96 in the NCAA Tournament

Goodbye, NIT.

I don't ever want to hear the NCAA say that it's about the student-athletes again. It's about money, pure and simple.

 

Hell, make it 1,024 and combine all D-II and D-III schools into it. That's only four extra rounds.

Grinnell vs. Syracuse is guaranteed an audience. Either an incredible game or the mother of all train wrecks.

 

Actually it is about the student-athletes too. A large chunk of the hoops tournament revenue funds many of the other 88 championships the NCAA runs. I think FCS football & the College World Series are the only other tournaments that don't operate in the red.

 

And your 96-team Bracketology is out: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/bracket?id=5071629

Can't believe the Big East only got 13 teams in.

At least the ACC managed to get all 12 in.

 

And Iowa still didn't get in.

 

And Michigan did; one other MAC team and Ohio a 24 seed...

 

Shitty UNC got a 12-seed. Yep, more opportunities for mid-majors ... :

 

It helps the student-athletes, yes, but that's merely the selling point and not the real reason. The NCAA doesn't make a dime off the BCS, but if it were to create a 16-team football playoff, how much money do you think it could make off the TV rights?

If it really cared about its student-athletes, the NCAA would fix college football, make the billions the BCS is making off it and turn it to student-athletes and spare men's college basketball teams from spending more than a week on the road to play unnecessary games. I mean, they are student-athletes. The NCAA should care that some students might not spend a second of their time on campus during a two-week period.

 

Given that it's the middle of March and most schools are on spring break during that time I question how many players miss two weeks of school.

 

Even so, there's a ton more money to be made by a football playoff as opposed to expanding the tournament to 96 teams. And if we're going to use spring break as a reason to play games, there's no reason they can't play a 16-team football playoff during the winter break.

 

The funny thing to me is this -- coaches are convinced that having an expanded tournament will help save coaches jobs.

In reality - it will cost coaches jobs.

Why?

Well because with the expanded format, it is theoretically easier to make the tournament meaning if you are a team that is from a major (BCS whatever the fuck you want to call it) conference and you go two years in a row without making the tournament, you are much more likely to be fired.

The pressure to make the tournament is going to be far greater than it ever has been -- and there are still going to be programs who can't make it regularly.

 

I would imagine the NIT would be kept. It would usurp the CBI and the CIT and those two would disappear, and the NIT would be more irrelevant than ever, if that's possible.