The CIS Final 8 Experience

After my first trip to the CIS Final 8, I’m left with mixed feelings.

Full credit is due to the event staff, who did a great job of supplying food and drinks all weekend. But they are stuck in a tough spot, trying to put lipstick on a pig.

The Final 8 tournament is supposed to be the best basketball of the season, featuring the most talented teams squaring off for three days. Media comes out in droves, with major print outlets such as the Globe and Mail, Sun News Network, and the Ottawa Citizen sending reporters to the event. Sportsnet broadcasts the bronze and gold medal games, with long-time CIS follower and broadcaster Tim Micallef doing play-by-play and former Brock coach Ken Murray providing colour commentary.

But for all the attention it gets, the conversation on press row and in the media room swings to the issues that have faced the tournament for years - and there are a lot of them.

To be clear, one of the issues is not that Carleton has won 10 of the past 12 championships. No doubt, the dominance of Carleton has probably turned some people off from tuning in, because there is a belief that the same team always wins. But they do not win because of sheer luck or the CIS gifting them an easy road to the trophy.

This takedown starts well before the first game begins. The CIS lets the host team get an automatic berth in the tournament. I get that this is a way to encourage teams to host the tournament, but it is a detriment to the quality of the tournament. The Final 8 tournament, in theory, is supposed to be the best eight teams of the 45 team field. Giving a team a berth for hosting the event undermines competition.

This year, Carleton was host so they got an automatic bid. Since the Ravens started the year as the No. 1 team, there is no seemingly real damage in letting them host. But what if disaster strikes, and the Ravens suffer some injuries to key players and make them a complete dud in the tournament? You’ve now watered down the field and given the team they face in quarterfinals an inherently easier game.

And then there is the bizarre stipulation that says all conference champions can’t be seeded lower than sixth. Why would someone sign off on this? That’s a serious question. By ensuring that someone cannot get a low seed, the idea of seeding is ruined. Just look at this year’s tournament: No. 7 McMaster and No. 8 Saskatchewan (more on them in a second) defeated No. 6 Saint Mary’s and No. 5 McGill, respectively. Both of the lower seeds walloped the teams that were seeded higher. Also, McMaster gave Carleton a more difficult run than No. 3 Alberta did.

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Did the seeding create the best possible match-ups? Absolutely not. The No. 4 Victoria-No. 5 McGill game should have been the closest contest, but it was clear that McGill had no business in that game. The whole tournament suffered as a result, with all games in the quarterfinals being blowouts. Alberta and Saint Mary’s, the No. 3 vs. No. 6, was the closest game with a ten-point margin, but it never felt competitive.

Back to USask, who was awarded the at-large berth this year. The at-large berth is determined by a number of categories, such as wins over top-ten teams, time spent in the top-ten rankings and a handful of other factors. CIShoops.ca parsed through the criteria and found that Ryerson was the best shot at the at-large berth, but tied with USask and Acadia. Thing is, Ryerson lost to Ottawa by a point to miss Final Four and gave Carleton their best scare of the season. They would have been a real threat to No. 1 Ottawa. Instead, Sask got blown out in the quarterfinal.

This scratches the surface of the issues with the tournament. There was no fifth-place game this year, but there were consolation games. Ottawa was the No. 1 seed and got saddled with the 8 p.m. game on Saturday night and had to play at 2 p.m. the next day when they won. Factor in the clocks being wound forwards, and the Gee-Gees had a 15-hour turnaround.

The CIS has to address the issues of the tournament. They probably won’t, because progressive isn’t exactly a word that gets thrown around in the same sentence as CIS. With the tournament hitting Ryerson next year, they have an opportunity to create a buzz in the largest host city that nationals has ever hit. At this point, nearly any alterations would be an improvement. But the CIS had 54,000 people attend the tournament this weekend, so maybe they think everything is okay. It’s not, but the leadership of the CIS seem content to play it safe.