NCAA tourney expansion?

Had Siena been the Siena of 10 years ago or had Hofstra got a better opponent, who knows? As it was, there wasn't much you were going to get out of a win against a .500 team in a low/mid-major. I think the BracketBuster concept got fudged up a good bit with having damn near every smaller school in the country involved. For every George Mason-Wichita State, there were eight really mediocre games. Unfortunately for Hofstra, it meant they got an unsexy opponent.

 

If tournament expansion helped the mid-and sub-mid majors get more spots, great.
It won't... It will give spots to nine in the Big Ten, 10 in the ACC, SEC and Big 12, eight in the Big 10 and 14 in the Big East.
OH, CUSA gets one more, the MAC gets one more and Mo Valley gets three total...

The rich get richer....

 

Also, if you drop those last eight schools (I guess the equivalent of the 16 and 17 seeds) into play-in games, expect to hear quite a bit of complaint from the historically black colleges. They're already pissed enough that at least one of the two black-college conferences gets shoved in the play-in game almost every year. If both get shoved in there (and let's be reasonable — they will), then you'll start hearing rumblings of lawsuits and such. Is it whining? A little bit. But it's a fair point, too, and something to make the NCAA nervous.

Also, unless you expand to all 334 teams, there will always be a bubble. This year, it was team No. 66. In another year, it might be team No. 129. Outside of a couple or three, which teams this year had a legitimate case for not being excluded? How many 16-14 teams are going to get into the tournament if it expands to 96, 128, whatever?

The damn thing's big enough as it is. Leave it alone.

 

What would be nice, therefore it will never happen, is not having the 15-16 (And potential 17-18) seeds from the smaller conferences having to play in.
The playin should be for the last few at-large spots. Yeah, I know it rewards lower seeds, but BFD. Those schools, while low in the RPI, actually won their leagues. You finished seventh in the Big Ten and think you deserve a spot? Fine. Play MAC #2 or the CUSA 4 and see what happens. Prove you deserve an at-large spot.

 

I'd LOVE to see someone go back to this year's season and bracket a 128-team tournament. I can only imagine how shitty some of the tournament teams would be.

 

Good points by both of you re: the Bracket Buster. The thing has gotten unwieldy and I've been railing against it for the past two years at least. Another major problem with it is that all the teams are designated "home" or "road" before the season starts, which severely limits the matchups. This past season virtually all the best teams in the event were the designated "home" teams, so there weren't enough quality "road" teams to create many good matchups. George Mason was one of the few quality teams designated to go on the road, so they got a sweet matchup, while Hofstra got stuck with a home game against Siena.

If they're going to put so damn many (poor quality) teams in the Bracket Buster, they really need to scuttle the pre-season "home" and "road" designations and just assign the best matchups when the time comes.

 

You know, I'm sick enough to do this.

 

So am I. Shall we compare fields?

 

NOTE: This is using the final, post tournament RPI

Atlanta Region
#1 Duke (32-4) vs. #32 Hampton (16-16)
#2 Tennessee (22-8) vs. #31 Siena (15-13)
#3 Ohio State (26-6) vs. #30 Middle Tennessee (16-12)
#4 Pittsburgh (25-8) vs. #29 Kansas State (15-13)
#5 Boston College (28-8) vs. #28 Northwestern (14-15)
#6 Arizona (20-13) vs. #27 Hawaii (17-11)
#7 Bradley (22-11) vs. #26 Nebraska (19-14)
#8 Kentucky (22-13) vs. #25 Iowa State (16-14)
#9 George Washington (27-3) vs. #24 UNLV (17-13)
#10 Bucknell (27-5) vs. #23 Wake Forest (17-17)
#11 UAB (24-7) vs. #22 DePaul (12-15)
#12 Arkansas (22-10) vs. #21 Stanford (16-14)
#13 Houston (21-10) vs. #20 Clemson (19-13)
#14 Kent State (25-9) vs. #19 Rutgers (19-14)
#15 Montana (24-7) vs. #18 Miami (18-16)
#16 San Diego State (24-9) vs. #17 Colorado (20-10)

Oakland Region
#1 Memphis (33-4) vs. #32 Monmouth (19-15)
#2 UCLA (32-7) vs. #31 Saint Peter’s (17-15)
#3 Texas (30-7) vs. #30 Penn State (15-15)
#4 North Carolina (23-8) vs. #29 Delaware State (21-14)
#5 Syracuse (23-12) vs. #28 Holy Cross (20-12)
#6 Missouri State (22-9) vs. #27 Providence (12-15)
#7 Georgetown (23-10) vs. #26 Marist (19-10)
#8 Hofstra (26-7) vs. #25 New Mexico State (16-14)
#9 Indiana (19-12) vs. #24 Pennsylvania (20-9)
#10 Wisconsin (19-12) vs. #23 Davidson (20-11)
#11 Michigan (22-11) vs. #22 Miami of Ohio (18-11)
#12 Creighton (20-10) vs. #21 Minnesota (16-15)
#13 Alabama (18-13) vs. #20 Temple (17-15)
#14 Utah State (23-9) vs. #19 Manhattan (20-11)
#15 Western Kentucky (23-8) vs. #18 BYU (20-9)
#16 Seton Hall (18-12) vs. #17 Murray State (24-7)

Minneapolis Region
#1 Villanova (28-5) vs. #32 Southern (19-13)
#2 LSU (27-9) vs. #31 Saint Mary’s (17-12)
#3 Gonzaga (29-4) vs. #30 Southern Cal (17-13)
#4 George Mason (27-8) vs. #29 Belmont (20-11)
#5 Wichita State (26-9) vs. #28 Sam Houston State (22-9)
#6 Michigan State (22-12) vs. #27 Samford (20-11)
#7 Nevada (27-6) vs. #26 Saint Louis (16-13)
#8 Kansas (25-8) vs. #25 Charlotte (19-13)
#9 Northern Iowa (23-10) vs. #24 Oklahoma State (17-16)
#10 Marquette (20-11) vs. #23 Northeastern (19-11)
#11 Cincinnati (21-13) vs. #22 Virginia (15-15)
#12 Wis.-Milwaukee (22-9) vs. #21 Xavier (21-11)
#13 North Carolina State (22-10) vs. #20 Butler (20-13)
#14 Air Force (24-7) vs. #19 Louisiana Tech (20-13)
#15 Northwestern State (26-8) vs. #18 Florida State (20-10)
#16 Iona (23-8) vs. #17 Akron (23-10)

Washington D.C. Region
#1 Connecticut (30-4) vs. #32 Oral Roberts (21-12)
#2 Florida (33-6) vs. #31 New Mexico (17-13)
#3 Iowa (25-9) vs. #30 Coastal Carolina (20-10)
#4 Illinois (26-7) vs. #29 Albany (21-11)
#5 Oklahoma (20-9) vs. #28 Auburn (12-16)
#6 Washington (26-7) vs. #27 Mississippi State (15-15)
#7 West Virginia (22-11) vs. #26 La Salle (18-10)
#8 UNC Wilmington (25-8) vs. #25 Georgia (15-15)
#9 South Carolina (23-15) vs. #24 Ohio (19-11)
#10 Southern Illinois (22-11) vs. #23 Notre Dame (16-14)
#11 Texas A&M (22-9) vs. #22 Pacific (24-8)
#12 Saint Joseph’s (19-14) vs. #21 Virginia Commonwealth (19-10)
#13 Old Dominion (24-10) vs. #20 UTEP (21-10)
#14 California (20-11) vs. #19 Winthrop (23-8)
#15 Maryland (19-13) vs. #18 Vanderbilt (17-13)
#16 Louisville (21-13) vs. #17 South Alabama (24-7)

 

Even at 128, I'd still keep the requirement that you have to have a .500 or better record against D-I competition to make the field unless you win your conference's automatic bid.

(That would knock out Auburn, Providence, Northwestern and DePaul, and probably a few .500 teams who filled up on NAIA cupcakes).

We wouldn't want this to become a TOTAL JOKE rather than merely a joke, would we?
_____

Now, saying we do go to 128, how do you squeeze in the extra round? Going to an Elite 8 format and playing 3 rounds Wed./Thu.-Saturday-Monday seems to be the best economy of a limited window.

 

This is my major problem with 128. Personally, I'd rather play the first round games on the Tueday and Wednesday after Selection Sunday, but I know there'd be some major logistical problems you'd encounter.

And even with that, do you put 16 teams in each "hub"? Or do you double the number of hubs?