Comments on: So, where do you stand on NCAA Tournament expansion?

By: marcusgresham

marcusgresham — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:30:06 +0000

I disagree that this eliminates the chances of seeing a #16 beat a #1. You have a better chance of a #16 being a team who was an NIT championship-quality team than some of the small-conference dregs that get #16 seeds in the current set-up. Now, would that diminish the significance of a #1 being knocked out? Perhaps, but it also sets up a chance for MORE upsets of higher seeded teams because they'll be playing those mid-range BCS conference teams that can rise up and win a game. I'm also for anything that gets rid of that one stupid play-in game (or will they expand to 97 soon after 96 since it appears Dayton is the Play-in For Life site?)

By: plane1972

plane1972 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:18:59 +0000

The conference tournaments become irrelevant = money shifting away from the conferences to the NCAA. I can't imagine why the conferences would want to support this. I would presume attendance at those tournaments would dwindle as those play-in games become less meaningful.

By: Vslice

Vslice — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:13:14 +0000

The only thing that is giving this any momentum is the power of money. It absolutely helps no one. Like an earlier post said, until a 16 seed knocks off a 1 why expand. This will completely water down the tournament in my opinion. Believe me college basketball is my favorite sport to watch and to me there is nothing like that opening weekend in March, but adding more teams will absolutely not add to the excitement level. There are always four or five teams that get pinched out, but thats the way the cookie crumbles. Guess what, when they expand to 96 there will be a team that has an RPI or 88 saying, “We were robbed, we were 14-16 with no quality wins and we should be in.” This is stupid, adds nothing for the fans, only adds money to the wallets to the company who can showcase all these “sleeper games”. Bad decision for college basketball!!

By: warford574

warford574 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:16:57 +0000

I read this website every day and finally found something that makes we want to comment. I think this is the best option but alot of you might disagree…here it is……
1. take the top 64 teams from major confrences and have a tournament
2. take the top 64 teams from mid/low confrences and have a tournament

there are way to many teams in division 1 as it is 347? why?
and just to make things interesting have the teams of each tournament play for a championship

By: warford574

warford574 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:16:57 +0000

there are way to many teams in division 1 as it is 347? why?
and just to make things interesting have the teams of each tournament play for a championship

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:56:16 +0000

Why not go all the way to 4096 teams? Then we can include middle school and high school programs from across the country, and March Madness can become March, April, June, and July madness. Something to watch until football pre-season gets going.

By: indyd

indyd — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:48:08 +0000

Wouldn't the additional 31 teams just be the N.I.T.?

Coaches want this because they can say they made the tournament.. no matter how watered down it is.

By: MillaRed

MillaRed — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:48:00 +0000

I think they should expand to 128 teams….this year only. The Hoosiers will get a 28 seed and match up against Loyola, moving on to 30 point victory while flipping them the bird.

That would be awesome!

By: Matt_J

Matt_J — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:33:46 +0000

I've been touting this expansion for a couple of years, as well. It's a grand idea!

By: Matt_J

Matt_J — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:32:42 +0000

If you look at the NCAA Board (Brooks has it posted today), you'll see that almost all of the drive for this is from mid-major schools.

By: Matt_J

Matt_J — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:31:34 +0000

Dylan, I couldn't agree more with your Joe Lunardi comment. I've been calling him out for years, and I've even shown that I have a slightly better success rate at picking schools than he does, and I do my picks a week before Selection Sunday, and he updates his all the way through Championship Week.

By: jpniles

jpniles — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:29:00 +0000

I dont want to sound like an alarmist… but I think that this is a horrible idea that will ruin college basketball. I hate to restate what has already been said, but it will ruin the competition that we see in late January/February as teams duke it out for a spot in the tourney. This is not a good idea!

By: Matt_J

Matt_J — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:28:38 +0000

Adding a championship game in football, though, helps you with an argument that you could field two teams in the BCS games, which ends up with more money for the conference overall.

I'm not sure if you're still going to get that "$1,000,000 per every round of the tournament you make it to" thing with 96 teams. I guess we'll have to see how much money ESPN will throw at the NCAA in order to have control of the tournament.

Get ready to see your cable bills skyrocket. Again.

By: Matt_J

Matt_J — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:26:06 +0000

I always thought that, if they should expand it, they should add more play-in games, and confine the play-ins to those teams that were “on the bubble”. So, instead of playing for the 16th seed, you'd have 8-16 teams playing for the 12 and 11 seeds in all four regionals. That seems more fair (and more sensible) than expanding the thing out to 96.

There's enough teams, why not just do something like the IHSAA used to do, and have all the teams play one tournament, and have the sectionals play into the 64 team bracket? That way, you could show Indiana (the state) what it was missing.

By: tberry

tberry — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:12:29 +0000

Once everybody can get in, it will become meaningless!!!

By: JerryCT

JerryCT — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:13:11 +0000

I agree with the naysayers for all their reasons. The regular season is much better when there is competition to get into the tournament. Poor Syracuse even had to schedule some away games and play good teams to convince the NCAA that the non -conf schedule counted.

The season needs to count for something

By: ronb

ronb — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:08:24 +0000

I am with Coach K and Coach Knight. If you play in a lesser conference and win the regular season and then lose in their tournament you don't get in. Who should get rewarded? The team that wins the conference tournament with a 14-18 record or the team that was 22-10 and won the conference title? If you add 1 game and put in the top 128 teams then you fix this problem and everyone who should get in will. The first games should be played at the school with the higher seed and the next round at the regional sites like they are now.

By: tberry

tberry — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:44:02 +0000

Any bigger and you might as well let everybody in. I think there are too many now. In the past you has to one of the best to get in. Now, you just have to be acceptable to have an aceptable NCAA record.

By: ldiu

ldiu — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:20:11 +0000

This is a bad idea and is 100% for the $$$$$$$$$$$$ that the NCAA will generate.

By: marsh21

marsh21 — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:48:30 +0000

The regular season is already irrelevant as so much emphasis is put on March Madness. With 85% of the NCAA basketball revenues coming from that tournament it's easy to see why they want to expand.

Even though everyone wants a tournament in football, they have a much better regular season as every game is huge if you want to win a title or get to a BCS. For the big programs in basketball the regular season is just a formality. Poor design and it's going to get worse.