Last week the NCAA tournament expanded from 68 schools to 76 schools despite the customer not wanting it. It is yet just another example of the slow-moving college athletics just killing itself on its way to inevitability.
The NCAA tournament is about as perfect a sports event that could possibly exists. Not only do die-hard fans love it, but it is one of the few things on the sports calender that casual and non-existant fans will actually follow to some degree ... like the Super Bowl and Olympics. So expanding this tournament from 68 to 76 teams really rubbed people the wrong way because it doesn't make it better.
I'm not against change. I love that NIL exists. I love that the transfer portal exists and is easier to navigate. That's not to say that it is perfect, but it is the right thing to do. But, the NCAA just won't do anything to try to put guard rails around it so we are truly living in a wild west of constant free agency and massive movement. That also applies to conference realignment, which rocked the college world a couple years ago and will do even more damage in a few years when the TV contracts come up. Get ready for another storm that might kill more conferences. And I've been a champion for a college football playoff ... which has worked ... but the powers that be in college athletics are about to ruin that, too.
It isn't just me saying "I don't like it" because it is change. It actually ruins the fabric of a tournament that just came off one of their most watched events in years.
THIS DOES NOT HELP THE MID-MAJORS AT ALL
One of the storylines heading into Selection Sunday last year was Miami-OH's case to be in the tournament. They finished the regular season undefeated but lost in the MAC tournament and had some of the worst metrics an at-large team could have. They did earn a bid, but was placed in the First Four in Dayton. Some said that if the tournament expanded, it would help the mid-majors earn more bids. Yeah right.
The official "first four out" had Auburn, Indiana, Oklahoma and San Diego State. San Diego State is technically a mid-major, but is really in a good conference that is firmly in the tier right behind the power conferences. California, Stanford, Oklahoma State and New Mexico would also have made it in under the expanded format ... with three in power leagues and one in the same Mountain West SDSU resides. In all likelihood under this format, Miami-OH would have been pushed even further down the list -- not that it would matter too much. It wouldn't have been the 68th team admitted but the 74th or so.
This expansion was more about the power conferences (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) gaining more power, money and influence. Did the tournament really miss a 17-16 Auburn team that lost 11 of 18 SEC games playing? Or an 18-14 Indiana team that lost its only Big Ten tournament game? How about rivals Stanford and Cal who each went 9-9 in ACC play? I'm sure those fan bases would love it ... but it really doesn't add much to the tournament as a whole.
THIS DOES NOT HELP THE LOW-MAJORS ... MUCH
Now let's look at the low mid-majors. Those are the small conferences that nearly always are one-bid leagues that end up as the 15th or 16th seed. Let me lay out the domino effect of what's going to happen with them.
Before: We had six total 16-seeds in the NCAA tournament. We had two games where two 16-seeds played each other in the First Four, and then the other two 16-seeds were already in the Round of 64. We also had four 15-seeds. Four 14-seeds. Four 13-seeds. Get it?
Going forward: We will now have eight 16-seeds. There will be four games featuring two 16-seeds playing each other. We will also have six 15-seeds where four will play two games against each other while two other 15-seeds will already be in the Round of 64. Now understand who that will be.
Two of the 15-seeds from last year will now become 16 seeds. They will have to play an extra game to get into the Round of 64, and once they get there they will play a No. 1 seed instead of a No. 2 seed. That's a huge difference of challenges. Also, all four 14-seeds from last year will now become 15-seeds, with two of them having to play in this new Opening Round alongside the already existing 15-seeds. Now those new 15-seeds will be playing against a No. 2 seed instead of a No. 3 seed. That's a step up in class. Moving on down and the 13-seeds from last year are now 14-seeds. And the 12-seeds are 13-seeds. All their paths just got tougher. That doesn't really help mid-majors or low-majors at all.
What does help them is an easier way for these leagues to make some money. See, winning an NCAA tournament game earns your league a unit, and that unit is used as earnings for your conference. So when a SWAC school beats a MEAC school in the First Four, that win is a financial boost for the SWAC. Now that we are adding more of those 16 vs 16 and 15 vs 15 games, it does provide an important financial gain for the league.
DO YOU WANT TO HOST A BRACKET POOL
I'm that guy who hosts my work bracket pool and this new development does change things. While it isn't important to the grand scheme of things, it is actually the one thing that most fans relate to the most. When it was a 64-team field (or 65 for a brief time) the bracket was very simple. Six rounds of games where you knew who was playing from the jump. With the First Four, you could blow off the 16 vs 16 winners, but those 11 vs 11 games gave you some pause if you thought one of them could win in the next round.
This will be a bigger pause.
You are going to have two 11-seed vs 11-seed games and four 12-seed vs 12-seed games. When those teams are Auburn, Indiana, Oklahoma, etc then it will make you hold onto your bracket until the deadline. For bracket pool runners, that can suck. It can also cause some confusion for the more casual fans who don't understand who is playing who and when. Again, I know this isn't the biggest of issues in the world, but it does suck.
IT DOESN'T REALLY HELP THE PRODUCT
So what do we gain? The fans. What do we gain? Sure, there are now eight more games to chew through on a Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. Or we will see them staggered at night, which likely means those 16 vs 16 games will be cannibalized by seeing those mediocre power schools facing off. Either way, nothing is better.
Did you watch the NIT this past March? Me neither. And these are the teams that were playing in it. Average power teams playing other average power teams. That's what the First Four already was, but instead of two of those games we will be getting six. Getting to see 17-16 Auburn play against a middle-of-the-road ACC team on a Wednesday night isn't really special. It's like watching the second round of the ACC tournament -- ya know, the round that happens two nights before Duke plays.
You could argue that the first round (is that what they are still going to call it?) will be a better product because we will have shaved off some of those pesky low-majors that typically get rolled by 25 points and replace them with a meh power school who has a puncher's chance at pulling and upset. But shouting that 12-seeded Stanford upsetting 5th seed Michigan State just doesn't seem that historic.
This comes off the heels of a highly watched tournament where mid-majors were flushed out by the time we got to the second weekend of the the dance. So maybe this is what the public actually wants. And, honestly, it is. While people love seeing the Cinderella upset the big name schools during the first weeked of the tournament, we don't really like seeing them beyond that. We rather the big name schools play on the weekends that really matter. History has shown us that.
SO WHAT IS THIS REALLY ABOUT?
Power. If you have been paying attention, the SEC and Big Ten have been flexing their muscle about how they want college sports to look like moving forward because it benefits them. They don't always agree on what that should look like, but they both are showing their power to get things the way they want. The ACC and Big 12 are along for the ride so they can keep their lesser power for the time being. The Big 12 dug themselves out of almost certain extinction while the ACC is trying to stave off their own. Meanwhile, the mid-majors are just wanting to be some part of this thing.
In college football, the conferences hold all the cards. That's where the big, big money lies and the mid-majors (well, the Group of Six) have just enough voting power that the Big Ten and SEC needs to throw them a bone. A small bone. In college basketball, the NCAA owns the NCAA tournament and it is the one sizable moneymaker that no one wants to risk throwing away.
That doesn't mean they (the power conferences) don't want to tweak it ... which they just did. Adding more teams means adding more of their teams. With the SEC at 16 schools and the Big Ten at 18 schools it is difficult to have 11 of their members earning bids when they spend January and February beating each other up. Just like with their wishes to expand the college football playoff, they want more seats at the table.
Of course, there is a world where all this could just go away. The power schools could break off and form their own football world and they could decided to do the same with a basketball tournament. History, humility and tradition is what keeps the NCAA tournament around -- and for all the flaws of the NCAA they are great at throwing a tournament -- but those things aren't important anymore. History be damned. There is no humility. And tradition was thrown out the window when rivalries were broken and the Pac-12 imploded because of money.
But if these schools could figure out a way, they would have their own 48 or 64 team tournament with nothing but power schools in it to sell to the public ... and we'd buy it.
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