This argument is one of the most ignorant statements one could make about sports, in my opinion. Yes, it's true that in college football, if you lose one game, your chances at playing in the national championship take a huge hit, depending on where it is in the season. Therefore, every game is do-or-die for most teams. And it's also true that a college basketball team can have four or five really bad losses, but as long as they win 20+ games and pull off a few upsets, they'll probably still make the tournament.
These things are true. That doesn't mean the college basketball regular season is pointless and doesn't matter.
For one thing, seeding in the tournament matters a lot. I know the argument against this: "But Josh, look at the Final Four last year! Butler was an 8 seed (or something) and VCU was an 11 seed! It is very common for a low seed to make a run in the tournament!"
My response: first of all, no it isn't. It isn't common. It's happened in the recent past, with George Mason and the aforementioned VCU and Butler (twice). But if you look at a list of Final Four teams, it is generally a top 3 seed that makes it to the Final Four. The reason that may lower seeded teams make deep tournament runs is simple. Teams in elite conferences, such as the Big Ten, play great and/or very tough teams pretty much non-stop. There are few sure wins in conference play in elite conferences, so these teams get beaten up over the course of the season, which results in tired teams in the national tournament. Now, the truly great teams are usually able to overcome this exhaustion, but some teams are affected.
Butler, on the other hand, plays teams like Wright State and Detroit week in and week out. Butler isn't even that good this year, mostly because that they lost their two best players from last year, but they're still third in their conference and will probably still make the tournament. My point here is that their conference is so weak that they're less beaten up than their elite conference counterparts, which means they're better rested for the tournament, which means they can take advantage of their opportunity to make a deep tournament run.
The ultimate point of the last two paragraphs was that, contrary to popular belief, tournament seeding does matter.
Another point in favor of college basketball's regular season is a team like Pittsburgh this year. Pitt is one of those teams that always makes the tournament and is usually a high seed. They're a team that most people would say "Why even have them play the regular season? They'll make the tournament no matter what!" Well, Pitt is 0-7 in the Big East and barely over .500 overall. Their regular season matters, albeit in a negative way.
It's true that it's relatively simple to predict roughly half of the teams that are going to make the tournament at the beginning of the year. It's true that it's possible to make the tournament with a slightly above average regular season. It's true that there can be a national champion who was .500 in the regular season. But that stuff doesn't happen. Do you think that right now, Duke is going to tell you that their regular season doesn't matter? Do you think that when Coach K got interviewed after the Florida State loss, he said "Yeah, this sucks. Thankfully, this isn't college football, therefore this game is completely irrelevant in every way!" Or Florida State's team doesn't care about this victory because it's a lowly regular season game? How about when Indiana beat Kentucky? Or when Notre Dame knocked off Syracuse?
You can't tell me that the college basketball regular season is irrelevant. You can tell me that the college football regular season is more important, but the way I look at it, college football doesn't have a regular season; it has an 11 week playoff. (I still think there should be an official college football playoff though.)
My main point here is that although not every single game has an incredible amount of importance, the regular season as a whole is a representation of everything that's great about college sports. In the grand scheme of things, it's not going to matter that Syracuse lost to Notre Dame last night. They'll still make the tournament easily, probably as a number one seed barring a complete collapse from here on out.
The college basketball season is not do-or-die, like the college football season. That doesn't make the Notre Dame victory any less important. It doesn't lessen the impact of Indiana's win over Kentucky. It doesn't cheapen Florida State's win at Duke. It doesn't make the regular season unimportant.
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