Re: Source: 96-team March Madness a 'done deal'

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I agree with snood in that this makes it even less likely that the best team will win the title. The 64-team tournament, while fun as hell, already resulted in the best team not usually winning the title, and this will make it even worse.

 

A 30 game season in a division with as many teams as D-1(or even BCS) isn't quite enough for there to be a sure-fire best team. Especially considering the teams they needed to beat to win the title, when's the last time a team that won it all wasn't considered one of the best teams in the country?

[bukie]

I agree with snood in that this makes it even less likely that the best team will win the title. The 64-team tournament, while fun as hell, already resulted in the best team not usually winning the title, and this will make it even worse.

 

A 30 game season in a division with as many teams as D-1(or even BCS) isn't quite enough for there to be a sure-fire best team. Especially considering the teams they needed to beat to win the title, when's the last time a team that won it all wasn't considered one of the best teams in the country?

Probably Villanova in '85, the first year the tournament expanded to 64.

[jersey cubs fan]

The ridiculous "dilutes the field" argument happens every single time a playoff expands. I'm curious if the "purists" were up in arms when the field expanded from 32 to 40 to 48 to 52 to 53 to 64 teams from 1978 to 1985. With the sheer number of D-1 teams now, the tournament was due for an expansion.

 

65 is already diluted for a tournament. There's nothing ridiculous about that argument. What is ridiculous is trying to compare NCAA basketball as a league similar to NHL, NBA and NFL.

[illiniguy]

I agree with snood in that this makes it even less likely that the best team will win the title. The 64-team tournament, while fun as hell, already resulted in the best team not usually winning the title, and this will make it even worse.

 

For all the ridiculous faults in college football's system, and there are many, it's better than this 96-team insanity. No reason to even play a regular season for a lot of teams at this point.

When is the last time the best team didn't win the title? Beisdes the obvious in '05 :mrgreen:

2006 I guess (Florida was a 3 seed). 3 years before that, Syracuse, another 3 seed, won.

 

The best team wins more often than I'm granting the system, but it won't happen as much now, I'll bet.

Syracuse had by far the best player though. Florida's first year there wasn't a true stud team. Both the two big boys from '05 lost everyone. I still think the best team wins it most of the time.

[Andy]

The ridiculous "dilutes the field" argument happens every single time a playoff expands. I'm curious if the "purists" were up in arms when the field expanded from 32 to 40 to 48 to 52 to 53 to 64 teams from 1978 to 1985. With the sheer number of D-1 teams now, the tournament was due for an expansion.

 

65 is already diluted for a tournament. There's nothing ridiculous about that argument. What is ridiculous is trying to compare NCAA basketball as a league similar to NHL, NBA and NFL.

Exactly. By the end of the regular season, there are rarely more than a handful of teams seriously being considered for a national title. If all these teams were on a level playing field, it'd be different, but the fact is of these 65 teams, at least half and probably more have pretty much no chance at all of winning the title.

[davell]

Here's one thing I won't like at all......Assuming that the top 8 seeds all get byes anyway. We won't have those 3-14, 4-13, 5-12, and 6-11 matchups where it's likely a power versus a mid-major, with the mid-major being the bigtime underdog and fighting like hell to earn some respect and doing it quite often, whether by winning or at least giving the powerhouse team a game for a while. To me, that's one of the best things about the tournament. Under this new format, it's likely to be those same 11-14 seeds as favorites against 19-22 seeds, which are very likely to be also rans from your major conferences. Or lesser mid majors, which just takes the level of play down quite a bit, not to mention the excitement as well.......

 

Take it a step further and realize that those same 3-6 seeds would then get to see their eventual opponent in action right before they play them, the surprise factor leaves us, and talent will probably win out more than it did before.

 

I've never looked at a bubble team that missed out to where I thought "damn, if they had just made it in, they could have won the whole damn thing". To me, it's not worth changing something that has very little to no flaws as it is.

[TruffleShuffle]

The ridiculous "dilutes the field" argument happens every single time a playoff expands. I'm curious if the "purists" were up in arms when the field expanded from 32 to 40 to 48 to 52 to 53 to 64 teams from 1978 to 1985. With the sheer number of D-1 teams now, the tournament was due for an expansion.

 

65 is already diluted for a tournament. There's nothing ridiculous about that argument. What is ridiculous is trying to compare NCAA basketball as a league similar to NHL, NBA and NFL.

Exactly. By the end of the regular season, there are rarely more than a handful of teams seriously being considered for a national title. If all these teams were on a level playing field, it'd be different, but the fact is of these 65 teams, at least half and probably more have pretty much no chance at all of winning the title.

 

that's true, but one advantage of the current format - and even one that is expanded - is that you force a team to be consistently good in a string of games. it's true that you could pare down the field to, say, 32 teams and be confident that you have not left out the best team in the country, but i'd argue that you'd lower the confidence that the winner of the tournament actually IS the best team in the country.

[SouthSideRyan]

This idea sucks out loud and will be bad for the tournament in the long run

 

Explain this one to me.

 

Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off.

 

You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal.

 

I don't see how that duplicates the atmosphere. You think the 9-16 seeds playing the NIT teams is going to draw any sort of audience? Nobody's going to care about those games except for fans of those teams.

[illiniguy]

This idea sucks out loud and will be bad for the tournament in the long run

 

Explain this one to me.

 

Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off.

 

You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal.

 

I don't see how that duplicates the atmosphere. You think the 9-16 seeds playing the NIT teams is going to draw any sort of audience? Nobody's going to care about those games except for fans of those teams.

People will still watch because it would be part of the Dance and thus they would pick one of the teams in their bracket.

[Sammys Boombox]

Won't this diminish conference tournaments and late-February/early-March games even more, which is the supposed reason for football not having a playoff, they don't want to diminish the regular season.

 

You could argue that it could increase the value of those games because the top 32 get a bye, but I don't buy it. Bad move.

 

Just a prediction here, but I bet the "first round" or "play-in round" or whatever it will be called will end up on the ESPN Networks.

[SouthSideRyan]

 

I don't see how that duplicates the atmosphere. You think the 9-16 seeds playing the NIT teams is going to draw any sort of audience? Nobody's going to care about those games except for fans of those teams.

People will still watch because it would be part of the Dance and thus they would pick one of the teams in their bracket.

 

If the round of 96 didn't happen consecutively with the round of 64, I'd imagine most people would run their brackets after the field was narrowed to 64. The only people that will care more about a tournament of 96 compared to 65, are fans of those 31 teams. I have yet to see how 96 improves the tourney.

[mul21]

Not a fan. There's still something special for a lot of teams just to get in the tourney, knowing thy have no chance to win it all. The layoff thing sucks too. You look at a conference like the Missouri Valley. Their tourney ends the Sunday before selection Sunday. They could move it back and stretch out their season, but they've been doing it this way fr a while, which allows them some extra exposure because they're playing a tourney during the last weekend of regular season games for the big boys.

 

Don't like it for a bunch of reasons, most of which aren't really good arguments, but just my personal preference.

[Guest]

2. Allows more minor/mid-major conference teams in (hey, there's even a decent chance they make a provision for regular season champs, like the NIT does currently), even if not at the same rate as the Big 6.

 

this, to me, is the #1 argument for this system. but if they're making this change then they had better let in teams like whoever doesn't win the ivy league (harvard/cornell), rather than just letting in every "bcs conference" school that's over .500.

 

But you know letting in more BCS teams is exactly what they would do. Sure, the mid-majors would get a few extra bids, but you know the BCS schools would eat up a majority of them and the BCS schools won't agree to this if that's not the case.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

This idea sucks out loud and will be bad for the tournament in the long run

 

Explain this one to me.

 

Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off.

 

You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal.

 

I don't see how that duplicates the atmosphere. You think the 9-16 seeds playing the NIT teams is going to draw any sort of audience? Nobody's going to care about those games except for fans of those teams.

 

The majority of first round matchups in a 64 team tournament aren't all that compelling. You can use NIT teams as an insult, but there's a bunch of teams that get snubbed that were a few bounces from a 7-10 seed

[mul21]

 

The majority of first round matchups in a 64 team tournament aren't all that compelling. You can use NIT teams as an insult, but there's a bunch of teams that get snubbed that were a few bounces from a 7-10 seed

 

And that's exactly what makes a 64/65 team bracket great. It actually means something to get into the tournament. It would be like if Harvard or Yale went from their current accepted number of students to a number 2 or 3 times that. Yeah, you still went there, but how diluted is your educational experience over what the people who got in and graduated with higher standards?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

 

The majority of first round matchups in a 64 team tournament aren't all that compelling. You can use NIT teams as an insult, but there's a bunch of teams that get snubbed that were a few bounces from a 7-10 seed

 

And that's exactly what makes a 64/65 team bracket great. It actually means something to get into the tournament. It would be like if Harvard or Yale went from their current accepted number of students to a number 2 or 3 times that. Yeah, you still went there, but how diluted is your educational experience over what the people who got in and graduated with higher standards?

 

No one brags about making the tournament except small schools, and they're the big winner in this proposition because of exposure

[UMFan83]

 

The majority of first round matchups in a 64 team tournament aren't all that compelling. You can use NIT teams as an insult, but there's a bunch of teams that get snubbed that were a few bounces from a 7-10 seed

 

And that's exactly what makes a 64/65 team bracket great. It actually means something to get into the tournament. It would be like if Harvard or Yale went from their current accepted number of students to a number 2 or 3 times that. Yeah, you still went there, but how diluted is your educational experience over what the people who got in and graduated with higher standards?

 

No one brags about making the tournament except small schools, and they're the big winner in this proposition because of exposure

 

And Michigan

[CubbieBum]

There's no way to solve the scheduling problems.

 

Either you have the top seeds have a near 2 week layoff which would kill them and cause a lot of major issues or you have the lower seeds play two days before having to play a team that got a bye. Problem with that is the team who had to play in the first round would be scouted by the bye team in person and thus be at a disadvantage and probably worse they would be tired while the bye team would be rested but not yet rusty.

 

As others have said the NCAA Tournament is perfect as is and changing it is only going to make it worse. I don't care whatsoever to see teams who couldn't make the field of 64/65 play first. If I cared about that I would watch the NIT every year because that is all it would be.

[evv98]

Won't this diminish conference tournaments and late-February/early-March games even more, which is the supposed reason for football not having a playoff, they don't want to diminish the regular season.

 

You could argue that it could increase the value of those games because the top 32 get a bye, but I don't buy it. Bad move.

 

Just a prediction here, but I bet the "first round" or "play-in round" or whatever it will be called will end up on the ESPN Networks.

 

I believe that I heard that the contract for the tournament is up and the expectation is that ESPN will get all of it. They have enough networks that every game will be able to be shown everywhere. You can bet that ESPN is one of the driving forces behind this change.

[evv98]

It's too bad this didn't happen ten years ago. Then Steve Alford would still be at Iowa and be able to point to his long streak of NCAA appearances (and first round losses) as proof of his success.

 

Instead, he has been relegated to New Mexico (with a top 20 team) and Iowa won't make the tournament anytime in the foreseeable future.

[Banedon]

Seems like a lot of the arguments against this are similar to arguments against the wild card in MLB. Makes the playoffs less important...makes upsets less likely (the opposite was true in MLB actually)...undeserving teams getting a shot...etc

 

I know it's not a 1 to 1 comparison there...but I think people are pretty negative about this before its had a chance here.

[weis21]

Seems like a lot of the arguments against this are similar to arguments against the wild card in MLB. Makes the playoffs less important...makes upsets less likely (the opposite was true in MLB actually)...undeserving teams getting a shot...etc

 

I know it's not a 1 to 1 comparison there...but I think people are pretty negative about this before its had a chance here.

Yeah, I agree and I have mixed feelings about it. I agree with some of the negatives, but I think it also has the potential to make the event even better - it just depends on how it all plays out. However, I disagree with the point that no one will watch except for the fans of the additional teams. The biggest interest factor in the tournament are the brackets and I have to think that they will somehow work these additional games into them. That alone will generate a lot of interest, and consequently, ratings and revenue.

[hardcorecubfan]

I am so happy that the NCAA cares so much about the STUDENT-athlete. MY bad, ATHLETE-student.

 

Eliminate collage basketball completely and call it the minor league for the NBA that is sponsored by a college

[Butterscup1679666578]

no

[bukie]

I am so happy that the NCAA cares so much about the STUDENT-athlete. MY bad, ATHLETE-student.

 

Eliminate collage basketball completely and call it the minor league for the NBA that is sponsored by a college

I'd ask how you made it there based on what is being discussed, but that way leads to madness.