Theyâre going to kill the NCAA tournament.
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I donât see why people are so opposed to tournament expansion. So what if thereâs another round for a few at large teams? More kids get the opportunity to experience the NCAAT. Is the product watered down? Is the champion less deserving? Is the first weekend still exciting?
Yes, but so what? No. Yes.
How does letting 8 more teams in diminish your experience as a fan or viewer?
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I object to the motivating force, which is power conferences deciding that theyâre not getting enough tourney opportunities. If the expanded field was going to lead to more quality mid-major teams getting a look, Iâd be all for it. But I fear this is heading down the road that the CFB playoff is going, which is reserving a certain number of slots for the power conferences independent of the strength of the particular teams, and squeezing everyone else out some.
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Expansion is killing the regular season, that is interest in it. Itâs already a a major problem. Another expansion would just worsen it. Not to mention whatâs happening with conference changes, even worse.
I donât know when the tipping point came, but there was a time when college basketball wasnât all about the NCAAT. Over the years, thatâs what itâs morphed into. And when you make it easier to make the tournament, fewer people care about anything before then.
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This is so true, and I hate it. The way it works now, weâll, say, beat NC State in Raleigh in January and the entire broadcast framing will be âThis moves Virginia from an 8-seed to a 7-seed in Joey Bucketsâ bracketâ as if this change in seed lines is a real measurable thing that just happened in the real world.
And I always want to shake my fist at clouds and say, âNo what this means is we just beat fucking NC State which is good because I donât like them.â
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From 1980 to 1990, seven of the eight ACC programs won a regular season championship at least once.
I like small conferences and rue the forces that destroy good things.
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More play in games in Dayton or Dallas or wherever adds no interest for the viewer and you get a couple extra games from teams that arenât really good.
But the NCAA, schools, administrators, and coaches can probably line their pockets with a few extra dollars.
The other issue is that theyâre ruining the simplicity of the bracket. 64 teams is a perfect bracket. It fits easily onto a single page. Itâs easy to follow. That makes it ideal to pull in a lot of casuals into pools.
65 teams is still fine because it was one play in game.
68 teams with four play in games begins to stretch the limit because you then start having to explain things to casuals. Matchups in the main bracket that show Clemson/South Florida arenât intuitive.
72 through 90 teams makes a mess of the bracket and is going to drive out interest from the casuals because a bloated, confusing tournament is a lot less fun. Eventually youâre left with just the hardcores following like MLB and their playoffs and the World Series.
Part of the fun of the tournament is all the outside interest from people like your aunt or a random coworker who gets excited (and you can pocket some extra cash from all the casuals filling up the office pool).
Theyâre going to kill that off if they keep pushing the limit.
And Iâm not even addressing the fact that the further you expand, the more bad teams youâre letting in just so the greedy adults at the schools and NCAA can make more money than they already do off the event.
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Yup. 68 is close enough. Theyâre starting to mess with it a bit by growing. But maybe itâll be fine.
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The years U.Va.'s bubble popped always bummed me out, but I never thought the solution was to expand the number of at large bids.
Iâm okay with 72 teams, but no more than thatâŠ.
I really donât think this matters at all in this day and age. Maybe a subset of offices do paper brackets. And someone here and there does it for nostalgia sake. But the vast majority of brackets are done online and you donât even look at all 64 teams at the same time anyway
Think the expansion will go the way most changes go: people will be up in arms at first. By year 5 no one will care anymore. Even if they go up to 96 itâll be fine. Still only about 25% of the sport so itâll still feel selective enough (at least compare to other popular North American sports). The rising popularity of gambling will also probably make that segment of the population grateful for the extra inventory
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I will be up in arms at first, and yet⊠yeah, Iâll adjust to it.
Of course, everything else going on with the NCAA, NIL, conference realignment, etc. ⊠thatâs going to shake up things a lot more, and itâs possible things go in a direction that I wonât adjust to. At some point you actually do break things.
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The main thing the tourney needs is preserving the magic of the first four days:
- a ton of opportunities for good mid major or low major teams to upsets P5 schools
- condensed set of games all happening at once
If they can keep that without diluting it too much with stuff before and after, Iâm fine with expansion. The play in games just arenât a pull. If you just add a bunch of those with average P5 schools, I donât know itâd kill the magic but certainly wouldnât add to it.
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The magic of 64 isnât just the pretty bracket, itâs the symmetry of the TV lineup. One crazy jam-packed 4-day weekend and one heavyweight 4-day weekend, and then final 4 weekend.
With the Dayton games now, do they detract? Eh, itâs more of âwhateverâ than a detractor⊠but what if they keep pushing? Like I said earlier, could be fine. But maybe notâŠ
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Yeah, agreed. Iâm open to seeing creative proposals but you gotta keep that condensed structure and the symmetry to some degree.
I donât have a lot of faith that the NCAA would do the work to understand why people love the current format and how not to lose the essential elements.
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Seems like this is the âbowl explosionâ stage of NCAAT expansion. Coaches and alumni want the extra games (practices) and contract incentives that come with post-season games.
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In fact, one of the arguments for NCAAT expansion is that a much greater % of D-I football teams play in the postseason compared to basketball. So the bowl explosion is used as justification for NCAAT expansion.
Of course, no one points to basketball in order to argue that we should have fewer football teams in the postseason. The ratchet only goes one way.
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Yah, tbh, I think there are too many bowl games but bowl ratings suggest Iâm in the minority!
I donât exactly mind there being so many bowls, I just ignore them.
But thatâs kinda a key point when the basketball/football comparison comes up. Most of the football postseason is crappy bowls that no one watches. So if you really want the basketball postseason to look more like football postseason, you donât expand the NCAA Tournament, you add a bunch of crappy tournaments that no one watches. Câmon down, CBI: Miami and CBI: Vegas!
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