A real bracket buster: 96-team NCAA tourney?

THIS.

There is nothing worse than seeing the champ of some crap nothing conference play a no. 2 seed and lose by 15 and get celebrated like it won a national championship.

 

I despise this idea. 64 was the perfect number for it. Adding that extra "play in" game a couple years ago was unnecessary and dumb, and this would be immeasurably worse.

Teams that finish near the bottom of their conference have no business playing the post season tourney to determine that national champion, and that's exactly what we'll see with a 96 team field. The regular season will be near meaningless.

But, sadly, the suits making money off it don't give a shit what I think.

 

When, exactly, does THAT happen?

 

The only way I would like an expanded tournament is if it meant the regular-season champions of the small conference earned automatic entry.

 

This is exactly how it works if you apply for a site early via the NCAA "lottery". We've been doing it for 13 years now. If you're applying early, you're wanting to watch the basketball no matter who's there. You can also buy per-session tickets at the gate if there are any available.

And as far as sold out -- usually 6 out of the 8 sites every year are. Then there are places like Miami last season, where there probably weren't 4,000 fans at the arena, which is what happens when you send both Arizona schools, Utah, Wake Forest and Syracuse that far from their home bases. It was horrific attendance. Stephen F. Austin had exactly 38 people in their section.

(edit: You also don't sit in the arena all day. You are shuttled out between games 2 and 3 for a couple hours. Then it's a mad-house in the arena district for seating at a bar/restaurant and watching other games until yours restart)

 

I don't want to see it. I have trouble fitting legal paper into the office copier. Stick with 64.

 

Or we could divide Division I into haves and have-nots, subdivide the top half into have-littles and have-lots, scrap the tournament, and play 36 basketball games the month of March with the big one in early April.

 

But . . . but . . . it's ALL about the coaches.

Dickie V. says so.

Clearly, you didn't get the memo.

Regrets.

 

Of course.

Like I said earlier. This isn't about the student-athletes. Who cares if they miss more class time!

 

What was Arizona ranked in the PAC 10 in '97 when they won it all?

 

To play Devil's advocate...

Is this the same arguement that would have been heard when baseball did the wild card?

I really like Cosmo's idea of regular season champs also getting into the Tourney no matter the size of the conference.

On the down side, if you don't trip over your prick in the ACC, you are basically in.

Do you not allow teams with losing conference records in uless they win their conference tourney?

 

I guess you can shoehorn in the 16 play-in games at four sites (Dayton being one of them) and keep the 64 format. But basically you're taking 32 NIT teams and adding them to the tournament. Yuck.