Behind the bracket: It's time to implement tournament-eligibility criteria

What if I told you there existed a certain type of team that historically performs so poorly in the NCAA tournament that its very inclusion could be questioned?

And what if I offered a very different type of team that despite limited opportunity and lower seeding across the board dramatically outperforms the first group?

Presumably, a fair-minded person would say, "Show me."

Regular readers and viewers know I have long advocated for some kind of tournament-eligibility criteria, namely that at-large candidates achieve at least a .500 record in their respective leagues. This common-sense requirement would obviously be aimed at middling teams from major conferences, but I would allow conference tournament wins -- and not losses -- to count toward the total in a bonus effort to keep as many teams as possible in the hunt.

Practically speaking, this means a .500 ACC team that loses its conference tournament opener is still NCAA-eligible. That means you, Syracuse, on your way to the 2015 Final Four. Taking it another step, a 9-11 Big Ten team could win a pair of conference tourney games, reach .500 against league foes and then toss its eventual loss in the event. Last year's Minnesota Golden Gophers, for instance, would be eligible to repeat their 10-seed and first-round NCAA victory over Louisville.

The rest of those middling majors who can't get to .500, even with the opportunity for conference tournament bonus games? Don't bother asking. You've had too many failed chances and proved nothing more than your ability to lose to NCAA-level competition at a consistently substandard rate.

In the true spirit of the bubble, this is the time of year we like to say that "reasonable people can disagree." And yes, under the "Lunardi Rule" we could occasionally exclude a power conference team that might make a deep tourney run.

But the data doesn't come close to supporting that argument. In fact, it overwhelmingly suggests the opposite, that the highest-quality non-Power 5/Big East at-large choices are far better in NCAA play regardless of their pre-selection metrics.

Further, as power conferences expand both their membership and the number of league games played, their data is getting worse. And this might be counterintuitive given conference realignment. Former mid-majors such as Creighton and Butler now sit at the grown-ups table, with their postseason successes no longer bolstering the non-majors' side of the argument.

The data since the last round of realignment could not be more glaring:

• Since 2013-14, when power conference configurations became as they are now, a total of 10 sub-.500 members (in six seasons) would have lost their NCAA bids under the Lunardi Rule. These teams had an average seed of 10.08 and WON ONLY THREE GAMES COMBINED in the tourney. That's a 3-10 record if you're counting and a .231 winning percentage. As a point of comparison, in the 64-plus team era, every seed line in the field except the bottom three -- Nos. 14, 15 and 16 -- has a better winning percentage than the sub-.500s.

• In the same six-year time frame, double-digit at-large seeds from outside the P5/Big East are .500 (12-12 overall) in the tournament. And the sample size is comparable: 12 teams, with an average seed of 10.75, nearly a full line worse than the "middling majors" group. It includes the likes of Dayton (Elite Eight, 2014) and two-win Wichita State of 2016, perhaps the most under-seeded team in tournament history. Other NCAA winners among the 12 are St. Bonaventure (defeated UCLA, 2018) and Belmont (defeated Temple, 2019).

To review, in the most current iteration of conferences, sub-.500 power schools are winning less than a quarter of their NCAA tournament games (even No. 13 seeds do better). Meanwhile, the non-power conference schools most frequently in competition for the final at-large positions are winning half their NCAA games (and four times as many overall).

The Lunardi Rule would free up an average of two slots per year based on these numbers. Allow me to suggest a large handful of the would-be beneficiaries:

• 2014: Louisiana Tech (29-8 overall, Conference USA co-champion, NIT quarterfinalist, KenPom No. 37, with wins at Oklahoma and Georgia)

• 2015: Murray State (29-6 overall, unbeaten Ohio Valley Conference champion, NIT quarterfinalist, 25-game winning streak)

• 2016: Saint Mary's (29-6 overall, West Coast Conference co-champion, NIT quarterfinalist, KenPom No. 34, swept Gonzaga)

• 2016: Valparaiso (30-7 overall, won Horizon League by three games, NIT finalist, KenPom No. 42, 8-3 vs. Q1/Q2)