There has been much talk recently of expanding the NCAA tournament field from 65 teams to 96 teams. What a terrible idea.
Now every year there are, at most, 5 teams who have a legitimate reason to be upset that they didn't make March Madness. But do you really think there are 31 other teams that really deserve to make the tournament? No way.
My only addition would be to expand the tournament to 68 teams. This would give us four play-in games to determine the four 16 seeds. Let's be honest, there is little difference between 15 and 16 seeds, so taking some of them away and putting them in play-in games won't hurt anyone. And it will allow us to add 3 more decent teams to the field. Most of the bubble teams that don't make it are better than automatic bids from bad conferences that end up being 14, 15, and 16 seeds anyways, so bumping a few of them down a seed (or into a play-in game) would only make the tournament slightly more competitive.
And how upset would I be if this change never happens? Not at all. I love the tournament the way it is right now, and so I will never be upset. I might gripe for a day about a few teams who I thought should have made it (watch out for a blog about that when it happens), but once the tournament starts, that all goes out the window. So do us a favor and keep it at 65.
7 years ago
it would only be about money if they expanded the tourny and here is why:
ReplyDeleteeveryone complains that college football needs a play off system because teams are left out and don't get a fair shot at the title.
College basketball has that very play off system and people still are not satisfied? 65 teams and they want more?
First off every conference has a tournament to determine who gets into the march madness bracket...why not just consider that an unofficial start. because if you win that you get to make it to round one so there you go everyone should be happy with that.
and if you still are not happy with the conference tournaments there is still the NIT bracket which is an opportunity for MORE teams to play in the post season.
people will never be satisfied, college football fans want a play off system, college basketball has the perfect play off system and even they are not happy