Jim Boeheim and a few other coaches have gone on record as saying that they’d like to see the NCAA tournament expand the field. The argument is that there are more teams now, and in fact, more good teams, which is something I agree with. I still don’t know that it makes it necessary to have more than 64 teams in a tournament to crown a national championship, but it’s true… the mid-majors have really closed the gap on the big guys. Now, I’m not sure if these proposals are designed to get more Hofstras into the tournament, or more Michigans… but it sounds nice in theory.
I don’t think it’s something that’s really likely to happen, but the movement appears to be gathering steam. If it does happen, I a few requests:
1) If there are more play-in games, they should make every effort to make them seem like a real tournament game. I forget who Monmouth played in the play-in game this year, but that team, who won a conference tournament, did not get the same attention that the other teams in the tournament got… they got a Tuesday night game in Dayton. Congratulations. I don’t think it would be fair to make these conference tournament winners play in tournament games that aren’t really tournament games. In fact…
2) The play-in games shouldn’t always be just winners of the small conference tournaments. I’d rather see teams like Cincinnati or Florida State, big schools who didn’t quite have the chops to get in, duking it out for a spot. I think winning a conference tournament or regular season title, no matter how sucky the conference, is a bigger deal than going .500 in the ACC. I’d rather see the conference winners rewarded.
And 3) Please don’t fuck with my bracket pool. If you’re still announcing the teams on Sunday evening, then you can’t start having 6 or 8 games on Tuesday. That doesn’t give me enough time to organize a completely legal, not-for-profit tournament pool.
Mac Thomason
I don’t think it will happen now. Maybe before, but not with the NCAA owning the NIT.
March 31, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Mr Furious
Good points. Especially number 2.
I look forward to the year when Tommy Amaker can have yet another chance to lock up a NCAA berth and blow it.
March 31, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Bouj
I totally concur about making the middle-of-the-road BCS conference teams go the play-in route. Monmouth and Hampton get screwed for winning their tournaments? How is that fair? But it will never happen, because the BCS conferences will never go along with the idea of their teams having to “qualify”.
March 31, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Suss
They already do have a play-in game for power conference nobodies. It’s called the 8-9 game.
–Suss
March 31, 2006 at 4:58 pm
BF Hoodrich
Great points, mjd, number two in particular. That makes much more sense than having play-in games between teams that qualified for the tournament by winning their conference tournament.
Suss, the 8/9 game isn’t quite a play-in for “power conference nobodies”; this season, George Washington, North Carolina-Wilmington, Bucknell, and Alabama-Birmingham were all either 8 or 9 seeds.
April 1, 2006 at 12:19 am
zach
Well, it wouldn’t be fair to the number one seed that had to play a Cincy or FSU instead of a Monmouth or a Hampton. So what seed would they play for? It would have to vary from year to year, and it would totally screw with bracket pools – the PIG isn’t a big deal now because whoever wins, they will probably lose the next game, but in this scenario the rest of your bracket for that region might depend greatly on who wins that game. What makes the most sense would be to have 4 play in games, one for each 16 seed, all played at the same site on Tuesday, thereby adding 3 teams. You couldn’t have them go on Wednesday because then, at least some years, a winner would have to play again the next day. As it is they try to put the PIG winner at a Friday/Sunday site. It would also have to be the 8 worst teams, regardless of whether or not they won their tournament. It wouldn’t mess with bracket pools – we can just ignore the PIGs like we already do. If you wanted you could make each 15 seed have a play-in as well, meaning another 4 teams, but that seems excessive. Could you think of 7 teams that got left out of this year’s tournament that had any claims to getting in? Anyone outside of Cincinnati, Hofstra, Missouri State, Michigan, and Florida St (and really only the first 3) had no argument as to getting in.
April 2, 2006 at 7:58 pm