I believe they did. Only for a short time, maybe 2-3 years?
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The old format was nasty. Seeds 1/2 got a triple bye, seeds 3/4 got a double bye, and seeds 5-12 had to play the full bracket. They ended up scrapping that format because of a season where there was a logjam at the top and a team got dropped down to the 5 seed on a tiebreaker. So that team (BG IIRC) had to play two additional rounds compared to teams they were tied with and three additional rounds compared to teams they were just one game behind in the standings.
So I’m assuming still top 8 teams then?
It’s actually the same in theory its just that the MAC (thankfully) doesn’t invite all 12 teams into the tournament. I love the bye system to reward your top teams that proved over 22 games where they belong. And MM conferences should want to give their best teams the best chance to play in NCAAT so the conference has best shot at winning a game or two which then leads to potentially multi bid league or better seeding in future. There was literally zero reward for winning MAC regular season title.
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