You think March is mad now? Just wait for expansion

D.J. Gay, right, and the Aztecs wouldn't have to sweat out an NCAA Tournament berth in a 96-team field. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

For years, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has been a highlight of the sports calendar.

Everyone, despite their level of basketball knowledge, has a chance to get in on the bracket fun. And for the true hoops heads, there are the seminal moments — Magic vs. Bird in the 1979 national title game, Christian Laettner’s turn-around jumper to beat Kentucky in 1992, and countless others — make your choice depending on what color you bleed.

So this begs the question: Why not make the most successful tournament in sports history even bigger?

With rumors floating about the NCAA potentially opting out of its long-standing deal with CBS to move to ESPN, expansion of the 64 (plus-one)-team format has been a popular (or unpopular, depending on who you talk to) topic of discussion.

Although the championship is decided on the weekend of the Final Four, the first week of the tournament is widely regarded as the largest national draw because of the amount of viewers that tune in to see upsets, buzzer-beaters and all of the unexpected moments that the tournament is guaranteed to bring.

So if 65 is good, wouldn’t 96 – and an extra round of play – be even better?

How it works

A 96-team tournament would work by expanding the current 18-day span of games to include a full three weeks time frame. The top 32 seeds would receive a first-round bye.

These extra entrants would come from the NCAA Tournament absorbing the National Invitation Tournament. Although it actually started out as the more prestigious tournament, the NIT has become the consolation prize to many teams that have barely missed the “Big Dance.”  It does not get near the TV ratings of the NCAA Tournament and has lost prestige and national interest.

If the NCAA Tournament were to absorb the NIT, it would erase the yearly dilemma of having quality “bubble teams” left out of the tournament.  Instead of giving those teams a consolation seed in the NIT, it would allow the teams to earn more money for their programs by playing in the NCAA Tournament.

With athletic department budgets seeing cuts like almost everyone else, expansion presents a win-win situation. If more teams were allowed into the NCAA Tournament, it would help them raise the funds necessary to keep their athletic programs thriving.

The current format is a flawed system

While the ’85 Villanova team is still the lowest-seeded team (8-seed) to win a national title, lower seeds consistently make compelling tournament runs and story lines.  They’re a big reason that many people tune in to watch the tournament: the upsets (think 11-seed George Mason’s Final Four run in 2006, Stephen Curry-led Davidson in 2008, and USD’s thrilling first-round upset of UConn in 2008).

Jim Boeheim's Syracuse team would get a first-round bye in a 96-team field. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli)

Expanding the tournament by 32 teams would only increase the chance for more upsets, and the more upsets will result in higher ratings for the networks and more money for the schools that participate.

Limiting the tournament to 65 teams lessens the chances of quality teams that compete in mid-major conferences to make the field.  Theoretically, a team can win 10 games during the regular season but get hot at the right time and win their conference tournament – knocking out a legitimate at-large team.

Each year, scenarios like this happen and quality teams, like San Diego State in 2009, get left out.  SDSU has won 20 games each year for the last five seasons in a respected conference — but has only been invited to the Big Dance once.

The regular season would not be irrelevant

While it is true that expanding the tournament would allow for teams to lose more games but still make the field, it wouldn’t detract value from the regular season.

Currently, the only nationally-televised games are top-ranked matchups shown by CBS and regional ABC games on Saturdays and a few games a week from ESPN once the NFL season has concluded. (What about ACC Sunday Night Hoops too?)

If the tournament expanded, classic college rivalries like Duke vs. North Carolina, Kentucky vs. Louisville and Kansas vs. Missouri would still be nationally-televised and relevant.  Outside of the major rivalries, the reality is that not many people are watching regular season college basketball anyway, so viewership of the regular season shouldn’t be affected by tournament expansion.

At its inception, the NCAA Tournament consisted of the top eight teams in the country competing for the national title, and it continued to expand as Division I Men’s Basketball expanded to more schools.

When the current 64-team (now 65) format began in 1985, there were 282 teams eligible for the post-season tournament.  Now there are 334.  More than half of NCAA Football teams make a post-season bowl game, but basketball is limited to less than 20 percent.

Creating a 96-team field is not just an idea that has come from bubble team coaches that are looking to save their jobs.  Some of the biggest and most influential names in college basketball have stepped forward in favor of expansion, including Villanova’s Jay Wright and Hall of Fame coaches Jim Boeheim (Syracuse) and Mike Krzyzewski (Duke), who recently changed his mind on the subject.

“I don’t think there’s anything more important in college basketball than expanding that field,” Wright told Dan Patrick in a recent radio interview.  “There’s so many more Division 1 teams. I just think it’s time.  When you go to the NIT, there’s a perception you had a poor season.”

Tournament expansion is on the horizon.  In an organization that makes so many wrong decisions, it looks like the NCAA may be getting one right.  They will not do it solely for the new TV contract — but for the schools, for the players, and most importantly, for the fans.

Tags: 96 teams, Aztecs, bubble team, CBS, Dan Patrick, Davidson, Duke, ESPN, Final Four, George Mason, Jay Wright, Jim Boeheim, March madness, Mike Krzyzewski, NCAA Tournament, NCAA tournament expansion, NIT, SDSU, stephen curry, SWRNN, syracuse, UConn, villanova

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Sports . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.