Where everyone has to play everyone else Are preferable to single elimination even then there are so many variables at play home vs away, chance, injuries etc I think playing a team to compare against more times in a more variety of settings would give more an indication of ‘better’ but logistically impossible of course but regular season much more an indication of the strength of teams imo

Besides the first place team all of the teams in the ncaa basketball tourney finish with 1 loss is the runner up that much better than any of the other one losses just because their loss came later rather than earlier 🙂