What are people's thoughts on the possibility of expanding the NCAA tournament to at least 72 teams? At 72 all 16 seeds play in a play-in game. With the expansion you take away either the CIT or CBI tournaments. In all it would be a net loss of teams playing in the post season. Would this be fair as it may hurt the smaller conferences who send the bulk of the teams to the CBI or CIT. The only problem with this is that is the lower conferences may be in the 12-15 seed purgatory below at large teams.(not much different from now) the other 2 spots could be for the 10 or 11 seed.

Another thought or change is changing how play in games are handled. Have play-in games for at large teams. The one bid leagues are usually 12-16 seeds anyway.. Maybe have 10 and 11 seeds as play in game teams?

I think it's fine right now. Unless we have a 3-4 new conferences spring up, there's no need to change.

I think expansion to 72 per the ACC’s proposal is bound to happen — guaranteed if the ASun pulls off the extra autobid. Extra First Four site should be Hinkle or the Palestra.

***

Personally, I’d love a 128-team NCAA Tournament like the Tennis Grand Slams. 32-team NIT; abolish all EIEIO’s.

16 regions of 8. Double the potential for Madness; halve the risk for dud days.

FIRST ROUND (Thursday/Friday) - 16 sites of 8
1. 11e CBS
2. 1130e CBSSN
3. 12e TBS
4. 1230e TNT
5. 1e TruTV
6. 1e CBS
7. 130e CBSSN
8. 2e TBS
9. 230e TNT
10. 3e TruTV
11. 3e CBS
12. 330e CBSSN
13. 4e TBS
14. 430e TNT
15. 5e TruTV
16. 5e CBS
17. 530e CBSSN
18. 6e TBS
19. 630eTNT
20. 7e TruTV
21. 7e CBS
22. 730e CBSSN
23. 8e TBS
24. 830e TNT
25. 9e TruTV
26. 9e CBS
27. 930e CBSSN
28. 10e TBS
29. 1030e TNT
30. 11e TruTV
31. 11e CBS
32. 1130e CBSSN

SECOND ROUND (Saturday/Sunday)
CBS - 12/230 & 7/930
TBS - 1230/3 & 530/8
TNT - 1/330 & 6/830
TruTV - 130/4 & 630/9

THIRD ROUND (Thursday/Friday)
CBS - 730/10
TBS - 630/9
TNT - 7/930
TruTV - 6/830

SWEET 16 (Saturday/Sunday)
CBS - 1/330 & 7/930

ELITE 8 (Saturday)
CBS - 12/230/5/730

FINAL 4 (Sunday)
CBS - 6/830

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
CBS - Tuesday Night

(02-01-2020 01:17 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  I think expansion to 72 per the ACC’s proposal is bound to happen — guaranteed if the ASun pulls off the extra autobid. Extra First Four site should be Hinkle or the Palestra.

***

Personally, I’d love a 128-team NCAA Tournament like the Tennis Grand Slams. 32-team NIT; abolish all EIEIO’s.

Is going to 128 worth sacrificing the regular season. Right now there's not much reason to watch as almost everyone who has an argument to get to the NCAA tourney gets in. Expand it to 128 and 80-90% of the P5 teams get in. What's the point of watching the regular season.

Are the ratings that good? Why is CBS giving out rights to other networks if that is the case.

(02-01-2020 05:48 AM)sierrajip Wrote:  Are the ratings that good? Why is CBS giving out rights to other networks if that is the case.

CBS didn't give out those rights, Turner put in a big bid and CBS clearly could cover it all so the NCAA split up the contract.

(02-01-2020 12:53 AM)46566 Wrote:  What are people's thoughts on the possibility of expanding the NCAA tournament to at least 72 teams? At 72 all 16 seeds play in a play-in game. With the expansion you take away either the CIT or CBI tournaments. In all it would be a net loss of teams playing in the post season. Would this be fair as it may hurt the smaller conferences who send the bulk of the teams to the CBI or CIT. The only problem with this is that is the lower conferences may be in the 12-15 seed purgatory below at large teams.(not much different from now) the other 2 spots could be for the 10 or 11 seed.

Another thought or change is changing how play in games are handled. Have play-in games for at large teams. The one bid leagues are usually 12-16 seeds anyway.. Maybe have 10 and 11 seeds as play in game teams?

I think it should be reduced back to 52. We don't need the 8th, 9th, 10th place team in the ACC in the tourney. They had their chance in the regular season. They had their chance in the conference tourney.

Along that lines, about 10 conferences should be moved back to Division II.

(02-01-2020 01:17 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  abolish all EIEIO’s.

But what of Ol' MacDonald?

(02-01-2020 01:17 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  I think expansion to 72 per the ACC’s proposal is bound to happen — guaranteed if the ASun pulls off the extra autobid.

That sounds like a roundabout way of saying the ASun is unlikely to be allowed to "pull off" the extra autobid, since the ASun "loophole" doesn't show up in the bylaws anywhere, so there is no particular reason to allow them to "pull off" an extra autobid.

Tournament should be reduced back to 64.

(02-01-2020 06:56 AM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(02-01-2020 05:48 AM)sierrajip Wrote:  Are the ratings that good? Why is CBS giving out rights to other networks if that is the case.

CBS didn't give out those rights, Turner put in a big bid and CBS clearly could cover it all so the NCAA split up the contract.

It isn’t actually a split contract. CBS and Turner put in a joint bid together because CBS knew that they would almost certainly lose the rights to ESPN or Fox without more lucrative cable dollars involved.

(02-01-2020 01:17 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Personally, I’d love a 128-team NCAA Tournament like the Tennis Grand Slams. 32-team NIT; abolish all EIEIO’s.

I much prefer a 112 team tournament. The six power conferences (ACC, B1G, BE, PAC, SEC and XII) get 48 bids, including their six conference tournament winners and 42 at large spots. At large bids would be determined by a composite ranking, taking the average rank from the NET, Massey, Sagarin, ESPN BPI, and KenPom ratings. The selection committee's role would be limited to placing the qualifying teams in regionals that are as geographically appropriate as possible.

The remaining 26 conferences get 64 bids, including all conference regular season champions and 38 at large bids. They would play two rounds (Thurs-Sat and Fri-Sun) on the home courts of the top 16 seeds in this field during the week that the P6 conference tournaments are played. The winners of the 16 sectionals would go on to the third round, where they would be re-seeded along with the power conference teams according to their composite ranking.

Teams eliminated during the two sectional rounds would be eligible for selection in the NIT field. Perennial multibid leagues ( like the WCC, A10 and AAC) that do not get a bye into the regionals instead get an opportunity to earn more spots in the field of 64 than they might under the current system.

What you lose is the spectacle of the #250 team in the country becoming a sacrificial lamb for the #1 team. Personally, I can live with that.

(02-01-2020 02:06 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  

(02-01-2020 01:17 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  I think expansion to 72 per the ACC’s proposal is bound to happen — guaranteed if the ASun pulls off the extra autobid. Extra First Four site should be Hinkle or the Palestra.

***

Personally, I’d love a 128-team NCAA Tournament like the Tennis Grand Slams. 32-team NIT; abolish all EIEIO’s.

Is going to 128 worth sacrificing the regular season. Right now there's not much reason to watch as almost everyone who has an argument to get to the NCAA tourney gets in. Expand it to 128 and 80-90% of the P5 teams get in. What's the point of watching the regular season.

But you said it already - there's no point in watching it now.
Duke got upset earlier this year; it was awesome but didn't matter a lick since they are guaranteed ba postseason spot. And no, seeding doesn't matter.

(02-01-2020 10:42 AM)XLance Wrote:  Tournament should be reduced back to 64.

Then just reduce it to 16 or 8.

(02-01-2020 09:21 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(02-01-2020 12:53 AM)46566 Wrote:  What are people's thoughts on the possibility of expanding the NCAA tournament to at least 72 teams? At 72 all 16 seeds play in a play-in game. With the expansion you take away either the CIT or CBI tournaments. In all it would be a net loss of teams playing in the post season. Would this be fair as it may hurt the smaller conferences who send the bulk of the teams to the CBI or CIT. The only problem with this is that is the lower conferences may be in the 12-15 seed purgatory below at large teams.(not much different from now) the other 2 spots could be for the 10 or 11 seed.

Another thought or change is changing how play in games are handled. Have play-in games for at large teams. The one bid leagues are usually 12-16 seeds anyway.. Maybe have 10 and 11 seeds as play in game teams?

I think it should be reduced back to 52. We don't need the 8th, 9th, 10th place team in the ACC in the tourney. They had their chance in the regular season. They had their chance in the conference tourney.

Along that lines, about 10 conferences should be moved back to Division II.

There are talks that D1 could go 1A and 1AA for all sports. 1A would be football center group while 1AA would be perfect for basketball type of schools. Big Least would be 1AA instead of 1A since they do not care about football.

The biggest obstacle to expanding the tournament is that CBS and Turner are not interested in paying more money. A few years ago, some coaches brought up the idea of expanding the tournament to as many as 96 teams. CBS and Turner pointed out that the TV audiences for the first Tuesday and Wednesday games are not very large and they didn't see a ton of value in putting more games on those days, so their attitude was, expand it if you want, but we're not going to offer very much more money for it.

Maybe FOX would jump in and dump money for an expanded tournament so they can air 8 1st Round games on FOX/FS1/FS2 each?

An expanded tournament could work with ratings if 1st Round isn’t on Tuesday/Wednesday. Either an add extra weekend for the 1st round, or shift the Elite 8 into the Final 4 (4 games Saturday, 2 games Sunday).

Part of the reason First Four games don’t have big ratings is because they feel like play-in games. They don’t impact your bracket whatsoever, which is what draws casuals. It’s like a spin-off show.

(02-01-2020 10:42 AM)XLance Wrote:  Tournament should be reduced back to 64.

It’s not ever getting reduced. No sport, pro or college, has ever willingly reduced the size of their playoff system in modern history. However, I think going to 128 teams would completely crush any value to the regular season at all (and it’s diluted enough already in today’s system). Teams still need to have some legit regular season achievements to get an at-large bid today (even if they aren’t all true national title contenders), but having 128 teams effectively removes any sense of needing to achieve anything in the regular season entirely. Going to 72 is probably a bit more reasonable (and maybe inevitable) to account for the increase in Division I programs and possibly more conferences (e.g. if the proposed A-Sun splits actually works).

(02-01-2020 11:42 AM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  

(02-01-2020 02:06 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  

(02-01-2020 01:17 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  I think expansion to 72 per the ACC’s proposal is bound to happen — guaranteed if the ASun pulls off the extra autobid. Extra First Four site should be Hinkle or the Palestra.

***

Personally, I’d love a 128-team NCAA Tournament like the Tennis Grand Slams. 32-team NIT; abolish all EIEIO’s.

Is going to 128 worth sacrificing the regular season. Right now there's not much reason to watch as almost everyone who has an argument to get to the NCAA tourney gets in. Expand it to 128 and 80-90% of the P5 teams get in. What's the point of watching the regular season.

But you said it already - there's no point in watching it now.
Duke got upset earlier this year; it was awesome but didn't matter a lick since they are guaranteed ba postseason spot. And no, seeding doesn't matter.

Does a single bad loss by Duke keep them out of the NCAA Tournament entirely in the way a bad loss can keep a football team out of the CFP? No.

However, that bad loss can certainly send them from being a 1-seed lock down to a 2-seed or a 3-seed, which can change Dukes’s path to the Final Four from virtual home games in places like Greensboro and Atlanta to a more inhospitable path.

Each regular season game also certainly matters today to the vast majority of teams. My alma mater of Illinois is ranked #19 right now, but we can’t afford to drop many (if any) games to subpar teams and we have a stretch of playoff several ranked opponents in a row which will probably make or break our season. Those regular season games are even more important to everyone ranked below us. So, I’m watching every Illini game with a ton of intensity as if every game is a playoff game.

One regular season game may have a mitigated impact in today’s system, but there’s still an overall body of work element where even the teams in the toughest conferences generally need at least a winning conference record plus 20 wins overall. Going to 128 teams totally destroys any semblance of the value of the *overall* regular season at all (even if any single particular regular season game might have relatively low value). There’s still an important value to the regular season in the *aggregate* today.

I like the idea of having the play in games Thursday and Friday and moving the round of 64 to Saturday and Sunday.

The round of 32 and round of 16 get played on the second weekend.

Elite 8 games get played the next Thursday and Friday followed by the two final 4 games Saturday and Sunday night. Tuesday is your title game.