96 Teams is March Madness

It also ignores a big reason the casual fan gets involved – brackets. Take away the casual fan’s interest in filling out one and that is equivalent to eliminating fantasy football in the NFL.

I know this is sacrilege, and that should this happen I would probably end up hating it, but this doesn’t really bother me. And I’m not an “every kid deserves a medal” type of dude. But I do think that schools like Wichita State and Illinois State make it in this year if the number is 96. I think William and Mary is in, I think UAB is in, I think Coastal Carolina is in.

Perhaps I’m wildly mistaken and preference again would go the BCS Conference schools. But if going to 96 means we’re looking at adding 10 – 15 mid majors to this thing, I would say that I am in favor of that idea.

96 teams would be the death of the NIT. Not that it was good or anything but its fun to watch when there are no tournament games on.

Brick: The chances of a 16 seed beating a one now will go up quite a bit. The teams in the last quartile that were not at-larges, will most likely, still populate the bottom four rows.

We’ll have to recalibrate what it means to make the NCAA tournament now, but at least the best 64 have a fighting to be in the final 64.

fighting “chance”, he meant.

William & Mary beat Wake Forest in Winston-Salem….

No Child Left Behind

Bob,

The chances of a 16 seed beating a one now will go up quite a bit. The teams in the last quartile that were not at-larges, will most likely, still populate the bottom four rows.

That’s true. But I doubt it will be too significant an increase. And, in any case, the new 13-16 rung will still be lesser teams than the current 9-12s, which have had very little success in the tournament historically.

Yes this expansion is about money. It is also about the tournament moving to cable.

With 32 teams getting first-round byes, the first two days of play will essentially be a ramped up NIT — but with the tournament in all likelyhood moving to cable for at least a portion of the event, those extra games will be advertised at a discount, since there will be the dual revenue system of advertising dollars plus subscription fees already in place.

So the first week will be a Tuesday through Sunday event rather than a Thursday through Sunday schedule. Lots of teams will get to say they took part in March Madness, advertisers will get added on value for the Tuesday-Wednesday matchups, and ESPN gets more content.

It’s gonna happen.

We’re going to have the shrink the font on all of the brackets in order to fit them onto one page.

The NCAA seems to have a healthy sense of irony in that they realize how big of a success the basketball tournament is, but then proclaim the virtues of the BCS system in football. If the basketball tournament is doing so well that adding more teams seems like a good idea, how on earth is a 2 team tournament a good idea in post-season football?

Writing carefully, I don’t think the NCAA has talked about the BCS being a great thing.

Losers bracket if they want more games. Why would the likelihood go up that a 16 would beat a 1?

Won’t this interfere too much with the student athletes’ classes? We know that the football players can only handle one game a week (on the weekend) for 14 weeks max. I don’t know how the basketball players manage to handle 2 games a week for ~19+ weeks, with one occuring during the middle of the week. Maybe it is because they play some of those games during the winter break…The basketball population must have a higher overall IQ to handle this. However, adding all of these extra games, a week after each school having 2-4 games for conference tournaments, will cut in to their studying time too much to do well in under water basket weaving.

How would they do seeding? I would assume 8 would play 24. Who would the winneplay? I would think the 1 seeds would play the winner of 16vs17?

If the basketball tournament is doing so well that adding more teams seems like a good idea, how on earth is a 2 team tournament a good idea in post-season football?

The NCAA makes 90% of its revenue off of March Madness — they don’t make a dime off of the BCS.

When (if) all parties involved in college football ever figure out how to divide the money, that’s when you will see a playoff.

T: The reason that 16s will have a better chance is because the current 14-16 seeds will (for the most part) be stuck in the 22-24 holes in the 96-team bracket — in any event, not 16.

The current play-in game (essentially a 16-17) will be between two decent teams. Think, say, the three and four seeds of the NIT… Dayton, Kent State, Memphis, Seton Hall, Tech (I know, a five), Wichita State, UConn, UNC, South Florida. Those teams have a much better chance of advancing against a one than UAPB or Winthrop did.

06: 9 vs. 24, 10 v. 23, 11 v. 22, etc., down to 16 v. 17. Then it’s like what we have, 16-17 winner plays 1, 15-18 winner plays 2… up to 9-24 winner playing 8. In this setup, the 9-11 seeds have all the pressure in the first round.

Just add 4 more games and you can expand the field to 1024. That ought to accommodate every college team in the country.

Great analysis. You stated the obvious and most salient point in your intro thesis paragraph-The tournament is not about crowning a champion, cinderalla stories or allowing 234 teams to compete for fairness sake. It’s about money plain and simple. By expanding as they have dine in the past the NCAA is reminding us that college basketball is about money. Just money.

Having a larger amount of teams, especially low seeds has never been about their opportunity to win the tournament. It’s a reward for a season well played as well as a way to promote interest in these schools and players. When George Mason went to the Final Four a few years ago, they might as well won back to back championships. It’s every small school’s dream and will be remembered as much as the winner of the 2004 championship. Who was that again? UConn. But most people won’t remember, but they’ll remember that George Mason made a Final Four because the media will remind them.

FTR, I’m not in favor of expanding to 96 teams, but let’s not kid ourselves that this about allowing more teams the opportunity to win the tourney. Brackets got bigger, advertising revenue got bigger, and cable TV is very happy. It Old Yeller’s the NIT which has needed it for a long time….

I understand that a 16 seed has a good chance of beating a 17, and thus winning the first round game in a 96 team format, but there’s no better chance that the 16 (or 17) would then beat the 1. So still no point in including more than 64 (or 32 for that matter) except $.

Oh I see what you are saying. The current “last teams out” are better than the current aq’s in the 16 spot

I’m confused. Are you saying that at heart a lawyer is not ice-cold, calculating, and emotionless?

Hell, let all 347 Division 1 teams in.

It will be interesting to see how this affects the coaches. My understanding is that most of them are in favor of the expansion which strikes me as myopic. Miss the tournament for one year (injuries, bad luck, etc) and you’re done.

Secondly, will this have an effect on conference tourneys? The expansion would make them less important, but that might not be why people watch/attend them anyways.

I foresee changes coming there. If the NCAA insists on starting this tournament on Tuesday, no bubble team in a BCS league is going to want to play its last conference tournament game on a Saturday or a Sunday before a Tuesday NCAA game.

Off topic,

" in my heart – my ice-cold, calculating, emotionless heart – I remain an engineer. So I have a deep-seated desire for shit to make sense."

Is a great quote,

/Trained MBA, yet UG engineer at heart

This is clearly about money but what no one is talking about is that this is the NCAA’s way of marginalizing small conference teams, so that a 16 seed team can now be a 20 or lower. What you will see is the Big East now sending 10-12 teams, the Big 12 sending 9 or 10 and the Big Ten sending 7 or 8. If the the Tourney had 96 teams this year then I bet you North Carolina would have been in despite their lousy year. It’s all about big conferences, big schools and big money, screw the little guys.

P.S. The NCAA owns the N.I.T. touney, so it’s toast.