NCAA tourney expansion?

It's kind of funny how this year the NIT champion, South Carolina, defeated the NCAA champion, Florida, twice during the regular season.
Does that in any way take away from the credibility of the NCAA tournament?

 

What is it like living in such a black or white world?

Don't take that to mean I favor expanding the tournament. I don't. I just think that is a silly statement.

 

If this ever comes to fruition -- and let's all hope it never does -- but if it does...

Let's keep a muzzleloader at our side to aim at the first coach who cries because his school didn't make the 128-team field.

 

Fuck it, if you're going to expand give EVERYBODY a bid. All 325 teams or whatever the hell the number is.

 

Nobody asked, but I don't find his statement silly at all.
If you left any doubt about your chances of making the field (ie a "bubble team"), then you didn't do your job and don't deserve to get in.

If you're a mid-major power that flamed out of the conference tournament and get passed over for a major conference school with a .500 leage record, tough. LIkewise, if you're a .500 major conference school passed over for a mid-major that didn't win its conference tournament - Tough.

Could the selection process use some tweaking? Sure, but that doesn't mean expanding the field. There has to be a line somewhere. You're still going to have coaches whining about not making the field of 128.

 

1. The NCAA paid over $50 million to buy the NIT (and to kill a lawsuit). Don't think they want to entirely waste that cash by expanding the NCAA to kill the NIT.
2. The attendance and ratings aspects, regarding $, is not an NCAA concern. It's got over $1 billion in its account from CBS.
3. This is much ado about very little. So the coaches want toe xpand the field? Big deal. The NCAA is being nice to listen and "look into" the issue.
4. How would a huge expansion (like doubling the field) work? MM lasts 3 weekends. Can't extend it into April another weekend because of the Masters. Can't start it a weekend earlier without starting the season earlier and the season already starts in mid-November, right when football is center stage.
5. Best expansion possibility is turning the play-in game into four games in Dayton. That would mean six more teams get in. The winners of those four games advance to play the four No. 1 seeds. The four games in Dayton would have more of an NCAA-type atmosphere and would give ESPN a whole day of programming instead of just one night.

 

The "coach-killer" isn't the 65-team tournament, it's a new megaconference such as the Big East. The head coach at Rutgers, Seton Hall, South Florida, DePaul, and probably St. John's might as well rent because none of those guys are going to be there very long with the current structure of that league. They've got no chance.

 

How do you know there haven't been "other George Masons" in the past who instead of barely being on the right side of the bubble were on the wrong side? In other words, teams capable of winning 3 or 4 (or hell, maybe even 6) games that got shipped off to the NIT instead.

Again, I do *NOT* favor expanding the field. I just think there are occasions when the whining is justified.

 

Ok, if they don't expand the field at least give every team double treats after the game. Even if they lose.

 

The best expansion scenario I've seen has been expanding the bracket to 80 teams -- 20 in each region, with the bottom eight seeds having to play preliminary games.

In this format you have the same bracket as before, with the exception being:

A 1 seed would play the 16-17 winner
A 2 seed would play the 15-18 winner
A 3 seed would play the 14-19 winner
A 4 seed would play the 13-20 winner

In this type of format, you could have more upsets because a 16 seed would more than likely be from a mid-major or higher conference. And the old 16 seeds would become your 20 seeds, and they would -- in theory -- have a better chance of knocking off a 13 and a 4 than a 1, because they are a lot closer to those teams than they are to a top seed.

 

So they'd get like a snow cone AND a pack of Big League Chew? or a Pepsi AND a candy bar?

 

Our concession stand served RC. But they made kick-ass snowcones.