Expansion Talk of a Different Kind

By Sean · Tuesday, February 2, 2010 · 7:16 AM |  Share | 1 Comment 

We have been talking Big Ten expansion quite a bit lately, but by way of SPORTSbyBROOKS, we have expansion talk that has nothing to do with conferences, but rather the NCAA tournament.

Sources at ESPN and inside the administration at a powerhouse NCAA basketball school told me today that the NCAA basketball tournament going to 96 teams is a “done deal.”

An ESPN source said, “It’s a done deal with the expansion of the tournament. Depending on how soon a (TV) deal is done, the added teams could start next year. The NCAA confirmed that bidders would be interested in 96 teams, so they’re going with it.”

Another ESPN source confirmed to me that the network was in the formative stages of pondering a bid for the expanded tournament.

Greg Shaheen, who oversees the NCAA tournament, stressed that expansion is only being investigated and “nothing is a done deal,” but this seems to be another case of where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  Tournament expansion was brought up last year, and initially I really did believe it was nothing more than talk.  I mean, we have a terrible system like the BCS that can’t be changed because of a bunch of lame excuses, but the NCAA wants to mess with March Madness, which is just about as close to perfect as possible?  Oh, right, this is the NCAA we’re talking about.  Of course they are going to consider screwing with March Madness.  Sure, a football tournament that only includes 4 teams is too ridiculous because players wouldn’t have time to study, but adding 31 more teams to the Big Dance won’t cause any problems?  Give me a break.

I know this is all about money and that’s ultimately what will decide the size of the NCAA tournament, but you don’t mess with perfection on this large of a scale.  If you want to expand it to 68 teams by adding a few more play-in games, then fine, go right ahead and do that.  But to make the field as large as 96 teams would just be plain stupid.  Right now the formula for March Madness works so well because of the constant excitement that exists.  Some teams play to get a top seed; others play to simply get in; bubble teams play to have a chance at getting in; and the rest of the field’s hopes come down to the conference tournaments.  This formula produces an exciting regular season, an exciting week of conference tournaments, and an even more exciting few weeks of basketball in the actual NCAA tournament.

The problem is that while seeding would still be important in a field of 96 teams, suddenly the bubble shifts from teams that are still pretty good to ones that are essentially nothing more than average, or if they’re a mid-major, are well below average in the grand scheme of things.  I can see the argument if these bubble teams simply have a bunch of play-in games to make the final field or something like that, but again, that takes away from the excitement of the conference tournaments and really the home stretch of the regular season where teams can’t afford to lose.  If the field suddenly expanded to 96 teams, the losses could be racked up and it wouldn’t mean anything.

To me expanding to 96 teams would just cheapen the whole spectacle that is the NCAA tournament.  Sure, it’d be nice in the sense that Michigan would probably manage to make it to the Big Dance more often, but it wouldn’t be seen as quite as big of an achievement, at least in my eyes.  Sure, I’d rather Michigan was on a level where the only thing in question is their seed rather than if they’re even going to make the tournament, but part of what made last year’s run so exciting was Selection Sunday and finally seeing Michigan in the bracket.  If it gets to the point where 96 teams are part of the bracket, much of the excitement will be gone.  Yes, there will still be bubble teams and excitement for them, but those bubble teams will not be on the same level as the current ones.  Part of what makes Selection Sunday so great is the discussion about who got in and who was left out.  Quite honestly, if the field expanded to 96 teams and all of the obvious bubble teams always get in, I really don’t care about the final few spots.  It will just feel like the selection committee is scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill up the bracket.

I imagine that if the tournament does ever expand to 96 teams people would eventually get over it, but it just seems like the NCAA would be going overboard.  At some point you have to cut off the number of teams that make the tourney and live with it.  As I touched on before, this move is more about money than anything else (more rounds = more $), but the NCAA can’t use that as a reason to expand in the public realm.  What they would probably say is that deserving teams are being left out each year and they want to change that.  Well, that is true, but not on a scale as large as 31 teams.  A single-digit amount of truly deserving teams get left out each year, but that is just part of the system.  If the NCAA wants to add a few spots to lessen that number, then I have no problem.  A few more deserving teams would get to play in the tournament, but the overall excitement of the season and week of conference tournaments wouldn’t really altered.  If the NCAA goes too far, however, and expands the field to 96 teams, then I truly believe they would be hurting the tournament in a big way, regardless of how much money they could make off it.  As the old phrase goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.