NCAA Tournament to likely expand to 96 teams in 2011

[Old Style]

This really renders the regular season worthless. Win 1/3 of your major conference games and you are in. YIPPEE!

[Banedon]

And you haven't really made a compelling argument in favor of it the new format, either.

 

Revenue.

 

Booster donations are way down because of the economy, so schools need to pay for sports programs how they can. Basketball is one of the few college sports that actually make money, so they need that revenue to pay for other sports. This gets more revenue to more schools, and doesn't negatively affect the teams involved in the tournament in any way.

 

I meant an argument that shows how it improves the tournament as a sporting event and a championship event.

 

Well I'm sorry that the NCAA didn't realize they needed to fulfill your requirements of what benefits needed to be met, but I think "more revenue without much in the way of negatives" was sufficient for them.

[soapy]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

[Banedon]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

True, but college sports kids missing school happens all the time. Some guy on the Score this morning was talking about Bowling Green hockey team having to go to Alaska to play 2 games. And one of the games they play is on a Sunday night, so they can't fly out until Monday. He said you have to figure about 3 days worth of travel in addition to 2 days of playing. So yeah...missing class for sports is nothing new at all for college sports...even less popular ones than mens basketball.

[jersey cubs fan]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

True, but college sports kids missing school happens all the time. Some guy on the Score this morning was talking about Bowling Green hockey team having to go to Alaska to play 2 games. And one of the games they play is on a Sunday night, so they can't fly out until Monday. He said you have to figure about 3 days worth of travel in addition to 2 days of playing. So yeah...missing class for sports is nothing new at all for college sports...even less popular ones than mens basketball.

 

But they already miss class, this would mean missing more class.

[soapy]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

True, but college sports kids missing school happens all the time. Some guy on the Score this morning was talking about Bowling Green hockey team having to go to Alaska to play 2 games. And one of the games they play is on a Sunday night, so they can't fly out until Monday. He said you have to figure about 3 days worth of travel in addition to 2 days of playing. So yeah...missing class for sports is nothing new at all for college sports...even less popular ones than mens basketball.

 

right. also, many of these teams probably miss almost an entire week for conference tournaments the week before the NCAA tourney. i'll just say, anytime the NCAA makes a move that appears to be a money grab i get a little uneasy, even though i'm not really opposed to this expansion.

[Banedon]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

True, but college sports kids missing school happens all the time. Some guy on the Score this morning was talking about Bowling Green hockey team having to go to Alaska to play 2 games. And one of the games they play is on a Sunday night, so they can't fly out until Monday. He said you have to figure about 3 days worth of travel in addition to 2 days of playing. So yeah...missing class for sports is nothing new at all for college sports...even less popular ones than mens basketball.

 

But they already miss class, this would mean missing more class.

 

Well, like soapy said, it's definitely the best argument against the expansion. But that's not really the issue most people are bringing up when they are opposed to it.

[Jon]

It would be a nightmare for those on the quarter system. You'd be looking at having all of these games during finals week for some or the week before finals for others.

[Guest]

I wonder how many schools are on spring break during that time?

[bukie]

Here's a series of articles on how to make the NCAA tournament better: Link

 

9 articles, 5 say to expand the tournament, 1 says to leave as is, 1 says to make the selection show more like the NBA draft, 1 says to make it less corporate attendance and more student attendance, and 1 apparently didn't get what the assignment was about.

[cubsfan]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

The bracket would no longer fit on one page.

[erik316wttn]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

You don't think that this expansion would make the tournament horribly watered down and make the regular season pretty much worthless?

[bukie]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

You don't think that this expansion would make the tournament horribly watered down and make the regular season pretty much worthless?

No, not really. If anything, it will give more exposure to schools outside the big 6, and give most, if not all of them more winnable games than they have now.

[erik316wttn]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

You don't think that this expansion would make the tournament horribly watered down and make the regular season pretty much worthless?

No, not really. If anything, it will give more exposure to schools outside the big 6, and give most, if not all of them more winnable games than they have now.

 

I respect your opinion, but I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one, bukie.

[Guest]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

You don't think that this expansion would make the tournament horribly watered down and make the regular season pretty much worthless?

No, not really. If anything, it will give more exposure to schools outside the big 6, and give most, if not all of them more winnable games than they have now.

 

It would give a little exposure to the handful of extra mid-majors that get in every year and I don't see how that matters all that much. Most of the bids are just going to go to Big 6 schools.

 

And how would this not make the regular season for Big 6 schools pretty much worthless? The regular season is largely irrelevant already for a lot of them and this would only make it worse.

[Guest]

And how would this not make the regular season for Big 6 schools pretty much worthless? The regular season is largely irrelevant already for a lot of them and this would only make it worse.

 

It's not irrelevant for any of them. For 95% of schools, the regular season performance defines the season as successful. If you're a <4 seed and you don't make it out of the first weekend, nobody remembers the tourney as the definition of the season. It's the same way with an expanded tournament. Actually, the regular season probably means even more. Teams that now are safely in the tournament and have nothing to play for but a couple of seed lines the last 3 weeks of the season would have incredible incentive to get/keep a bye.

[bukie]

Honestly, the only compelling argument I've seen against expansion is the issue about players missing an entire week of school that first or second week (depending on how they schedule it).

 

You don't think that this expansion would make the tournament horribly watered down and make the regular season pretty much worthless?

No, not really. If anything, it will give more exposure to schools outside the big 6, and give most, if not all of them more winnable games than they have now.

 

It would give a little exposure to the handful of extra mid-majors that get in every year and I don't see how that matters all that much. Most of the bids are just going to go to Big 6 schools.

 

And how would this not make the regular season for Big 6 schools pretty much worthless? The regular season is largely irrelevant already for a lot of them and this would only make it worse.

I think you're underestimating how many non-major conference teams this would benefit. Look at this year's NIT field. There were 25 at-large quality selections for the 32-team field (7 teams were only there due to winning their conference regular season). Of the 25, it was a 14-11 distribution of big 6 conference teams to other teams. If you want to restrict it to better than .500 teams, that eliminates a few other possibilities. All told, I'd guess at least half of the additional 32 teams would be from smaller conferences.

[Old Style]

And do you really think most college basketball fans want to see MORE teams from schools they've never heard of before that have ZERO chance of winning the tournament?

[Guest]

And do you really think most college basketball fans want to see MORE teams from schools they've never heard of before that have ZERO chance of winning the tournament?

 

Absolutely.

[Guest]

I counted 18 Big 6 schools that had winning records but didn't make the NCAA tournament. Then you add teams like South Carolina (15-16), Auburn (15-17), Michigan (15-17), Rutgers (15-17), Colorado (15-16), Iowa State (15-17), Boston College (15-16), and Virginia (15-16) as Big 6 schools that were right around .500 and that makes 26 schools in all (not saying every one of these would get in). I'd be shocked if the expansion lets in more than six or seven mid-major at larges. You might have the outlier year where you get eight or nine more teams (just like we currently do in the NCAA tournament) but there's not going to be an even distribution or anything.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I think the obvious solution is to build more colleges

[Banedon]

And do you really think most college basketball fans want to see MORE teams from schools they've never heard of before that have ZERO chance of winning the tournament?

 

Absolutely.

 

We'll see if the ratings bear that out this weekend.

[SouthSideRyan]

As an Iowa fan I'm cool with the expansion :)

 

They're not expanding to 256.

[imb]

it's not going to make the regular season meaningless, what a stupid thing to say. Maybe it's meaningless if you consider just making it to a 96-team tournament your goal, but no one does that. Do you really think UCLA is going to say "well, we went 16-15, but we're an 14-seed in the tourney, let's crack open the champagne!"

 

Of course not.

[jersey cubs fan]

it's not going to make the regular season meaningless, what a stupid thing to say. Maybe it's meaningless if you consider just making it to a 96-team tournament your goal, but no one does that. Do you really think UCLA is going to say "well, we went 16-15, but we're an 14-seed in the tourney, let's crack open the champagne!"

 

Of course not.

 

Now that's a stupid thing to say. Of course every game has participants who want to win. Everybody wants to win every game (except the Colts), but the fact is it doesn't freaking matter if you lose a bunch of games because you'll get in anyway. Even if you're upset about the losses, it doesn't mean that it matters.