The NCAA should just go to 128 and drop the NIT

[SBU72]

But why do we want to water down the prestige of playing in the NCAA Tournament?

I feel like this suggestion is more of an emotional reaction of being annoyed that we just missed the cut this year as opposed to a good long-term idea. If you're a P5 team who is on the bubble, it's your own fault. You had four months to win another game or two.

The NCAA is going to tinker with the tourney. They'll say to make it better. You may be right, don't water down the prestige. I have made a suggestion many a time. DON"T PAY OUT TO TEAMS IN THE TOURAMENT! If it is prestige, then just pay expenses. Divide up the money earned to ALL D1 b-ball schools equally. If they want to reduce the # in, then go back to 32. Probably 30/32 P-5 teams but so what. They are playing for fame, not fortune. Maybe you see less violations. Fewer coaching changes.

 

[Eric15]

Probably 30/32 P-5 teams but so what.

The excitement of a small Cinderella school beating a power team is what draws the casual sports-fan to this tournament. You just want to eliminate that?

 

[Hoo's That]

The real problem is all of the Division III teams that are in Division I.

FIFY. A goodly number of the MAAC and NEC teams didn't move up from D-2, they moved up from D-3. There are others in other conferences as well. Those conferences are the most "notorious" for the move-up.

 

[SWC75]

The excitement of a small Cinderella school beating a power team is what draws the casual sports-fan to this tournament. You just want to eliminate that?

I guess we aren't casual sports fans. Instead we are loyal fans of a school that contends for national titles who feel that determining who the beat of the best is is what the tournament is really about. But I agree we've gone past that to to something more democratic. It's converted me to want to include everybody so we don't have all the hand-wringing and inconsistencies about who is in and who is out. Let the arguments be about seeding.

 

[SWC75]

FIFY. A goodly number of the MAAC and NEC teams didn't move up from D-2, they moved up from D-3. There are others in other conferences as well. Those conferences are the most "notorious" for the move-up.

Maybe if automatic bids were restricted to conferences that had had a certain amount of success in the tournament - or eliminated altogether, these conferences and schools would go back to where they belong.

 

[Cusefan0307]

The NCAA tournament is popular because of gambling, not because of what teams are in it. It's the most popular gambling event with Nevada sportsbooks. If they put more teams in, it'll just be gambled on more and will be strictly for monetary reasons. Duke, UK, Kansas and UNC could make the NIT 10 years in a row and it wouldn't matter.

 

[Hoo's That]

Maybe if automatic bids were restricted to conferences that had had a certain amount of success in the tournament - or eliminated altogether, these conferences and schools would go back to where they belong.

They made the move to get a chunk of the CBS rights payment money for the tournament, pure and simple. Why else does Bryant (I know, sore point from MLax), Quinnipiac, or {fill in a bunch of names here} make the move? I go back to this all the time. This is all on Dean Smith. If UNC-CHeat had beaten Marquette (the Cheaters were scoring at will and then went into the 4 Corners letting Marquette climb back into the game), there would have been a "No football, no D-1" Rule and most of these schools wouldn't be in D-1 because of the costs, even if they tried to follow the Ivies' "D-1 status, but using D-3 financing" model.

You could be right. Maybe the only way to solve this is to eliminate automatic bids and come up with a way to pick the 64 best teams and put them on the S-curve. Everyone loves when a little guy upsets dook, but that little guy rarely gets past the next game. I accept the idea "These guys play hard, too, and deserve a chance." But realistically, how many MAAC or NEC players are D-1 talents and how many are D-3 talents getting a D-1 scholarship?

 

[SoBeCuse]

The NCAA almost went to 96 when they did their last TV deal with CBS/Turner.
The compromise was 68.

Please no more expansion. We did it to ourselves. Win more games don't give coaches more of a reason to be passive make them schedule aggressively.

Yup. Bilas just was on Sirius talking to Spatola. He talked about that same thing on how it almost went to 96 with Turner like you said. He obviously feels the tournament is awesome and it works just fine. It's a huge cash cow and they will never make it smaller which is what he wants to see. He brought up that sometimes fan bases, alumni, etc., devalue the regular season because of too many expectations in the tournament. He wants to find a way to make the regular season more valuable. He brought up the great jobs that Few, Miller, Bennett, etc., have been doing. Interesting segment.

 

[Shark58]

I'd prefer to go back to a clean 64 but there would be a good way to expand, slightly.

one of the best things about March Madness is that just about everybody in this country lives within a few miles from a school that has a chance to play in the big dance, even if most of those schools have no chance of actually winning.

go to 72 with all the #1 & 2 seeds getting a 1st round bye. all conf tourney champs & reg season champs get in (I like the earlier suggestion of same team wins both, only 1 league bid/only 1 reg season winner allowed). the majority of the expanded dance list would be mid-majors, which is a good thing. seed all teams 1-19 per bracket. let the 16 vs 19 and 17/18 matchups determine who plays the 1 and 2. forget the 2 11 seeds playing a "play in" game. let the 16 littlest guys play games they have a chance of winning.

 

[SBU72]

The excitement of a small Cinderella school beating a power team is what draws the casual sports-fan to this tournament. You just want to eliminate that?

No, not necessarily. The tourney was good back when it was 16 teams, Expansion to 32, 48 and 64 was great. Cinderalla schools are great but not necessary. Casual sports fans are drawn by pools, not contestants. Plain and simple. 1000's of work hours are not lost cheering for Iona (not picking on them), their lost choosing and cheering for your bracket. At 32 teams, games still would have a lot of upsets because that is the nature of college basketball.

 

[CousCuse]

This is my proposal. All teams in P-5 conferences plus the BigEast that finish .500 and over in both their conference and their overall schedule get an automatic bid. The remaining open bids can be divided up any way the small conferences want. 64 team Tournament.

 

[Alsacs]

No change.
64/68 is perfect.

We were the first team out.
We were borderline this year there aren't enough decent teams to justify further Expansion.

The tournament was expanded because quality was left out. Hell USC was number 2 in the country and couldn't get in one year because UCLA was number 1 and all conferences had one bid.

More expansion is not good. Just like the NFL schedule shouldn't go from 16 to 18.

Leave it alone. Win more games all these bubble teams have shown they can lose games.

 

[Eric15]

This is my proposal. All teams in P-5 conferences plus the BigEast that finish .500 and over in both their conference and their overall schedule get an automatic bid.

What if a conference stinks in a particular year like the Pac-12 or SEC has recently? You're just going to hand out bids willy nilly to them?

 

[dollarbill44]

everyone loved it when it was 32 teams, and 48, and 64 . . .

A LOT more people love it at 64 than at 32. There is no denying that the tournament became much more popular when it expanded to 64 teams.

 

[CousCuse]

What if a conference stinks in a particular year like the Pac-12 or SEC has recently? You're just going to hand out bids willy nilly to them?

Yes. That is just based on how difficult it is to establish a winning and successful team in those conferences. I think those teams deserve the leg up. I think this year it would have been 4 or 5 more teams. If that leaves out some 16-16 tourney champs from a small conference, I'm OK with that.

 

[Oráiste]

A LOT more people love it at 64 than at 32. There is no denying that the tournament became much more popular when it expanded to 64 teams.

and that is exactly my point, sir

 

[Moontan]

Why just open it up to every d1 school, we could start it in Jan, and just forget about the regular season, that way everyone gets a bid.

They already do.

Every conference tournament is a play-in tournament. Go 0-31 in the regular season, then win 11 tournament games and you're the winner.

 

[dollarbill44]

and that is exactly my point, sir

Sorry. I thought your point was that people loved the tournament equally at 32, 48 and 64 teams. My point was that the popularity skyrocketed when it went to 64. Granted, sports on tv has also proliferated during the same period, whereas when the tournament was only 32 or 48 teams, only a handful of games on the weekends were shown on tv. 64 teams seems like the magic number.