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, this is a way for the schools of the A-10 to show they’re big(ger) time.

The Great West is on the opposite end of that spectrum. Every member of the conference would benefit from the opportunity to have an extra game on the schedule. Unfortunately, the only way a GWC team is making the NCAA Tournament is through an at-large bid. Since there’s almost no shot of that happening, it’s tough to justify an invite to an event that is supposed to be about finding the next team that will mess up everyone’s brackets in March. (And I don’t mean the CIT bracket I fill out every season.)

Then for a few conferences there just aren’t enough days in the schedule to make the venture worthwhile. The Ivy League and NEC have schools that would be attractive to ESPN and a national audience (Harvard, Princeton and Long Island come to mind), but they also have jam-packed schedules. When the BracketBusters are happening February 17-19 Harvard will be hosting Brown and Yale. (Also, the Crimson will have actually just played against Princeton on ESPNU the week before.) There’s no reason for those teams to break up the 14-game sprint that is the Ivy season for BracketBusters.

It seems like the NEC faces a similar situation. In lieu of the BracketBusters Long Island will be hosting Sacred Heart (Feb. 16) and Quinnipiac (Feb. 18). With 18 conference games to squeeze in scheduling can get really tricky if you take away a weekend for the BracketBusters. (Ask the Horizon League teams.) The NEC seems content to have its schools beat up on each other late in the season.

Every conference and its member schools has its own reasons for participating in, or avoiding, the BracketBusters event. Even inside of conferences the opinions about what to do are varied – take for instance in the WCC where only Loyola Marymount and St. Mary’s will be participating. Even at its bloated size, the event should continue to provide quality non-conference games.