Sixty-four teams was enough...and so was sixty-five. Now we have sixty-eight teams in the NCAA college basketball championship tournament. This is yet another step toward a plan to take the tourney up to 96 teams, which is waaaaaay too many. We know the driving factor is money, but they won't say that out loud. It has to be money because there is no other reason that holds water. Let's examine a few of the common arguments for expansion. First up is that good, competitive teams are getting left out. Really? So this year when Memphis gets left out, I am supposed to feel bad?? This tournament is for the national championship of the sport, not for participation. With roughly 30 games a year and a post season conference tournament (except in the Ivy League) that gives an automatic berth, every team has ample opportunity to play your way into the dance. If you happen to be one of the first four...or next four...out, tough. Picking between the final 12 teams for the final 8 spots is splitting hairs anyway. It's basically deciding which of the lesser evils to allow a chance to play. I can only imagine the teams that would be on the bubble if we get to 96. Perhaps Bowling Green can finally make it back to the tournament. Another argument, and perhaps the most laughable, is actually a comparison. Supporters of expansion like to point out the percentage of football teams in bowl games and how much lower that percentage is for teams in the tournament. Who f'ing cares?? Anyone using this argument should beaten down and never allowed to speak again. The idea of even comparing an actual tournament that determines a champion to a bunch of ridiculous exhibition games is a joke. Of course, expanding the tournament will make it more like the bowl system and become laughable. And let's not get started on the fact that there shouldn't be as many bowl games as there are. But if basketball junkies want to compare the best thing going in college sports to the worse thing going, good luck. One final argument I hear is that the fans want it and deserve it. Ummmm...not anyone I talk to. Expanding the tournament will actually lessen the appeal to the casual fan and in turn lessen the income the tourney generates. The biggest part of the tournament is the bracket, without question. Millions of people compete amongst one another by filling out their bracket and tracking their picks. Most of these people do not even follow college basketball. Adding teams, games and another weekend to the whole thing will make following along with your picks more time consuming and less exciting. I have no doubt that making the tournament larger will make the number of brackets filled out smaller. This year is already going to be a pain with play in games to determine two of the #12 seeds. Every year there seems to be a #12 that upsets a #5 in the first round, but now you will have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday night to even know who those #12's are. Ridiculous. At a time when most things in sports should be contracting, college basketball is trying to expand. I hope that everyone takes a deep breath and doesn't ruin a good thing, but I won't be holding my breath.
Still sitting around the .500 mark as we are at 14-15-1 for the year. This weekend marks the end of the regular season in college basketball plus a few conference tournaments have begun. This makes for plenty of games to choose from without even turning to the NBA or NHL. First up is tonight's game between Ohio and Miami of Ohio. The game is in Oxford and Ohio is favored by 1. The Bobcats have been playing great lately and are peaking at the right time, just as they did last year en route to winning the MAC tourney and then beating Georgetown in the Big Dance. Look for the roll to continue as I will lay the point. Next up is Wyoming at BYU. The Cougars lost at home during the week to New Mexico in their first game without Brandon Davies. I am hoping that causes this line to be around 12 or 13 so I can lay the points. BYU should bounce back big as they recover emotionally from the loss. New Mexico also matches up with BYU well and beat them earlier when Davies was in the lineup. Wyoming is awful and expect Jimmer to want to go off in his last home game. I will lay as many as 15 but hoping it will be less. Good luck, and remember, never bet what you cant afford to lose.
Completely agree BUT, if you are going to expand the tournament to 68, there are two things that could be done that would make sense:
ReplyDelete1. The four play-in games would be for the 16 seed. That makes things simple and very easy for people to still organize a pool and fill out a bracket. How many people legitimately predict a 16 seed to beat a 1 seed? And since it's never happened, anyone that makes that prediction probably isn't really going to win the pool anyway. In addition, it gives those teams potentially two tournament games, versus one and affords them all the opportunity to actually win a tournament game and get extra tv exposure. I've always said that if I coached a team and had to be a 16 seed, I'd want to be in the play-in game, not one of the other three.
2. Now that we've created the play-in games with the 16 seeds, the extra three teams that you add to the tournament should not come from any BCS conference. Since those three teams are going to be mediocre anyway, you might as well give a teams like Drexel, Wichita State, Utah State, St. Mary's, Cleveland State, Oakland, Richmond, George Mason, Old Dominion, Missouri State, VCU, etc a shot. Most people would rather see anyone of those teams than Clemson, Colorado, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Boston College, Marquette, Michigan, Illinois, Penn State, etc. That's what makes the tournament exciting - not seeing a mediocre power conference school. Boring!