Kolek planning to go pro
The Selection Committee hasn't exactly been backing that theory up recently.
That is because it never went from 32 to 64. It was a slow process:# 1939–1950: eight teams# 1951–1952: 16 teams# 1953–1974: varied between 22 and 25 teams# 1975–1978: 32 teams# 1979: 40 teams# 1980–1982: 48 teams# 1983: 52 teams (four play-in games before the tournament)# 1984: 53 teams (five play-in games before the tournament)# 1985–2000: 64 teams# 2001—present: 65 teams
Yes, a few teams each year get knocked off each year in their conference tourneys, but that's why it's a tournament. Just as a few good teams get knocked off in the opening round of the NCAAs. Last year 15 of the 32 teams in the NIT were from BCS conferences, I'm not sure why you think that if the NCAA expanded it would be much different (you picked 10/32). Just a cursory look at the BCS schools you selected shows that just being mediocre or slightly below mediocre will then get you into the big dance. Theoretically, MU could have gotten into the dance this year in a 96 team field only having beaten DePaul x 2 (rpi of 137), Prov x 2 (98), Rutgers (120), St Johns (73), and Notre Dame (70). That would have given them 7 wins going into the BET and put them squarely on the bubble. If that isn't mediocre then I don't know what is. I don't consider either of the MU teams after the years following the Final 4 good teams, but they most likely would have gotten bids under a 96 team format.At the end of they day, this will probably happen as it's all about money, but when the field expanded from from 16 to 32 to 40 to 48 to 53 to 64 to 65, there were still a lot of BCS teams that were 4/5 games over .500 in their conference and not getting in. Each time the tourney has expanded it has done so incrementally (except in the very early years). Why would they expand it so dramatically this time? Why not move it up to 72 and see how that goes?There has been expansion in NCAA basketball but it has come from the lower ranks. Schools that have nearly zero chance of ever winning the tournament. Expanding the tournament to 96 will lessen the prestige and make selection Sunday and the first few rounds of the tournament much less compelling.
If the top third of college basketball were to make the tournament it wouldn't mean crap to get in.
That's exactly my point, by expanding the field, they will go to more non-BCS schools. The missing teams, by and large, are from non BCS conferences.
They won't. If they wanted the little guy in, they'd make more an effort to get them in. When in doubt, they lean towards mediocre BCS teams. I don't see how that trend won't continue
I had a nice conversation with Dan Patrick about this earlier today.
Wow Chicos, you're starting to sound just like TC. Do you think Mike McCarthy and/or Tony LaRussa have a take on it?
Are we excluding a national champion?There is no good basketball reason to expand the current 64/65-team field. Unlike in major college football, no team with a legitimate chance to compete for the national championship is excluded from the existing format. Are teams that are capable of advancing a round or two occasionally passed over? Absolutely. But look at any of our "First Four Out" lists over the years and tell me if you see any potential national champions. Didn't think so.First, let's change the play-in gameI have opposed expansion for the obvious basketball reasons. To me, the only competitive advantages are found in two or four additional doubleheaders among so-called "bubble" teams in place of the current opening round. Let's stop arguing about Arizona and St. Mary's and simply have them fight it out on a neutral court. Winners go into the main bracket as 11-12 seeds, and no automatic qualifiers are banished to Dayton without enjoying the full NCAA tournament experience.
Here's my deal-breaker: Every regular-season champion has to be an automatic qualifier in any mega-expansion proposal. The NCAA made such a provision when it took over the NIT and, by folding that 32-team field into a bigger championship format, should keep to that line of thinking. Otherwise, instead of going from eight or nine Big East teams to 10 or 11, we'd be looking at 12 to 13 (which is way too many by any measure). I think there's also a way to tie conference tournament results to eventual NCAA seeding, but I haven't had time to think it through.Better yet, if it ain't broke …
I'd go for 68. Allows 3 more at-large teams to get in as something like 13 seeds, and gives the bottom 8 conferences the ability to claim they won an NC2A tourney game.Perfect world for me would be 68 teams plus ESPN/ABC gets the bid. Would allow games to be placed on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. I can understand completely why ESPN/ABC would be enthralled to get this. It'd be a week of a lot of people clamoring to get ESPNU, kind of like the NFL Network has been able to do to some degree nationally and the Miniscule 11 Network has been able to do in this part of the world.I guess if I had to choose between 96 teams or ESPN/ABC getting the package, I'd stay with 68 teams.Wouldn't ESPN/ABC getting the package be bad for you guys at DTV Chicos? You guys would lose a ton of marketability with your MMM package, wouldn't you?
Sometimes more of a good thing is not better. This is one of those times.
Except that since we've never done it, how would we know?
Chicos,Is there an assumption that all 96 games will be televised, or at least if they are televised will draw enough TV revenue to make sense?Are people really sure that watching this year's DePaul play St. Mary's is going to generate enough TV rev to make it worthwhile?
You could make that argument for just about anything. The NCAA has never expanded it by such a large margin, why do it this time? If they want to expand, do it in small increments, like has been done in the past.It's laughable that college football was used as a comparison in that article (by Jay Wright). Yes, almost 50% of those teams get in and it's an absolute joke. I don't think you want to start comparing the best postseason tournament in all of sports to the worst postseason situation in all of sports. It's not surprising that coaches are in favor of it, obviously it will make getting into the tournament a lot easier.