Who's complaining now? Tournament Expansion
So i know tournament expansion wasn't really a popular opinion at this time last year.... but how have your opinions changed? if Michigan was to get in the tournament this year we'd be a direct beneficiary of the expanded field. Thoughts? Go blue!!
Ask my opinion again when the field's announced.
If we're in the last four in and have to play in Dayton, then I love the new format.
If either we would have been in a 64 team field or we don't make it, then it remains stupid.
64 teams?!!! I thought the NCAA tournament was 32 teams.
If they expanded to 92 teams, we'd be in no matter what. I still wouldn't think that it was a good decision.
Honestly, they should set some criteria and just take the teams that match the criteria no matter how many that may be. They might take 50 one year and 80 the next. The only reason to bring 9-16 seeds along is to hopefully weed out some of the top teams before they get to each other. If a team can't even compete with top competition then they shouldn't even be in the tournament.
Lose two games, and your season is over. I would watch.
here's the breakdown:
teams 65 - 68 - Not complaining.
All else: complaining.
I don't forsee a situation where we are in a play-in game. We are either in as a stronger seed (beat MSU) or out (lose to MSU). Either way, we move from the current bracketology position.
I still think it's stupid.
If M wins over State, they should be in 64/68/632 teams aside.
(Remember, they were going to go to 96. Extreme dilution.)
Whether Michigan is in or out, I'm strongly opposed to any more than 68 for the same reason I'm opposed to my son getting a soccer trophy just for signing up.
The drama of the teams on the bubble is as much a part of March Madness as the Round One upsets, the Princeton-Georgetown type matchups, and the buzzer beaters.
I'm complaining. Unless Michigan is team 65-68, in which case I will halt all complaining until they have won the tournament or inexplicably been bounced from the tourney. At this point, I will resume complaining.
Michigan sneaking in won't change my opinion of the new format. 68 still strikes me as too many teams. The tournament seemed watered down at 64 plus the single play-in. Or 64 without the single play-in, for that matter.
My answer might be different if we didn't sneak under the tent a couple of years ago.
Now we might have to play a stupid 12 seed play in game because God forbid a crappy Baylor team might not get in.
If we get into the play-in (or the First Four as the NCAA calls it) and lose, then we didn't really get into the tournament.
A self up vote? Is this acceptable now?
I think most people were ok (but hesitant) with 68. It's the inevitable expansion to 96 that's really drawing groans. I think, even if Michigan makes it into #65-68, I'll be happy the Wolverines are in, but that doesn't mean it was right to expand.
They only went to 68 to appease small conferences. I suspect the four (really three) extra slots will go to small schools and have little effect on major conference particiapnts.
Um, no. There are the same number of automatic bids, but 3 more at-large bids. Most of those are likely to go to big-conference teams.
The last 4 at-large bids (i.e. the difference between 64 and 68 teams) are currently projected to go to Michigan, Boston College, Alabama, and Gonzaga. Only one of those could possibly be considered a "small conference" team, and even Gonzaga has a recent history of tournament success.
There are 346 D-1 schools according to Wikipedia. They aren't always right, but that number is close enough for this proposal.
There would one extra week, during the week then CC tournaments are played. The first round, on Monday and Tuesday, would be 90 play-in games to get the field to 256. The second and third rounds would be played Thursday-Sunday to get the field to 128 and then 64. The next three weeks would be a "normal," reseeded 64-team grid, but everyone would have had to play their way in.
They could experiment with the first week being truly regional again, with geography being the first consideration for seedings. That would keep the expenses down for smaller schools. If the first week replaced CC week and the NCAA got more money for giving the networks more games, it would more than compensate for any percieved imposition.
Many schools that move on to the round of 64 would travel less and actually be playing one or two less games than they normally would during their conference championships. It would be possible for a team with a first-round bye to advance to the grid by winning two games instead of the four it sometimes takes to win a conference tournament.
The model might be flawed, as all are, but if high schools in most states can pull it off, so can colleges, where the compensation to the schools involved is much greater. If they wanted to keep the NIT alive, they could reseed the losers from the round of 128 into a 64-team grid.
At the end of the day, nobody would be able to bitch about not getting in or not having a chance, because the process would be as fair as possible: win and you keep playing, lose and you're out. One thing would probably remain constant, though: one of the top three seeds in each region would probably win the tournament, just as it usually works out.
That is probably the worst idea i've ever heard. Let all the teams in? What would be the point of even playing a season then? Why not just go straight to the tournament if thats the case.
I don't really care about the number of teams, but I don't like that a handful of teams are going to find out on Sunday that they have to play on Tuesday, and then (if they win) fly somewhere else and play on Thurs/Friday. I don't think that's very fair from a competitive standpoint and it obviously eliminates any possibility of the players going to class that week. I liked it better when it was a 64-team field and everyone started at the same time. If you really need all this "First Four" silliness, why not just play those Dayton games on the weekend and have everyone else get a week off?
Frankly, the First Four is a sop to the widdle guy. I don't care what the NCAA calls it, if you make better teams play pre-tournament games, then it's a play-in, not a tournament game. If the NCAA needs to expand the tournament because there are so many autobids and the crap-ass schools are crowding out the bubble teams, then the problem is it's too easy to go Division I in the first place.
They will compete on friday sunday schedule if they win on tuesday. Its not really a disadvantage to those teams heres why.
Each team has equal time to prepare for the team they are going to face.
Let's say Michigan and Richmond play for a 12 seed. Michigan wins and advances past the play in game. Michigan would move on to play say Georgetown as a 5 seed. Georgetown would have just as much time to prepare for michigan and michigan has to prepare for g-town. Because g-town doesnt know who there opp. is going to be.
If a #12 seed is playing a #16 seed, it's a pretty safe bet that the #12 is going to win. The #16 seeds are terrible teams that happened to win their tiny-conference tournaments. G'Town would fully expect to play us. If the unexpected happens and they play the #16, that team will be so bad that it will hardly matter. And again - there is virtually zero chance for the teams that win on Tuesday to be able to go to class that week, which supposedly matters to the NCAA.
#16 v #16 and #12 v #12, not #16 v #12. G-town would play the #12 seed game winner. The #16 seed game winner would play a #1 seed.
I stand corrected. Still, there is the issue of missed class time, which could be avoided by simply pushing all the other games back a week and playing the "First Four" that weekend. (Naturally, this won't deter the NCAA from airing those grating "There are 400,000 NCAA athletes, and most of them will be going pro in something other than sports" ads during all those midweek basketball games.)
the teams that play on Tuesday have an extra game as well as extra travel involved. In your example, Gtown would know they are playing one of two teams and prepare scouting reports and game plans for both teams. Come Tuesday night they just throw away the scouting report and game plan of the losing team.
For the teams that play on Tuesday the head coach and his top assistants will only have one day to prepare for their opponent on Tuesday. They might have lower level assistants draw up a basic game plan and scouting report for Gtown but it won't be until Tuesday night when they all can sit down and hash it out. They'll have less than 24 hours to get it all together and start prepping their players on Gtown.
68 teams is fine with me. I think that it gets the small conferences teams out of the way so that more of the teams that should make it could.
I feel bad for the Tuesday teams that lose. Even with the expansion to 4 games on Tuesday, I think most people will still feel the tourney begins on Thursday. Losing on Tuesday is technically making the tourney but not sure if it'll really feel like they made the tourney.
All play-in games should be 16 vs 16 and it should be the worst of the worst no matter what...even if you win your scrub conference tourny.
Tournament expansion to 96 teams is a joke. Why not just include the NIT in the NCAA tournament?
It would also eliminate need for resumes and earning bids. Let everyone in. You're .500 or above, come on into the party! Everyone's invited!
That's a nightmare for college basketball. Don't really have issue with 68 as there were a few teams that were on the bubble last year that didn't get in. There are 4 or 5 bubbles every year, so that's fine.