Let me say that I love reading fellow Yardbarker Jake's Take On Sports. As a YB editor, it's one of my go to blogs to look for content. So it saddens me to say that I completely disagree with his post that the new 96-team NCAA format "will be great".
Let's see where I disagree.
Traditionalists – which means all coaches and most basketball journalists – despise change. Not me. College basketball fans have had to deal with all kinds of change. From the shot clock (which was wanted) to the three-point line to the change from gyms to grand arenas to the massive conference realignments to the one-and-dones, college hoops has always had change and it's usually gone over pretty well.
Second of all, of course it’s purely a financial move, so just join the 21st century of Division I sports and stop being naïve. Very true and every sports fan certainly understands that. However, the NCAA sells itself as being a morally high body that cares about the student part of student-athlete. That's hilarious! The same NCAA that doesn't want a playoff system because it removes kids from class now doesn't mind that kids would be missing more class in an expanded NCAA tournament. In the proposed second week of games, schools could be playing on Tuesday through Sunday. That coming after a full weekend of games. So a team playing in the first round could play Friday and Sunday in their pod region ... then the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday games in the regional sites.
Whatever. But don't show me those ads telling me that 90% of student-athletes go pro in something other than sports. And don't give me that garbage about keeping the BCS because a playoff system would keep kids out of class. I guess the NCAA realizes that the teams that would be playing deep in the tournament have guys on their teams that have already stopped going to class.
Third, more than half of the schools with Division I football programs go to bowl games, but a 96-team basketball tournament would include less than a third of the Division I basketball schools (about 28.74 percent for the statistical sticklers). Interesting, but here is my problem with that logic. There are only about 117 college basketball schools that would be considered in the "major" category ... and that's if I'm considering the A-10, C-USA, Mountain West and WAC as major. Of those 96 bids, about 64 of them will go to teams in the major conferences. That means 55% of the "majors" would be in the tournament, with the rest of the bids going out to the 21 other conferences.
Using the logic people are using about the extra teams in the tournament -- adding in the 32-team N.I.T. field -- then you'd have this:
ACC: 9 of 12 teams in the dance
A-10: 5 of 14 teams
Big 12: 8 of 12 teams
Big East: 13 of 16 teams
Big Ten: 7 of 11 teams
C USA: 5 of 12 teams
MWC: 4 or 9 teams
Pac 10: 3 of 10 teams
SEC: 6 of 12 teams
WAC: 3 of 9
So out of those 10 conferences, 63 of the 96 bids fall here. That's 63 of 117 teams (54%). Now, just factor in just the "Big Six" conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac 10, SEC). There are 73 schools in those six conferences. According to the data, 46 of them get into the dance. That's 63%! So, essentially, the big dogs have a 2/3 shot at getting into the tournament every year. That's worse than college football or any of the professional sports.
The top 32 teams would play just as many games to win a national championship as they do now. Yes, but the quality of the games would change. Sure, from a fan's perspective, seeing Kentucky have to play Rhode Island in the first round would be more fun than watching them beat up on East Tennessee State. But is that fair to Kentucky? Sure, in a seven-game series, Kentucky would easily dismiss Little Rhody. But in a single elimination game ... that's tough.
Then factor in this: if the No. 9 thru 24 seeds battle in the first round ... you know that a top team is going to get screwed. Kentucky would play the winner of the matchup between the 16th and 17th seeds. Well, what if a No. 22 team beats a No. 11 seed? Kentucky may be looking at a much better team in their first game than a team seeded 6th. That's ridiculous and makes the regular season, conference tournaments and the entire seeding process a complete joke. What's the incentive of getting a No. 1 seed when you could have a much tougher opponent that teams seeded behind you. That is stupid!
Well, Minnesota received the worst seed of any at-large team this year, and it was a No. 11. Sorry, but this is wrong. UTEP was an at-large team and a 12th seed. Utah State was an at-large team who got a 12th seed, too.
The opening weekend would involve 32 first-round games among the 64 teams that don’t receive byes. That could be squeezed into two days, most likely a Saturday or a Sunday, with 16 games each day, but it could be spread out over four days, Thursday through Sunday, with eight games each day. Um, no. The NCAA wants to cram a 96-team field into the same three-week time frame they enjoy now. So they are going to jam another 31 games in there somewhere.
Right now the plan is to have the first round games (the 64 teams who didn't get byes) into the first Thursday and Friday. The winners will then play a team that received a first round bye in the Round of 64 on Saturday and Sunday. The plan after that is to have the Round of 32 played on Tuesday and Wednesday of the next week ... with the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 on their current schedule of Thursday through Sunday. That most likely means that the third, fourth and fifth rounds of the tournament will be held at the regional sites.
Hold it right there, professor. So that means that the teams who get a first round bye would travel all the way to those pod sites to play just one game? What is that? What fan would go all the way to a pod site to see their team play in just one game when they'll have to turn around and go to another site?
More competitive first-round games. Maybe, but most of them would not be very thrilling. How were those NIT games you watched this year? What? You didn't watch any? Hmm. Seeing a bunch of bubble teams facing off against the low majors isn't really more exciting than the first round games now.
Oh, and think about this: we get more "competitive" first round games but we'll get less competitive regular season games. Follow me. Why would, say, North Carolina bother scheduling Michigan State, Kentucky, Syracuse, Ohio State and Texas (they played all of them this past season) right now? Sure, it bolsters their RPI and helps get them in the tournament. With a 96-team tournament, why would North Carolina bother with that brutal of a schedule? They would be better off putting a few more cupcakes on their schedule to finish with an 18-14 mark instead of the 16-16 record they ended up with. And UNC knows that 18-14 would certainly get them in a 96-team tournament. So no more UNC-Kentucky. We'll see more UNC-Eastern Kentucky.
How do I know this? Because of Virginia Tech. The Hokies did not make the NCAA Tournament due to their crappy non-conference schedule. In the 96-team format, they'd be in. So my point is completely validated right there. We will have a ton of bad non-conference games in the regular season that many fans won't even bother caring until conference play starts in January.
Oh, and how fun will those "more competitive" first round games be if nobody is watching. As I said before, how many NIT games did you watch this year? Well, the first round of the NCAA Tournament in a 96-team format will be a lot worse. More mid-to-small majors will be in those games and we will be left with crap.
Now, how many fans will actually show up to these games? If you paid any attention, you'd know that many of the pod sites for the first and second rounds were far from sell-outs. There were tons of empty seats in most of the arenas. Now, do you think fans are going to shell out a ton of money to see their team play one game? Kentucky was in New Orleans in their pod site this year ... so their fans got to see two games (provided they won the first one). If this was next year, they'd only get one game ... win or lose. Then you expect them to go to Syracuse and spend an entire week following their team there? And say Kentucky lost in the Round of 32 for some reason. All those fans had taken off work for an entire week and put vacation, hotel, car rental up for that entire week just to see their team play. At least the old way, you were only asking a four-day weekend for these fans ... something that isn't out of the ordinary.
So, the first two rounds of the tournament will be sparsely attended and the week-long regionals would be a cluster-you know.
Here is something no one else has brought up: This will kill the women's tournament. Oh, it will still go on but even less people will care. With ESPN as the front runner to gain the expanded men's tournament, there will be no time for them to keep televising the women's tournament. No way will another major network take on the women's dance so it will end up on Lifetime, Oxygen or We. Great for the female fans but bad for the men who just happen to watch it because it was on ESPN.
It's the Chewbacca defense. It doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense at all. Well, it does make dollars ... which the NCAA finds more important than anything else ... but it doesn't make sense.
Again, Jake's Take on sports is a great site and I'm not dissing him by any means. I just don't agree with the opinion that this tournament expansion will be great.
Let's see where I disagree.
Traditionalists – which means all coaches and most basketball journalists – despise change. Not me. College basketball fans have had to deal with all kinds of change. From the shot clock (which was wanted) to the three-point line to the change from gyms to grand arenas to the massive conference realignments to the one-and-dones, college hoops has always had change and it's usually gone over pretty well.
Second of all, of course it’s purely a financial move, so just join the 21st century of Division I sports and stop being naïve. Very true and every sports fan certainly understands that. However, the NCAA sells itself as being a morally high body that cares about the student part of student-athlete. That's hilarious! The same NCAA that doesn't want a playoff system because it removes kids from class now doesn't mind that kids would be missing more class in an expanded NCAA tournament. In the proposed second week of games, schools could be playing on Tuesday through Sunday. That coming after a full weekend of games. So a team playing in the first round could play Friday and Sunday in their pod region ... then the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday games in the regional sites.
Whatever. But don't show me those ads telling me that 90% of student-athletes go pro in something other than sports. And don't give me that garbage about keeping the BCS because a playoff system would keep kids out of class. I guess the NCAA realizes that the teams that would be playing deep in the tournament have guys on their teams that have already stopped going to class.
Third, more than half of the schools with Division I football programs go to bowl games, but a 96-team basketball tournament would include less than a third of the Division I basketball schools (about 28.74 percent for the statistical sticklers). Interesting, but here is my problem with that logic. There are only about 117 college basketball schools that would be considered in the "major" category ... and that's if I'm considering the A-10, C-USA, Mountain West and WAC as major. Of those 96 bids, about 64 of them will go to teams in the major conferences. That means 55% of the "majors" would be in the tournament, with the rest of the bids going out to the 21 other conferences.
Using the logic people are using about the extra teams in the tournament -- adding in the 32-team N.I.T. field -- then you'd have this:
ACC: 9 of 12 teams in the dance
A-10: 5 of 14 teams
Big 12: 8 of 12 teams
Big East: 13 of 16 teams
Big Ten: 7 of 11 teams
C USA: 5 of 12 teams
MWC: 4 or 9 teams
Pac 10: 3 of 10 teams
SEC: 6 of 12 teams
WAC: 3 of 9
So out of those 10 conferences, 63 of the 96 bids fall here. That's 63 of 117 teams (54%). Now, just factor in just the "Big Six" conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac 10, SEC). There are 73 schools in those six conferences. According to the data, 46 of them get into the dance. That's 63%! So, essentially, the big dogs have a 2/3 shot at getting into the tournament every year. That's worse than college football or any of the professional sports.
The top 32 teams would play just as many games to win a national championship as they do now. Yes, but the quality of the games would change. Sure, from a fan's perspective, seeing Kentucky have to play Rhode Island in the first round would be more fun than watching them beat up on East Tennessee State. But is that fair to Kentucky? Sure, in a seven-game series, Kentucky would easily dismiss Little Rhody. But in a single elimination game ... that's tough.
Then factor in this: if the No. 9 thru 24 seeds battle in the first round ... you know that a top team is going to get screwed. Kentucky would play the winner of the matchup between the 16th and 17th seeds. Well, what if a No. 22 team beats a No. 11 seed? Kentucky may be looking at a much better team in their first game than a team seeded 6th. That's ridiculous and makes the regular season, conference tournaments and the entire seeding process a complete joke. What's the incentive of getting a No. 1 seed when you could have a much tougher opponent that teams seeded behind you. That is stupid!
Well, Minnesota received the worst seed of any at-large team this year, and it was a No. 11. Sorry, but this is wrong. UTEP was an at-large team and a 12th seed. Utah State was an at-large team who got a 12th seed, too.
The opening weekend would involve 32 first-round games among the 64 teams that don’t receive byes. That could be squeezed into two days, most likely a Saturday or a Sunday, with 16 games each day, but it could be spread out over four days, Thursday through Sunday, with eight games each day. Um, no. The NCAA wants to cram a 96-team field into the same three-week time frame they enjoy now. So they are going to jam another 31 games in there somewhere.
Right now the plan is to have the first round games (the 64 teams who didn't get byes) into the first Thursday and Friday. The winners will then play a team that received a first round bye in the Round of 64 on Saturday and Sunday. The plan after that is to have the Round of 32 played on Tuesday and Wednesday of the next week ... with the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 on their current schedule of Thursday through Sunday. That most likely means that the third, fourth and fifth rounds of the tournament will be held at the regional sites.
Hold it right there, professor. So that means that the teams who get a first round bye would travel all the way to those pod sites to play just one game? What is that? What fan would go all the way to a pod site to see their team play in just one game when they'll have to turn around and go to another site?
More competitive first-round games. Maybe, but most of them would not be very thrilling. How were those NIT games you watched this year? What? You didn't watch any? Hmm. Seeing a bunch of bubble teams facing off against the low majors isn't really more exciting than the first round games now.
Oh, and think about this: we get more "competitive" first round games but we'll get less competitive regular season games. Follow me. Why would, say, North Carolina bother scheduling Michigan State, Kentucky, Syracuse, Ohio State and Texas (they played all of them this past season) right now? Sure, it bolsters their RPI and helps get them in the tournament. With a 96-team tournament, why would North Carolina bother with that brutal of a schedule? They would be better off putting a few more cupcakes on their schedule to finish with an 18-14 mark instead of the 16-16 record they ended up with. And UNC knows that 18-14 would certainly get them in a 96-team tournament. So no more UNC-Kentucky. We'll see more UNC-Eastern Kentucky.
How do I know this? Because of Virginia Tech. The Hokies did not make the NCAA Tournament due to their crappy non-conference schedule. In the 96-team format, they'd be in. So my point is completely validated right there. We will have a ton of bad non-conference games in the regular season that many fans won't even bother caring until conference play starts in January.
Oh, and how fun will those "more competitive" first round games be if nobody is watching. As I said before, how many NIT games did you watch this year? Well, the first round of the NCAA Tournament in a 96-team format will be a lot worse. More mid-to-small majors will be in those games and we will be left with crap.
Now, how many fans will actually show up to these games? If you paid any attention, you'd know that many of the pod sites for the first and second rounds were far from sell-outs. There were tons of empty seats in most of the arenas. Now, do you think fans are going to shell out a ton of money to see their team play one game? Kentucky was in New Orleans in their pod site this year ... so their fans got to see two games (provided they won the first one). If this was next year, they'd only get one game ... win or lose. Then you expect them to go to Syracuse and spend an entire week following their team there? And say Kentucky lost in the Round of 32 for some reason. All those fans had taken off work for an entire week and put vacation, hotel, car rental up for that entire week just to see their team play. At least the old way, you were only asking a four-day weekend for these fans ... something that isn't out of the ordinary.
So, the first two rounds of the tournament will be sparsely attended and the week-long regionals would be a cluster-you know.
Here is something no one else has brought up: This will kill the women's tournament. Oh, it will still go on but even less people will care. With ESPN as the front runner to gain the expanded men's tournament, there will be no time for them to keep televising the women's tournament. No way will another major network take on the women's dance so it will end up on Lifetime, Oxygen or We. Great for the female fans but bad for the men who just happen to watch it because it was on ESPN.
It's the Chewbacca defense. It doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense at all. Well, it does make dollars ... which the NCAA finds more important than anything else ... but it doesn't make sense.
Again, Jake's Take on sports is a great site and I'm not dissing him by any means. I just don't agree with the opinion that this tournament expansion will be great.
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