Poll: Should the NCAA Tournament Field be Expanded?

[stever20]

1985 teams- 282
2017 teams- 351

Does most of the growth in number of teams come from low-major teams just trying to get on the gravy train of Division 1 sports? Of the 69 new teams added over the past 32 years, are any of them relevant and/or would they actually fight for an at large bid with more teams in the tourney?

Honest question, I don't know. But would guess most of them would still be on the outside looking in?

I'm sure there's a few that are more than what you say, but yeah most are just real low major teams. I mean, MEAC for instance has gone from 7 to what is it now? 13 schools?

[xusandy]

68 is just fine with me. The play-in games provide TV programming and an early glimpse of the tournament in the week that it begins. FWIW, I'd like to see the NIT wait to announce their complete field until after the Thursday and Friday games of the Big Dance. Maybe they announce 16 teams beforehand, then pick 16 first round losers to complete their field. There would be a lot more interest in the Little Dance if they did that, and the teams we all think were snubbed by the Selection Committee, plus a couple of other pretty decent teams would still be in it.

[stever20]

68 is just fine with me. The play-in games provide TV programming and an early glimpse of the tournament in the week that it begins. FWIW, I'd like to see the NIT wait to announce their complete field until after the Thursday and Friday games of the Big Dance. Maybe they announce 16 teams beforehand, then pick 16 first round losers to complete their field. There would be a lot more interest in the Little Dance if they did that, and the teams we all think were snubbed by the Selection Committee, plus a couple of other pretty decent teams would still be in it.

they can't really do that because the NIT automatically gives conference champs that don't make the NCAA tourney a spot. So like last year for instance there were 7 teams that would not have made the NIT that did because of that rule. And that's a light year. 2 years ago it was over 10 teams.

[Edrick]

The real issue is there are about 100 de facto D2 schools that have elevated to D1 but only can survive through the buy-game economy.

The tournament doesn't need to expand to make the percentage of teams making the post season greater. The denominator just needs to be reduced and those de facto D2 programs sent back to where they could possibly be competitively viable.

D1 basketball shouldn't have more than 250-275 schools --- max.

[sciencejay]

The real issue is there are about 100 de facto D2 schools that have elevated to D1 but only can survive through the buy-game economy.

The tournament doesn't need to expand to make the percentage of teams making the post season greater. The denominator just needs to be reduced and those de facto D2 programs sent back to where they could possibly be competitively viable.

D1 basketball shouldn't have more than 250-275 schools --- max.

That seems like an arbitrary number and largely irrelevant to the question of whether the tourney should be capped at 64 or 68, or expanded to 96, or whatever. What if the Football Five decide that 65 is the right number for "D1"? Where would that leave us in terms of relevancy?

I just love the tourney, and while I completely agree that teams 60-68 (as presently configured) essentially have no chance to win the title, it is that chance of an upset (think Butler, or even FGCU as a 15 seed) that is a huge driver of casual fan interest. People that don't follow CBB too closely during the season really tune in during the tourney. That significantly bumps up the number of eyes, brackets, etc, and the TV contract is as big as it is because of those more casual fans (I would guesstimate that ~40% of the people avidly watching the tourney, buying tickets, filling out multiple brackets, etc, don't pay much attention at all during the season). It's an event, and people want to be a part of it whether they follow CBB during the year or not. So the more people consuming an event like that, the better, because the TV contract gets bigger with a larger market.

Expanding to 96 teams would add two more days to that first 'weekend' of games (not that big of a deal in my mind), but it would bring in another 28 underdogs who just might upset Duke, KU or whoever. That would create considerable extra casual fan interest.

[stever20]

the big problem with going to 96 quite frankly is that it would really impact the tournament pools. Which is where the tourney gets a ton of it's casual interest. Instead of having over 100 hours to fill out pools, you'd have only 48 hours tops.

I think it'll remain either 68 or maybe move up to 72 tops.

[pki1998]

My idea has a 0% chance of happening, and 99% of people would absolutely hate it. But I would love to see a 96 team tournament assuming the following changes:

Autobids: Conferences with twelve (or possibly ten) or more teams will receive two auto bids to the dance. Conferences with two autobids would be required to award one to the regular season champ. The conference would then have the choice of awarding the second autobid to the second place finisher or the conference tournament champion. In the event the regular season champion wins the conference tournament the second place finisher gets the auto bid. Conferences with less than tweleve (or possibly ten) would get one autobid to award to either the regular season or conference tournament champion.

The minimum threshold of teams is to reduce the number of bottom feeder conferences freeing up more at large bids for deserving teams. I'd make an exception allowing the Ivy to get two autobids. Something like conferences with no movement of members for greater than 50 years are given two bids. Giving regular season champ an autobid makes regular season more important for midmajors and low majors

Schedule: Selction sunday stays the same

Rounds of 96 and 64: Round of 96 played on Thursday and Friday. Round of 64 on Saturday and Sunday. 16 Games each day! What a great weekend to be a basketball fan! Seeds 1-8 in each bracket get to host one game in the round of 96 and get home court for the round of 64. This makes the regular season important for everyone as one lost could be the difference between a bye and home court or being on the road the first two games. The drawback is there will likely be less upsets in the round of 64 due to home court advantage. Also the draw should be regionally based so that it's easy to for people to travel to see their teams.

Round of 32 and Sweet 16: Round of 32 played on Saturday, Sweet 16 on Sunday. 16 games is too much to split between Thursday and Friday. Networks will want people who be able to watch and additionally not many people can take off work for both weeks. Teams play exempt and conference tournaments 3 sometimes 4 days in a row, so this shouldn't be a big deal. Also have small pods four teams at a location. That way the games can be played in basketball arenas. So much better to see a game in a NBA or large college arena versus a football stadium.

Elite 8 and Final Four: Elite 8 played on Saturday, Final Four played on Sunday. Two locations played in NBA quality arenas.

Championship Game: Would love to have it in an NBA arena but i'm sure it would almost certainly be in a Football Stadium.Play this game whenever the networks would like. Personally i like a 8:30 tip Eastern on Thursday night. Allows the whole country to watch game at a reasonable time. Gives people time to make travel arrangements, and only adds three days from the current end of the tournament.

NCAA units: The small schools would love the additional autobids, the problem becomes how to get the big schools to sign off. NCAA should be able to negotiate greater rights fees due to increase inventory, as well as having more games on Friday. My guess is that it would be unlikely for the big conference schools to increase there $$$$ just from the increase in network fees. This would also reduce payouts for the NiT that needs to be taken into account. As such i would propose that round of 96 earns a half unit compared to the other rounds. Small conferences are still better off due to multiple autobids and the large conferences make more money s well.

NIT: The post season NIT has out lived it's purpose. No one really wants to go the NIT, lets put it out of its misery. I remember when the preseason NIT was a big deal. I think the association with post season NIT reduced it's stature, but we can bring it back. Start the college basketball season with the pre season NIT a week before any other games are played. Invites to the NIT are earned at the NCAA tournament. Every elite eight team plays in the tournament. Participation in the Pre Season NIT is mandatory for all teams not on postseason bans, and does not count towards the maximum number of games that can be played. Teams playing in the preseason NIT can still participate in an other exempt tournament. To help with the early start these teams can start practice a week early. The pre season NIT will use a unit system like the NCAA tournament to give the participating conferences even more money. Since this will likely be the big conferences getting the money they should support it. Games would of course be played in Madison Square Gardens, featuring the exact same bracket as the previous years NCAA. First round games spread out between Monday and Tuesday (to make networks happy) semi finals Wednesday and Finals on Thursday. This schedule stops it from competing with Football. Imagine starting of the college basketball season with 7 great games over four days! It would be huge!

Other Tournaments: If people want to have crap like the Vegas 16 or CIT they can have them. I would hope an expanded tournament field would end the desire for these events, but they don't do any harm so they can live on.

So there it is my completely unlikely far fetched idea that will never happen.

[XtoDC]

Just because more schools were added to Division 1 since 1985 doesn't mean that more decent college basketball programs were added. 50 schools that were division 2 or whatever and had no business being one of the 64 teams in 1985 have been added to college basketball since then and still have no business being on of the 64 teams invited to the 2018 NCAA Tournament.I don't want to add 4 or 30 more mediocre teams just because 50 more trash teams exist that didn't in 1985.

If 6 new NFL teams joined but were given budgets 1/50 the size of the 32 other teams would that be a good reason to expand the NFL playoffs? You would just be diluting the playoffs because you are letting in mediocre teams who used to be 8-8 but now are now 9-7 because a couple of there old tougher games got replaced with home games against the new shitty 6.