NCAA Bball tourney - Why not 48 teams?
So this thread (http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/96-team-tournament-and-michigan) got me thinking about something. A 96 team tourney is a crackpot idea that is full of suck. Everybody knows that. But is there any good in it at all?
In my opinion, there is one idea we can take from the 96-team tourney idea: I really like that the top half of each region would have a bye. I think this could be applied to good effect if the tournament is trimmed, rather than expanded. Going to a 48 team tourney would, in fact, be the greatest idea ever in the history of mankind. Sorry for the lack of nice bolding, bulleting and pictures: Computers confuse my simple mind.
Take the following situation. There are about 5 games left in the regular season, plus the conference tourney. Your team is safely in the tourney, looking at a 4 or 5 seed.
Under the current system:
You play pretty well for the remainder of the season and get the 4 seed. You play a 13 seed in the first round of 64. On the other hand, you slip a bit and end up with a 5 seed. You now have to play a 12 seed. Yes, they might be slightly better (certainly there are more upsets in 5-12 games than 4-13 games) but the vast majority of the time, you really aren't worried about the competition until round 2 in both cases.
Under a 48 team system:
You play well and get the 4 seed. You are in the round of 32 and wait for the winner of the 5-12 game. For that game you are well rested. If you slip, and get the 5 seed you are playing the 12 seed in the first round for the opportunity to play a fresh 4 seed in the round of 32. The difference here is a much bigger deal, IME.
Essentially, by rewarding the top half of each region you create a second (albeit less important) bubble. The first bubble is still to get in the tourney. But the 2nd bubble would be to get that coveted top 4 seed. This doubles the number of teams playing for something important at the end of the season.
Okay, this got way longer than I intended. Just thinking outloud on my keyboard.
and it certainly would make the end of the regular season more exciting...but it completely ignores the entire point of going to 96 teams, which is of course $$$.
It wouldn't work because a 96 team tourney makes more money for the NCAA and a 48 team tourney doesn't. It's all about the money!
Note that the 48-team tournament would have the 4-seeds playing the winner of the 5-seed v the 12-seed (not the 9-seed).
1 v (8 or 9)
4 v (5 or 12)
2 v (7 or 10)
3 v (6 or 11)
Just like the Big Ten tournament, but with an extra team added at the bottom and playing against the 5-seed.
What this guy says. Wow, I must be tired today. I'll fix the original post.
You do realize the tournament hasn't always had 65 (or 64) teams, don't you?
Of course, this was back in the day when I had to walk ten miles to school through ten-foot drifts of snow.
Uphill both ways, I'm sure. At any rate, do you know if the tourney has ever had multiple play-ins in each region? I'm just curious if this idea has already been piloted
from NCAA Div I Men's BBall Championship
The NCAA tournament has expanded a number of times throughout its history. This is a breakdown of the history of the tournament format: * 1939–1950: eight teams * 1951–1952: 16 teams * 1953–1974: varied between 22 and 25 teams * 1975–1978: 32 teams * 1979: 40 teams * 1980–1982: 48 teams * 1983: 52 teams (four play-in games before the tournament) * 1984: 53 teams (five play-in games before the tournament) * 1985–2000: 64 teams * 2001–present: 65 teams (with an opening round game to determine whether the 64th or 65th team plays in the first round)Having followed the tournament pretty closely since 1970, I can't recall any multiple play-ins over the last 40 yrs.
Well, as I'm sure you can imagine, my memory's a bit hazy, so I went to wikipedia for what's below. See 1983 and 1984 for multiple play-in games. I sort of remember the 48-team field as just involving first-round byes.
The NCAA tournament has expanded a number of times throughout its history. This is a breakdown of the history of the tournament format: 1939–1950: eight teams 1951–1952: 16 teams 1953–1974: varied between 22 and 25 teams 1975–1978: 32 teams 1979: 40 teams 1980–1982: 48 teams 1983: 52 teams (four play-in games before the tournament) 1984: 53 teams (five play-in games before the tournament) 1985–2000: 64 teams 2001–present: 65 teams (with an opening round game to determine whether the 64th or 65th team plays in the first round)EDIT: Beaten to the punch
play-ins were one per region, IIRC. Must have been 4+1 in 1984.
The NCAA tournament is one of the best sporting events of the season. Why change it?
Dolla dolla billz y'all!
No problem--I like the idea: they used to have a 48-team tournament. It only lasted a few years before they went to 64.
One suggested change, though. They could take the planned 96-team tournament and turn it into a 48-team tournament--just have the teams play a first-round game to get from 96 to 48, and then seed (or re-seed) them after.
So we would have something like this--
First Round: 96 teams at 48 sites. 48 "top" seeds host the 48 "bottom" seeds on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday after selection (12 games each day). Pair the teams up geographically, and have the games at campus sites (!) but arrange the pairings so there are no intra-conference matchups. Some of these matchups might not be very good, but it assures us of a 48-team tournament with no "dregs."
After this first round, then they seed the teams from 1 to 12 in bands of four and put the teams into a bracket. Eight games each on Thursday & Friday to get to 32, and eight games each on Saturday & Sunday to get to the sweet 16.
We have added an extra week to the tournament, but the extra games are at home sites and with mostly short travel distances for the visiting teams. More income, less expense, a better bracket once it is set. Win-win.
when too many higher seeds came out cold/tight in their first tourney games against lower seed who were playing their second tourney game.
The 96-team bracket contains the same flaw; then what, expand to 132 (or 133) ???
or 256
or 512
or 1024...
Yeah, I vote we go with the last idea. That way, we can invite 500+ high school teams and every Minor League Baseball team too. Or better yet, we could expand to 2048 and invite every European soccer, handball, and cricket team as well.
I like the point about 2 bubbles. But counter to your primary intent, this actually makes me more excited about the 96-team field. The 2-bubble concept applies there as well, since many teams will be playing for that bye at the end of the regular season. It's just 8-9 seeds instead of 4-5 seeds.
I like that the 48 team field would make the regular season more important. However, I don't like the fact that it squeezes out the 9-12 seed teams (since 13-16 are mostly auto-bids who would just get a higher seeding). I think it'd reduce the number of upsets in the tournament by removing 16 teams that are pretty decent even if they didn't have a great regular season. In your example, a 5 seed would actually end up playing what would have been a 16 seed...not that exciting of a game and unlikely to yield an upset relative to the existing 5-12 matchup.
48 would probably help the regular season but it would detract from the tourney.
96 detracts from the regular season and doesn't significantly impact the tourney (just adds a round of less-interesting games)
64 is perfect and elegant.
I actually like the 96-team field. Its not as bad as loudmouth pundits want you to believe.
Not that the ideas in this thread arent bad either. Interesting stuff
I think a lot of folks opinion on this will change once the see a season and a tournament play out under this system.
Of course, my favorite leagues to watch are the colonial, missouri valley, horizon, so I am biased. Those teams have nothing to play for in the regular season come middle of winter.
Now, they will be 3, 4, maybe 5-bid leagues. League seasons get a whole lot more interesting in more leagues under the 96-team field.
to see 5 bids come from those leagues. Even with the rise (in perception at least) of the mid-majors I still can't see a 5th place team making it in. I'd expect something similar to the NIT field getting absorbed into the ncaa tourney.
I agree though. People will be fine with 96 teams in the end. The regular season already lacks a lot of meaning related to the tourney. This is just a little less. The rivalry games will still be interesting. And everyone will be glad to have a bigger tournament. If we watch 1-16 and 8-9 games now, we'll happily watch the less attractive games also.
Admittedly, 5 is a lot.
But, the Colonial would have had 3 by merely folding the NIT into a 96-team field this year: Old Dominion, Northeastern and William Mary.
But, I think VCU and George Mason this year would have stood an excellent shot at scoring at large bids, especially VCU, under the a 96-team field. For arguments sake, its easy to assume this year's NIT field would make the NCAA field, but they field the NIT a lot different, with considerations like TV ratings and buzz added in that arent part of the NCAA selection process.
What I mean by that is teams like St. Johns, NC State, the BCS league team right at or one game above .500 that made the NIT Field would be involved in serious debates with 20-win teams from the next level of leagues. If those teams schedule well, get a couple of nice OOC wins, I think they get in over teams like the Johnnies in the future.
I think its safe to assume league like the CAA, Horizon, MVC, WAC would regularily see three bids with the door wide open for one or two more.
In the end, I think this adds a whole lot more intrigue to the regular seasons of more leagues than not. And, what intrigue is taken away from playing the string out in the BCS league is sorta compensated by the pursuit of those important byes.
And, like you said, we're still going to watch. The first weekend of the tournament is one fo the best weekends of the sports calendar and we're adding more games. While i subscribe to the if its not broke, dont fix it mindset, its not like this is the worst thing in the world.
We'll just have to see how the new bubble debates shake out, but this is a win-win situation for mid-major league. These leagues arent OMG awesome, but they deserve something better than their only entrant being the league tournament winner. Talk about playing a worthless regular season.
Um... There would be only 15 at large bids in a 48 team tournament. You can argue that they should get rid of the auto-bid, but that will never happen, so it's a pointless argument.
Today we might not care too much that a bubble team gets left out because they have no realistic shot at winning, but if you're leaving out a top 25 team (and there's a good chance you would be) in a 48 team tournament you ARE leaving out a potential champion. '85 Villanova doesn't make a 48 team tournament, also possibly left out: the first fab five team, along with numerous other final four teams from the six line and below.
I can see shrinking the tournament a little bit and giving maybe the top 8 teams a bye, thus a 56 team tournament, but even ignoring the money issues, any shrinking of the tournament so that a team with the potential to win it all is left out is unworkable.
Because the NCAA likes having more money than less money.
I think it's perfectly fine the way it is, but sadly it's all about the money.
please don't mess with the best ever sporting event. It is perfect as it is. The bracket of 64 has perfect symmetry, is fairly egalitarian, and is the closest thing to a level playing field in sports.
It's not symmetric anymore, since it's been a 65-team field since 2001.
I would like the idea if M could actually make it into a 48-team field. The way our program has been (and looks like it won't get MUCH better--especially with how loaded the Big Ten is), it would take us many years to get into a 48-team tourney.