Delany - NCAA tourney expansion- "probable"

A

AlwaysbeaHawk

Banned
Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten conference, says that the NCAA Tournament field will probably expand from 65 to 96 teams, possibly as soon as next year. The NCAA board is meeting at the end of April, and the change will be discussed then. Delany was asked by USA Today how the expansion would go over…he said “It’s probable.â€￾ Here’s a reason it might happen: the NCAA can opt out of its broadcast rights deal with CBS this summer, and the additional 31 games per year the expansion would bring would be a big bargaining chip for a new deal.

two good things :

1. I'm guessing the NIT tourney will just go away
2. the Hawks shouldn't have a problem making the Big Dance in Fran's 1st year..!
 
AlwaysbeaHawk said:
Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten conference, says that the NCAA Tournament field will probably expand from 65 to 96 teams, possibly as soon as next year. The NCAA board is meeting at the end of April, and the change will be discussed then. Delany was asked by USA Today how the expansion would go over…he said “It’s probable.â€￾ Here’s a reason it might happen: the NCAA can opt out of its broadcast rights deal with CBS this summer, and the additional 31 games per year the expansion would bring would be a big bargaining chip for a new deal.

two good things :

1. I'm guessing the NIT tourney will just go away
2. the Hawks shouldn't have a problem making the Big Dance in Fran's 1st year..!
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There is nothing good about this........
 
They've been expanding the NCAA since forever--expansion is nothing new. But when will the expansion stop? Will they eventually open the whole thing up, add another week (or two?) to the tournament, and let every Div I school in? The regular season would mean nothing--no one would watch college basketball until the end of February.

I'm sure there are people smarter than me that have figured out the optimal NCAA tourney size, in terms of $$$ for the NCAA and ticket sales for ADs.

But in IMO, they should reduce the number of tournament games, not expand. Only let two teams in from each conference: the regular season champ and the conference tourney champ (or the 2nd-best team). That would make the regular season mean something.
 
Yesssssss! More games in empty arenas! Come play college basketball and you can play your last game of the season in a ghost town. Oh, but the NCAA tournament is the most exciting sporting event out there. What a bunch of crap.

They should just play the first three rounds in YMCA's across the nation. There will be just as many people there and you would save on arena rental.
 
So how would this work, would the first round be played on Tues like the play in game is now, with the top 32 having a bye, and then the normal Thurs-Sun games? I hate this expansion idea, all it's going to do is let crappy teams like Miss St., Va Tech, Illinois, schools that have no shot of winning it into the tournament. Plus there is really no difference between an 8 and 9 seed now, but if this proposal goes through, the 8 would have a bye while the 9 would have to play just to get to the round of 64. Just a terrible idea.
 
I guess I don't see it as ruining the tournament...

HawkeyeMike23 said:
So how would this work, would the first round be played on Tues like the play in game is now, with the top 32 having a bye, and then the normal Thurs-Sun games? I hate this expansion idea, all it's going to do is let crappy teams like Miss St., Va Tech, Illinois, schools that have no shot of winning it into the tournament. Plus there is really no difference between an 8 and 9 seed now, but if this proposal goes through, the 8 would have a bye while the 9 would have to play just to get to the round of 64. Just a terrible idea.
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like many seem to. There are now 330+ Division I basketball teams, way, way more than there were when the field first expanded to 64 teams. In 1980 there were 261 Division I teams. By 2009, there were 330, according to the NCAA. It doesn't seem outlandish to have less than 30 percent of Division I teams make the tournament.

If the argument is that crappy teams are let in that have no chance of winning, then why are we currently at 64 and why are we not capping it at 16 teams or 24? In a year when none of the "favorites" outside of Duke made it to the Final Four, there was still nothing lower than a 5 seed (MSU and Butler) who made it into the Final Four. And that was an unusual year.

There are only 15-20 teams that have a "realistic" shot at going to the Final Four in a given year, yet we still consider the tournament exciting. As we should. The upsets throughout the first two rounds are great. The tournament was not ruined when it went from 32 to 48, nor 48 to 64. Going to 96 may not make it any better, but don't think anyone has given a good reason that it will be worse, other than "I don't like it." I'm willing to see how it would work before dooming it to failure.
 
If anything it should be reduced to 48. The 1 vs 16 is bad enough, do we need to see a 1 vs 20 something with a below 500 record? Not interested.
 
I think expanding the tourney is a terrible idea, but if they are going to 96 teams, they should give the top 4-6 seeds a home game in the first two rounds. That way the regular season at least means something.
 
I presume there will be a gang-bang early round on Tuesday and Wed with the bottom 64 teams squaring off at the home court of the top seed? 16 games each nite,with the Tuesday winnners playing on thursday,and the wed winners playing on Friday.

While I am not a big fan of this, I do think the #33 team (ie.top #9 seed) vs the #96 team, will not be the mismatch that #1 seeds vs #16 seed currently is.

Again,for anyone that wants a football playoff...please check out the college bb regular season after this gets pushed thru...it will even dilute the urgency in the conference tournys,which I love. Watching Minny make the big push this year to make the NCAA by beating MSU and PU in the conference tourny was fun to watch.

If they do this, please make sure there is some premium given to regular season success by making the first game a home game for the higher seed...I know it is not fair to the lower seed,but they should have won more games vs good teams during the season.

if this happens, I think we have to expect Iowa to make the tourny in 2012...I will be disapointed if not, as that would be like making the NIT...ending a 6 year drought!
 
Re: I guess I don't see it as ruining the tournament...

DodgerHawki said:
like many seem to. There are now 330+ Division I basketball teams, way, way more than there were when the field first expanded to 64 teams. In 1980 there were 261 Division I teams. By 2009, there were 330, according to the NCAA. It doesn't seem outlandish to have less than 30 percent of Division I teams make the tournament.

If the argument is that crappy teams are let in that have no chance of winning, then why are we currently at 64 and why are we not capping it at 16 teams or 24? In a year when none of the "favorites" outside of Duke made it to the Final Four, there was still nothing lower than a 5 seed (MSU and Butler) who made it into the Final Four. And that was an unusual year.

There are only 15-20 teams that have a "realistic" shot at going to the Final Four in a given year, yet we still consider the tournament exciting. As we should. The upsets throughout the first two rounds are great. The tournament was not ruined when it went from 32 to 48, nor 48 to 64. Going to 96 may not make it any better, but don't think anyone has given a good reason that it will be worse, other than "I don't like it." I'm willing to see how it would work before dooming it to failure.
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Right now most of the schools that have no chance to win now are small conference tourney champs, when they expand by 32 it's going to be mostly teams from major conferences that are added. Do you think watching, let's say an 18-15 Michigan team play a 17-16 Arizona team for a chance to play an 8 seed is really going to be exciting? Since the main reason for expansion is all about money, you can bet it's just going to add more average BCS conference teams. Watching two teams that had a losing conference record play in the NCAA tournament is not something I'm interested in.
 
Raziel said:
I think expanding the tourney is a terrible idea, but if they are going to 96 teams, they should give the top 4-6 seeds a home game in the first two rounds. That way the regular season at least means something.
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I completely agree. As I have stated emphatically! I cannot stand watching these games that are being played in empty arenas. I also think that it must suck for the teams playing.

You play all season in a packed arena to be rewarded by playing in graveyard? That just sucks and I wish someone would have the guts to actually ask some players about it.

Pretty much like what has happened with the BCS Bowls by spreading them out into the week after New Year.

Bend over for TV, while you ***** the fan who wants to actually go to the game.
 
This is almost as stupid as crappy football teams like Iowa State and Minnesota with .500 records being "rewarded" with bowl games. I understand that money is driving this, but it sucks the life out all that is good about it.

Just as so many bowl games are a complete and total waste of time, the NCAA basketball tournament will definitely not be as special as it is now.
 
Bubbrub said:
This is almost as stupid as crappy football teams like Iowa State and Minnesota with .500 records being "rewarded" with bowl games. I understand that money is driving this, but it sucks the life out all that is good about it.

Just as so many bowl games are a complete and total waste of time, the NCAA basketball tournament will definitely not be as special as it is now.
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Also agreed. I think they should change the requirement to 7 wins and the lower ranked teams should play other teams in their area in venues close to both schools. Iowa State and Minnesota should have played in the Metrodome. That gives the fan bases one last game and will probably result in more attendance. Also all games of teams with 8 or fewer losses should have to occur before January 1, unless such a team was the automatic BCS bid, which would suck but definitely happen, um, ACC.
 
CAARHawk said:
Yesssssss! More games in empty arenas! Come play college basketball and you can play your last game of the season in a ghost town. Oh, but the NCAA tournament is the most exciting sporting event out there. What a bunch of crap.

They should just play the first three rounds in YMCA's across the nation. There will be just as many people there and you would save on arena rental.
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Just because people can't afford to spend the money to make it to potentially 7 games (plus travel expenses) doesn't make the event itself less exciting to watch. I don't think having sellout crowds in the early rounds makes that much difference. Kansas had OKC pretty well packed for the UNI game, and it didn't make much difference. It's the games themselves that are exciting. Watching the momentum shift multiple time, 7 lead changes in the final 1:10 (there was a game in the last round that that happened, I believe). Seriously, if you're going to base the excitement that people derive from it based on who can afford to shell out money, then you've got a pretty narrow view. When people are tuning in to games to watch teams that they don't care about at all just because they want to see what happens, there's quite a bit of excitement among CBB fans.
 
A few thoughts:

I like the expansion. I wrote about this on another post but if Iowa gets back somewhere in the Tom Davis/Alford level of basketball we'd likely make the dance 1-2 more times per decade. Sign me up for that.

Move the selection show to Saturday instead of Sunday, then play the prelim games on Mon/Tues. After you get down to your 64 teams you'll still have time for fans to do the bracket thing albeit a little less time.

I'm guessing they allow all conference regular season winners to make the dance so that'll provide less at-large berths for the BCS conferences than people think.

Just a few thoughts....
 
tm3308 said:
Just because people can't afford to spend the money to make it to potentially 7 games (plus travel expenses) doesn't make the event itself less exciting to watch. I don't think having sellout crowds in the early rounds makes that much difference. Kansas had OKC pretty well packed for the UNI game, and it didn't make much difference. It's the games themselves that are exciting. Watching the momentum shift multiple time, 7 lead changes in the final 1:10 (there was a game in the last round that that happened, I believe). Seriously, if you're going to base the excitement that people derive from it based on who can afford to shell out money, then you've got a pretty narrow view. When people are tuning in to games to watch teams that they don't care about at all just because they want to see what happens, there's quite a bit of excitement among CBB fans.
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The excitement from the early rounds comes from poor seeding, good teams playing poorly, and middle seed games - 5-11, 6-10, 8-9.

But the real excitement comes from people filling out brackets. That is why It is fine to have three games being shown on one channel. We really just care about our brackets. Kansas goins down - Epic. Why? It killed brackets. Brackets make the excitement, that is why you don't have to actually go to the game.
 
CAARHawk said:
The excitement from the early rounds comes from poor seeding, good teams playing poorly, and middle seed games - 5-11, 6-10, 8-9.

But the real excitement comes from people filling out brackets. That is why It is fine to have three games being shown on one channel. We really just care about our brackets. Kansas goins down - Epic. Why? It killed brackets. Brackets make the excitement, that is why you don't have to actually go to the game.
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Yeah, the team considered by almost everyone as the best in the country loses in the second round. Yep, that wouldn't make headlines at all if it weren't for the brackets. Give me a break. If you're going to tell me that games like that are only exciting because of the gambling aspect, then sports in general are just pathetically boring, and we only care because of the gambling. Seriously, if that's what it comes down to for the most exciting event in American sports, that's what it comes down to for every sport.

That excitement in the early rounds is what I live for, and what many people do as well come March. It's just really fun to watch a UNI beat a Kansas, or Montana nearly upset New Mexico. You can tell me it comes from the brackets, poor seeding, etc. But that doesn't change the fact that the excitement is still there.
 
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