I apologize.
No problem. I’ve been called worse.
I will say this about it. The main difference and reason they've gone to this playin format and didn't in the majority of other field expansions is the unforeseen, relatively recent and massive explosion in popularity of the Ncaa tournament bracket gambling. It's the greatest free sports marketing tool ever devised. Surpassing the other family favorite, super bowl boxes. They wanted expansion but didn't want to screw up the beloved bracket format.
The first playin game was created after the Mountain West Conference was formed in 1999 and was given an automatic bid for its conference champion, which made it the 31st conference to receive an automatic berth into the men's tournament. The tourney organizers wanted to keep their at-large entries at 34. In order to eliminate one of the teams to have a 64-team bracket, it became necessary for another game to be played between the two lowest-ranked teams among the automatic bid leagues.
But rest assured, win or lose we are very much already in the Ncaa tournament. What would you label our Wednesday game?
It’s not what I would call it, it is what the tournament organizers call it, and that is the first four in. It’s not the first eight in. So to me that means you need to win to get into the tournament and be the “first four in”. Also consider the first round officially begins on Thursday, not Tuesday or Wednesday, Thursday. If you go onto the ESPN tournament challenge site right now it says “Tournament begins in 3 days”. You also do not have an option of selecting any of the “first four in” games as part of the tournament challenge.
We have a chance to be in the tournament, I’m excited about that. But based on the language, if we don’t beat ASU, we were never in the tournament. We was given an opportunity to “play to get in” the tournament. I would be curious to see how it would be recorded officially, but either way, personally I wouldn’t feel like we made it if we lost to ASU.