I’ve been toying with what a 96 team tournament and here’s what I’ve got:

32 bids for Regular Season Champs
32 bids for Conference Tournament Champs
32 bids for At Large programs

Opening weekend would include 32 opening round games and 32 games in the round of 64.

Teams seeded 1-8 get first round byes regardless of how they got to the tournament.

Seedings would work as follows:

16 vs 17 —> 1
9 vs 24 —> 8

12 vs 21 —> 5
13 vs 20 —> 4

11 vs 22 —> 6
14 vs 19 —> 3

10 vs 23 —> 7
15 vs 18 —> 2

Based on historic precedent, seeds 1-8 (32 teams) will be dominated by mostly P6 programs, with a few other shining stars sprinkled in.

Seeds 9-13 (20 teams) would be your weaker P6 teams, at larges from the tweener leagues (A10, MVC, MWC, WCC) and maybe a few good AQs from the better mid majors.

Seeds 14-24 (44 teams) these are your AQs from the bottom 22 conferences.

The Thurs-Fri opening round games will be very mid major heavy but I think there’s enough brand names to still make for an attractive and exciting 2 days of games. Saturday-Sunday then becomes the round of 64 and great weekend television.

I’m proposing something radical for the round of 32—spreading the games out over Wed (4), Thurs (4), and Fri (8) to optimize tv opportunities. The Sweet 16 would get played over Sat (Wed-Thurs winners) and Sun (Fri winners).

I like it… not sure about the TV though. Just need to add an extra week. Easy enough. Why hasn’t this been previously proposed?

Actually, you may have to do the first three rounds in the same week which could be brutal. Could you book venues for the entire week (every other day)?

How I’d slot the seeds:

1-8: RS Champs
9-16: Tournament champs
17-24: At-large

RS champs get the byes, straight bracket the rest. You only need 1 more day beyond the 1st round

And if a team double up, the CCG loser gets the slot

I don't think giving each conference 2 autobids would go over well with the power conferences.

Nerd: then they should leave the NCAA and do their own tournament

Yeah I don’t see them giving autobids for regular season championship. And to be honest 96 is probably too many teams.

I think 72 is likely. Double-up on each 16-seed (8 total 16-seed schools) plus 4 total additional at-larges.

It'd look stupid.

You can easily fit 96 teams in.

Current
First Four (Tues & Weds)
First Round 1 to 16 (Thurs & Friday)
Second Round (Saturday & Sunday)

96 Teams
Opening Round 9 to 24 (Tues & Weds)
First Round 1-8 vs. opening round winners (Thurs & Friday)
Second Round (Saturday & Sunday)

Schools rated 33 to 96 would have to play 3 games in 6 days but its not as grueling as playing 3 games in 3 days as they do for conference tournaments. Schools rated 32 and above would be rewarded with a bye.

96 is way way way too much. 72 max.

If 72, I'd like all the 16 seed to not play in the opening round. I'd like to see all 12 vs 12 and 11 vs 11. More exciting and the 16 seeds can all feel like real participants.

(03-17-2022 10:13 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  How I’d slot the seeds:

1-8: RS Champs
9-16: Tournament champs
17-24: At-large

RS champs get the byes, straight bracket the rest. You only need 1 more day beyond the 1st round

Definitely agree that the regular season champs should get the first round byes.

It would be interesting to experiment with alternatives to traditional seedings, such as using random selection procedures analogous to the way lottery numbers are randomly generated. Random assignment would reduce the number of "blowout" games between mismatched teams, and would eliminate any possibility of bias in the seeding procedures.

1. Each of the 64 non-regular season champs would compete in a play-in game at the nearest of the 8 sub-regional (northwest, southwest, etc.) locations around the nation. For example, 8 northwestern teams would compete in a play-in game in Portland Oregon and 8 southwestern teams would play their play-in games in the San Diego location). The match-ups in these games could be selected at random, to prevent top-ranked teams from having an unfair advantage.

2. The four play-in game winners would then compete with the four regular season conference champions that are located nearest to the eight first-round locations.

---For example, the four regular season champions located in or nearest to the Pacific Northwest would travel to Portland to play the 4 teams that won their play-in games in Portland in the first full round of 64, with brackets being generated using random assignment procedures, in the interests of fairness.

3. The winners of these four sub-regional games would advance to the nearest Regional location (San Francisco), where the regional quarterfinals (round of 32), semifinals (Sweet 16), and finals (Elite Eight) would be played. The brackets would be drawn up using the procedures described above.

4. The Regional Champions would travel to the location where the NCAA championships would be played (New Orleans). The semifinals games would pit the East and West Champions and the North and South Region Champions against each other, and the winners of those two games would compete in the NCAA championship game.

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NOTE: Close to half of the conf. tourney champs usually tend to be the regular season champs, so there would only be ~15-16 tourney champs that aren't reg. season champs, and there would be ~48-50 at-large teams.

If the 96 team NCAA tournament would replace the NIT, it would make enough sense to give all the reg. season and conf. tourney champs auto-bids.

There would be close to 48 auto-bids and 48 at-large teams, most years.

The main benefits to D1 basketball would be that the 32 teams that would otherwise play in the NIT (as currently constituted) would get a chance to compete for the national championship, that the 50% increase in the number of NCAA games would make the NCAA even more exciting than it is now, with even more surprises, and that more games and more excitement could boost NCAA viewership/revenue by 40% or 50%.

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Q: Would a 96-team NCAA tournament eliminate the need for a NIT tournament?

A: Probably not.

Q: Why not?

A: Because even though 96 teams currently play in the NCAA and NIT tournaments, there are a lot of good, top 100 quality teams that should, but don't get a chance to compete against other top 100 quality teams in the post-season. The minor post-season tournaments these days have fields full of teams ranked between NET 125 and NET 250.

A strong case could be made that there should still be a 32-team NIT tournament with a field comprised of the 32 most highly-ranked teams (e.g., that don't receive a NCAA tournament at-large bid.

There were no auto-bids for the NIT until the NCAA took the NIT over, because the NIT was designed to be an "invitational tournament." Teams only play if they are invited.

Teams such as these would be invited to play in a future NIT:

(#51) Oklahoma St., (#69), (#73) Fresno St., (#74) Kansas St., (#80) Furman, (#84) Clemson, (#86) Syracuse, (#87) Wichita St., (#88) Penn St., (#89) Maryland, (#94) UNLV, (#95) Bradley, (#96) Arizona St., (#97) Tulane, and (#98) Louisiana Tech.

(03-17-2022 10:21 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  I don't think giving each conference 2 autobids would go over well with the power conferences.

Here’s how you make it palatable:

The extra round of games is going to increase the overall amount of tv dollars of a new deal.

You value those opening round games at 0.5 shares. For a conference like the NEC or Southland who are apt to see both of their representatives lose they still walk away from the tournament with 1.0 shares. But for your better mid majors who are likely to see at least one of their teams advance to the round of 64 there’s some real financial incentive.

Basketball’s P6 are still going to walk away with the lions share of the revenue and the overall value of the tournament is better because the round of 64 is over Sat-Sun, round of 32 is split of 3 nights of prime time, and the Sweet 16 falls on a Sat-Sun.

96 Teams:
8 SITES:
1st Round 32 games played Tues to Friday - 8 games each day(4 games each at 7pm and 9:30pm each night)
2nd Round 32 games played Sat and Sun - 16 games each day(4 games each at 12pm, 3pm, 7pm & 10pm each day).
4 SITES:
3rd Round 16 games played Wed and Thur - 8 games each day(4 games each at 7pm and 9:30pm each night)
Sweet 16 played Fri and Sat - 4 games each day.
Elite 8 played Sun and Mon - 2 games each day.
FINAL SITE:
Final 4 & Final played like normal

(03-18-2022 12:24 AM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  You can easily fit 96 teams in.

Current
First Four (Tues & Weds)
First Round 1 to 16 (Thurs & Friday)
Second Round (Saturday & Sunday)

96 Teams
Opening Round 9 to 24 (Tues & Weds)
First Round 1-8 vs. opening round winners (Thurs & Friday)
Second Round (Saturday & Sunday)

Schools rated 33 to 96 would have to play 3 games in 6 days but its not as grueling as playing 3 games in 3 days as they do for conference tournaments. Schools rated 32 and above would be rewarded with a bye.

I think you’re missing my point, playing the round of 64 on Sat-Sun is better for television than burying half of those games during business hours on a week day for Eastern time zone folks (and 3 quarters for Pacific time).

There’s no money to be made in the opening round of all those games are buried on weekdays.

All regular season champs included AND giving them byes is a step too far IMO.

The tournament could fit in all RS and CT winners at 80 teams without impacting the amount of at-larges.

80 Teams
Opening round (13 vs. 20)
First round (1/12 vs. 13/20 winners)

88 Teams
Opening round (11 vs. 22)
First round (1/10 vs. 11/22 winners)

96 Teams
Opening round (9 vs. 24)
First round (1/8 vs. 9/24 winners)

An 80 team model is the smallest one that can fit all the RS and CT winners and provide byes to the opening round for the top 48 seeds of the tournament.

It also is the least impactful to the P5/P6 because they would have few entrants in the 12/20 range. The 12/20 range would primarily be for mid-majors and with more earning a second NCAA unit a chance to pick up additional cash for their conference. If their RS or CT representative wins a game in there then a third unit for the conference.

Having the RS champs in is a good solution because of the difficulty in getting Q1 wins in a smaller conference and the simple fact that moving forward the average D1 conference size is going to be 11.65 for 32 conferences winning the regular season anywhere is tough to do.

(03-18-2022 07:13 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(03-18-2022 12:24 AM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  You can easily fit 96 teams in.

Current
First Four (Tues & Weds)
First Round 1 to 16 (Thurs & Friday)
Second Round (Saturday & Sunday)

96 Teams
Opening Round 9 to 24 (Tues & Weds)
First Round 1-8 vs. opening round winners (Thurs & Friday)
Second Round (Saturday & Sunday)

Schools rated 33 to 96 would have to play 3 games in 6 days but its not as grueling as playing 3 games in 3 days as they do for conference tournaments. Schools rated 32 and above would be rewarded with a bye.

I think you’re missing my point, playing the round of 64 on Sat-Sun is better for television than burying half of those games during business hours on a week day for Eastern time zone folks (and 3 quarters for Pacific time).

There’s no money to be made in the opening round of all those games are buried on weekdays.

I did miss your point if the point was playing games on Tuesday/Wednesday didn't have as much economic value as playing games on the weekend.

They already play the round of 64 on Thursday/Friday though so I don't see them getting burned too much by placing more games on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Any expansion from 72 through 96 has Tuesday/Wednesday hosting no more than the amount of games they are already committing to on Thursday/Friday.

(03-18-2022 07:07 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(03-17-2022 10:21 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  I don't think giving each conference 2 autobids would go over well with the power conferences.

Here’s how you make it palatable:

The extra round of games is going to increase the overall amount of tv dollars of a new deal.

You value those opening round games at 0.5 shares. For a conference like the NEC or Southland who are apt to see both of their representatives lose they still walk away from the tournament with 1.0 shares. But for your better mid majors who are likely to see at least one of their teams advance to the round of 64 there’s some real financial incentive.

Basketball’s P6 are still going to walk away with the lions share of the revenue and the overall value of the tournament is better because the round of 64 is over Sat-Sun, round of 32 is split of 3 nights of prime time, and the Sweet 16 falls on a Sat-Sun.

An extra round isn't going to significantly increase the total tv dollars. It will significantly reduce the value of each unit.

What happens if a regular season champion also wins its conference tournament? Or does the regular season champ sit out the conference tournament to insure that doesn't happen?

We already have 16 teams each year with very little chance of advancing. This would give us 32 such teams. Would they all be seeded #17-24? One of the reasons those bottom feeders like the current set up is that some of them get to play against stars they see on TV all season. This way, their best opponent is somebody that is ranked #33, and probably doesn't have any stars like that.

(03-18-2022 07:39 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-18-2022 07:07 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(03-17-2022 10:21 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  I don't think giving each conference 2 autobids would go over well with the power conferences.

Here’s how you make it palatable:

The extra round of games is going to increase the overall amount of tv dollars of a new deal.

You value those opening round games at 0.5 shares. For a conference like the NEC or Southland who are apt to see both of their representatives lose they still walk away from the tournament with 1.0 shares. But for your better mid majors who are likely to see at least one of their teams advance to the round of 64 there’s some real financial incentive.

Basketball’s P6 are still going to walk away with the lions share of the revenue and the overall value of the tournament is better because the round of 64 is over Sat-Sun, round of 32 is split of 3 nights of prime time, and the Sweet 16 falls on a Sat-Sun.

An extra round isn't going to significantly increase the total tv dollars. It will significantly reduce the value of each unit.

What happens if a regular season champion also wins its conference tournament? Or does the regular season champ sit out the conference tournament to insure that doesn't happen?

We already have 16 teams each year with very little chance of advancing. This would give us 32 such teams. Would they all be seeded #17-24? One of the reasons those bottom feeders like the current set up is that some of them get to play against stars they see on TV all season. This way, their best opponent is somebody that is ranked #33, and probably doesn't have any stars like that.

If the regular season champ wins their conference tournament two things happen.

1) RS+CT champ would be entitled to a higher seed.
2) Another at-large bid would open up.

The incentive would still be there to win RS+CT for it increases a particular school's chance to win in the opening round or perhaps snag a bye to the first round.

I do agree there is a law of diminishing returns as to how many schools make the NCAA tournament. 80 would be large enough to include the RS winners. 88 could include the RS winners and include another 8-10 at-large teams.