Don’t Expand the NCAA Tournament
Ever since this year’s NCAA Tournament, there has been a push by some to expand the NCAA Tournament. Much conversation on the subject has resulted, and in May executive director of the National Association Basketball Coaches Jim Haney proposed expanding the tournament to 128 teams when he met with NCAA officials. There have also been suggestions of expanding by three, seven or even 15 teams (to 68, 72 or 80) with more play-in games.
Changes don’t appear imminent for a number of reasons: logistics, television coverage, and changing the season calendar are among them. There would also be a similar impact with the women’s NCAA Tournament that is not trivial.
The obstacles are the good news right now, because this will hopefully never come to pass. Expanding the tournament doesn’t make any sense and would be a very bad move for college basketball.
65 teams is really one team too many to begin with, especially since the one play-in game we already have is never between the last two at-large teams – rather, it’s between two teams that won their conference tournament. Only one of those two teams ultimately gets to say they made it to the field of 64. So expanding to 68, 72 or even 80 teams would just be another case of catering to teams in BCS conferences like the Big East, ACC and Big Ten – something the NCAA does enough of already with the NCAA Tournament and NIT. If the NCAA expanded and said that the last eight at-large teams would have to play in the play-in games, that would be better, but it still doesn’t make sense.
As it stands, just under one-fifth of all Division I teams in basketball are in the NCAA Tournament, and with the 40 teams that are in the NIT, nearly one-third make postseason play. College football not only lacks a playoff system, but has nearly one half of all Division I-A teams (56 out 117) in bowl games. That waters down the product in a big way. With so many teams in bowl games, several teams that go 6-5 are able to play in a bowl game, and many bowl games before the end of December are meaningless to everyone except those connected to a school in one of them and the junkies. Is a team that goes barely over .500 really worthy of postseason play? The standard has been lowered; a 6-5 record at some schools is sometimes not enough to keep a coach’s job, but somehow it’s enough for a team to make postseason play. Something is wrong with that picture.
Basketball has to avoid going down that same path. As it is, some teams that get into the NIT really have no business getting in, but since the NCAA caters to high-majors, they make it. This past season, the NIT field included teams that finished last and next-to-last in their conference – performances that can be worthy of a coach losing his job. If a coach could lose his job for that, why is it good enough to be rewarded with postseason play? Doubling the NCAA Tournament field would lead to this happening, unless the NIT is scrapped as well – and after the legal battle the NCAA had on its hands before deciding to take over the NIT, it’s doubtful they will do that. Thus if the tournament is expanded to 128 teams, then just about half of the teams in Division I see postseason play – just like in Division I-A football.
The rationales given for expanding the tournament are not good ones. Haney said that the current size has been in place for a number of years. So what? Just because that has been the case doesn’t mean we need to start tinkering with it. He also said that one reason for proposing a 128-team field was because postseason bids may help coaches keep their jobs. Well, they might keep their jobs, but are schools going to be very happy with losing conference records year in and year out and being in the bottom half of a 128-team field on a consistent basis? If you want to keep your job, win.
It’s also surely no coincidence that discussion on the subject has accelerated this off-season, the off-season after which George Mason made it to the Final Four, especially since the most vocal coaches who want to see this happen are coaches of teams from BCS conferences. One premise for expanding the tournament is that this Final Four run proves that there is true parity in college basketball – but the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. We’re even seeing it now, as ESPN.com reported recently that Wichita State is having a very tough time getting games against teams from BCS conferences for next season. The Shockers made it to the Sweet 16 this past season, and if they can’t get games against teams from BCS conferences, it won’t be easy to get to the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team. People will ask who they beat, and they won’t be able to cite teams from, say, the Big 12, because those teams ducked the Shockers – not because the Shockers were incapable of beating good teams.
Not only that, but as mentioned earlier, the NCAA routinely caters to schools in BCS conferences when it comes to both postseason tournaments. That’s why Illinois head coach Bruce Weber was off the mark when he commented in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last month that mid-majors are now going to be favored more in the NCAA Tournament selection process.
“Now if they have a choice between a mid-major or high-level team, it’s probably going to be the mid-major that gets in,” Weber told the Post-Dispatch.
Come on, Bruce. Do we have to once again go over the numerous mid-majors that get the shaft year in and year out, not only in the NCAA Tournament but also the NIT? In fact, the last time the tournament expanded (from 64 to 65 teams) mid-majors got the shaft, because the teams that are in the play-in game are always small conference tournament winners – not bubble teams from the Big Ten and Big East.
Right now, the NCAA Tournament works very well, especially coming right after the conference tournaments, which also work well. We don’t need to expand the NCAA Tournament, especially when it just means more catering to BCS conferences and their members, and hopefully that doesn’t happen.
