Another reason to despise expansion to 96

I agree with Jerry Palm of CollegeRPI.com on why there's another reason to cringe at the thought of an expanded NCAA Tournament field. Nonconference schedules for major conference schools will only get worse, not better. Not good for those who have season tickets and are already paying for a lot of garbage in November and December.

"However, with a 96-team field, you'll see a lot more majors play schedules like that, because in that tournament, nearly every .500 or better team from a major conference would figure to get in. That means not taking any chances on nonconference losses in case you struggle in the league. So a 96-team field doesn't just water down the regular season by making it less important, but it waters down the actual schedule."

Reason number 2,583,032. Palm makes a good point. If they do expand, it will end up like football and bowl eligibility with coaches loading up on cupcakes to get wins just so they can get into the tournament.

I love the fact that we have spent the last 36 hours talking about the "pretty good" teams that didn't make the tournament instead of talking about "pretty bad" teams that did.

Not only that, but I saw an article from the AD of UWGB and I think I agree with his assessment. The general perception is that expanding to a 96 field team would help the mid-majors, but in actuality I would guess that expanding to 96 teams would help middle-of-the-road teams in BCS conferences more than the mid-majors.

". ... would guess that expanding to 96 teams would help middle-of-the-road teams in BCS conferences more than the mid-majors."

Excellent point. Coaches like Boeheim can talk until they're blue in the face about how this will benefit the smaller schools, but make no mistake this will come to fruition because it means more of the middlin'/crappy major-conference teams will make the tournament. Assuming the field expands to 96, who do you think will get the lion's share of those extra 31 bids (Big 6)? And who do you think will get most of the 32 byes (Big 6)? And for whom will it become even more difficult just to reach the round of 32 (the non-Big 6)?

I really hope they do not expand to 96. I think the tournament is perfect the way it is (I don't really care for the play in game, but that is a small point.)

IF they were to expand, I would be able to accept it better if they made a requirement to be 0.500 in league play (or maybe 2 games below 0.500...7-9, 8-10 for example, as a number of at large teams have deserved bids with those kinds of records in the past).

I don't think a team has ever got an at large being 3+ games below 0.500, but correct me if I'm wrong. And I would hope it would stay that way.

Do you think it is realistic to think they may add a minimum league play record if they expanded?

going to 96 would be the dumbest thing the NCAA could do IMO. besides the great point brought up about scheduling a lot of the talk was how "weak" the bubble teams were this year. going to 96 would water down the field even more and of course more of the bids would go to the Big 6.

VA Tech probably didn't get in because of their non-conference schedule and was penalized accordingly IMO.

The article in the Strib today about the popularity of bracket pools and how the move to 64 making things 'even' with no byes helped them explode in popularity. Any move that makes office pools more complicated or shortens the window for people to join them will drive away the casual fans, which is about 80%. Not only will they be destroying the regular season, they'll do severe damage to the tournament itself too. All for some short-term $$.

6 Billion dollars is left on NCAA contract with CBS. NCAA has a one sided opt out clause that they must choose to exercise on or before July 31, 2010 --- otherwise they are stuck with the remaining 3 years of the contract which only gives them 2 Billion per year.

NCAA is currently listening to other suiters ESPN, NBC, ABC etc to see if they want to sweeten the pot before July 31, 2010 and possibly write a new 6 or 10 year contract.

If somebody wants to pay them 15 billion over the next 6 years but they would like to see the tournament expanded to 96 teams --- I think the NCAA will listen.

I read this article a while ago - I hope I got the numbers right.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20.../23/tournament.expansion/index.html?eref=sihp

I am not in favor of any expansion... but if they do I would like to see something that would really help the mid majors like:

- Expand to 72 Teams
- 8 Play in games
- 16 play in teams consisting of last 8 power conference teams vs last 8 non power conference teams
- All games to be played at mid major school
- All ticket revenue to go directly to host school.

This way the expansion truly does benefit the smaller schools.
- They get the excitement of hosting a major school on their campus.
- They get extra $$$ from the expansion that could supplement their athletic budget
- Increases their chances of pulling of an upset victory.

I could be naive here, but I really think they're messing with fire here if they expand the tournament (grudgingly I could see expansion to 68). My thoughts, which I'm sure others have shared:

* Expanding the tournament to the wretched number of 96 would seriously water down the pre-conference and conference schedule. The hardcore or constant fans, who largely offer the support during the regular season, would either bristle, become indifferent, or both to this change and you'd lose or lessen some of the passion from the loyal college BB fans.

* As it stands, the NCAA bracket/tourney is perfect for inviting in the casual fan; a nice workable bracket spread over three weekends in March. Advancing the tourney beyond that amount would either take some of the luster away for the casual fan or cause them to ignore the first round games and tune in for when the field reaches 64 (or approximately).

* Would Cinderella survive? If the conference champs from the smaller conferences get shoved into those extra 32 teams, you're going to lose a lot of the magic of the first weekend; expecting these teams to win an extra game, while their opponent is resting and scouting them adds to the likelihood that the favorites will be advancing. Killing Cinderella will again kill interest from both the casual and hardcore fans.

I could go on and on, but I'll leave it at this. . .I've really only started paying attention to college basketball since they expanded the tourney to 64, so it's all I know, but I suspect I'll become a bit less engaged and intrigued with March Madness if they bloat the tourney outward and I don't think I'd be the only one.