Expanding the Tourney?

GophersInIowa

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From time to time I see people advocating for the tourney to be expanded. What are everyone else's thoughts? If you did expand it, how would you do it?
 

Hard pass. Would much rather go back to 64 than expand.
 

From time to time I see people advocating for the tourney to be expanded. What are everyone else's thoughts? If you did expand it, how would you do it?

I think the Big Ten Tourney is big enough the way it is...
 

No seed worse than an 8 has ever won. If they add more teams, those teams won't be successful.

Unless they expand to 128, all expansion will do is make the lower seeds play more games. That will help the higher seeds by wearing out the lower seeds and giving them more opportunity for injuries.
 



No no no no no no no. If they expand it anymore, the casual fans will tune out of the tournament. Your average office pool participant isn't turning in a 96 team bracket that starts on Tuesday with one day's notice. And the regular season in the major conferences will lose much of their meaning.
 
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We should go back to 64

x1000 - 68 has proven to be watered down.

I also think if we stay at 68, all the play in games should be by at-larges. Leaves a sour feeling in my stomach that the small schools that win their conference tourney have to win another play in game
 



The one idea that intrigued me was an expansion to 96.
every league gets two auto bids.

regular season champ and tourney champ.
If both of those are the same team, that team automatically gets a bye no matter how bad their conference is and the regular season second place gets an auto.


That wouldn’t ever happen, but it’s the only idea I’ve read that has intrigued me beyond 64.
 

x1000 - 68 has proven to be watered down.

I also think if we stay at 68, all the play in games should be by at-larges. Leaves a sour feeling in my stomach that the small schools that win their conference tourney have to win another play in game

Except they get more exposure from the play-in game than they do from getting stomped by 30 while 3 other games are going on Thursday/Friday (games against Tony Bennett and choking UVa excepted :cool:)
 

We should go back to 64


I have never watched any of the play-in games and really hope the Gophers never play in one so i don't have to watch.

There are some nights where I watch the NIT instead as I feel they have better teams than a lot of the 12/12 games (and certainly all of the 16/16).

What really bothers me is when announcers get carried away, "This is the first Southern conference tourney win since 1996!" Who cares? They beat a fellow 16 MEAC team. That's not the same as a 15 over 2 or something.
 

The current conference tournament format already has in a defacto open tournament. Virtually every team in the country gets a shot at making the tournament no matter how bad their season is (I'm pulling for Western Illinois). There is no need to expand for more "opportunities." Like others have said, any more expansion will drive the casual tournament fan away and quite possibly the goose laying the golden egg.

We have a hard time justifying 68 teams based on "worthiness" now. What in the world would we do with 96?
 




32 is perfect for me but it will be expanding until the have diminished the regular season even more. All about the money.
 

32 is perfect for me but it will be expanding until the have diminished the regular season even more. All about the money.

I'm kind of with you but I also could see going back to 48. Put a smaller set of teams in the championship tournament and make the consolation tournaments worth watching. I agree, though, that the money will prevent any reduction in the size of the NCAA tournament.
 



Concur with the 64 advocates
 

64 got ruined when one conference divided into two essentially creating the 65 seed tournament.

The double-12 seeds playing each other doesn't do much for me.

Also, with 64, the bubble burst teams actually seemed like decent teams. Although they are essentially only adding 3 more at larges, I really have a hard time feeling bad for any team that doesn't get a bid now.

It won't ever go back to 64, so I'm good with this.
Also, as mentioned with all conferences having tournaments, it's already an open tournament.

Only thing I would change is get Syracuse, Pitt, and Boston College back in the Big East for a good Big East tournament.
 

I wouldn't mind seeing the winner of the regular season play against the winner of the conference tournament for the right to get the auto bid in the NCAA for all the smaller conferences. If a team wins both, no game would be necessary. Currently, it seems like the regular conference season is virtually meaningless because they can't improve resumes against teams within their conference, etc. etc. This would also remove some of the really mediocre small conference teams getting hot for three days and getting in. I would rather see the best mid-majors as Cinderellas as opposed to the middle of the road mid-majors. I would still leave open the possibility of at-large selections for teams like Gonzaga in the event they get beat.
 

What the heck. Let's make it a field of 128. :eyeroll:

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

Don't expand it, but I am fine having the first four games. No one really watches them or cares anyway though. On my and most boards around, we don't count those games. Too short of turn around time to get brackets in. You can pick them to advance though obviously.
 




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