In response to my prior tweets and blog posts condemning the potential expansion of the NCAA Tournament to 96 teams as “unspeakably dumb, absolutely ridiculous, totally insane, utterly indefensible, wolf-face crazy,” and so forth — and lamenting the possible end to the mystique of the quixotic 16-versus-1 game — Andrew last night e-mailed the following response. I don’t agree with his conclusion, but his arguments are worth airing, I think, so I’m reproducing what he wrote in full.
I had the same reaction as you when I first read the rumors — why in the world would they blow up the wildly successful NCAA basketball tournament and expand it? And with initial public response being overwhelmingly negative, why would they still insist on making the change???
However, as I have been digesting the concept, it’s starting to make sense to me, and I’m beginning to think that their stubbornness is borne of confidence that they’ve really hit a home run here that addresses a lot of issues. To wit:
1) The play-in game is a joke, so they need some other way to stake their claim to prime-time on the first couple of days of March Madness. What better way than to fill the Tuesday and Wednesday with games that actually mean something and advance winners capable of moving deeper into the tournament?
2) The 1-16 and 2-15 games are dreadful. Yes, for some uber-nerdy fans (I won’t mention any names), losing the chance to see Buttf**k Nowhere State upset North Carolina in the first round is absolutely tragic. But for the rest of us, it’s a complete bore watching 1 and 2 seeds routinely slaughter opponents who made the tournament only because their piddly small-school’s conference’s tournament winner is guaranteed a slot. The 1 and 2 seed games have to be televised on the main feeds, but the TV execs go into this knowing that 3/4 of the country is going to flip the channel after the first quarter, leaving only the 1 and 2 seed alumni and bandwagon fans. If you expand the field to 96 and bump the automatic bids from the weaker conferences to seeds 20-24, you are guaranteed round-of-64 (formerly known as the first round) games that are statistically more compelling and holding the potential for upsets. The new 15 thru 18 seeds will be teams that would normally have gone to the NIT and contended for an NIT title, and 1 and 2 seeds would be advised to not take them lightly.
3) What makes March Madness so much fun? Why do millions of people fill out brackets? UPSETS! By expanding to 96, the podunk automatic qualifiers will face opponents in games where victory poses much shorter odds than if they had to face a top seed. And as noted above, the 15 thru 18 seeds will collectively be far stronger and more capable of upsetting the 1 and 2 seeds.
4) By expanding to 96, you finally give a meaningful advantage to the 7 and 8 seeds. Heretofore, the 7-10 and 8-9 games have been statistical toss-ups. With the new format, the 7 and 8 seeds now face the potential of a matchup against a 23 or 24 seed, and even if they face a 9 or 10 seed, the higher seeded teams will be rested while the lower seeded teams will be coming in having already had to play a game and with only one day to recuperate and prepare for their next opponent. In this scenario, a victory by a 9 or a 10 seed is closer to an actual upset.
5) You’re not affecting the overall length of the tournament; the TV schedule remains virtually the same. The conference tourneys can still finish the weekend before, and the Final Four is still the first weekend in April.
6) You potentially kill off the meaningless and increasingly difficult-to-justify NIT and CBI tournaments, which compete for air time and which nobody wants to watch anyways.
7) All those lame Selection Sunday shows decrying the high RPI but middle-of-the-pack schools who got left out (whether from major or mid-major conferences) are put out of their misery. Anyone with a pulse is now in the dance, and you no longer have to debate whether a 4th place team from the Missouri Valley Conference that went 23-7 carrying an RPI rating of 42 should have been invited over a 8th place Big East team that went 18-14 with an RPI rating of 29. Not to mention, fairly seeding teams 7 through 16 now becomes far, far easier.
The only real downside to going to 96 teams is that people will have to stock up on legal paper in order to successfully print out their brackets, but for those of us who debate our predicted upsets around the water cooler and print our brackets using company-provided all-in-one Xerox or Lexmark machines, this is but a very minor setback. I am becoming increasingly convinced that a 96-team tournament will mean even more money for NCAA programs and CBS, and an even better tournament overall.
I’m not sure why “fairly seeding teams 7 through 16 now becomes far, far easier” — I think it becomes quite a bit harder, as you now have a much larger mass of virtually undifferentiated mediocre teams, with no significant dropoff until around the #20 seed line — but otherwise Andrew makes some good points, even though I still think the cons outweigh the pros. Perhaps I’ll at least stop using “wolf-face crazy” to describe expansion. 🙂
Of course, what some regard as a feature, others regard as a bug. Andrew wants to see #1s and #2s play better opponents in the round of 64, but Jazz makes the point that this means they will sometimes be screwed in relation to the #8 seed, which hasn’t “earned” the right to play a Morehead State-type team, but will occasionally get to do so anyway:
The NHL recently moved to a reseeding process for later rounds of their playoffs, given the propensity for 1-8 or 2-7 type upsets, and the advantage that a 1-8 upset gives a 4/5 seed if the bracket is not reshuffled. There’s been talk of that in the NCAA, especially when more than one low seed makes the final four, but it can’t be done because the tournament derives too much of its interest from pools, which usually can’t be adjusted midstream.
Unless you get something like a #8 vs. #8 in a national semifinal, its not a big deal in the NCAAs. There were two 8s in the final four ten years ago, but they both lost in the semis. But in a 96-team tournament, reseeding becomes critical, though it will still be impossible because of the pool.
Here’s the 1/8 bracket in the West region in Stevens’ hypothetical pool:
1) Kentucky vs. 16) Va. Tech / 17) Seton Hall
8) Missouri vs. 9) UNLV / 24) Arkansas StateSuppose Seton Hall knocks off Va. Tech. Seton Hall isn’t a particularly good Big East team, but they were leading the entire first half against #2 Villanova last night, beat Pittsburgh when they were ranked #11, and lost to #6 West Virginia in overtime. Though not a #16 in Stevens’ pool, a Seton Hall type opponent should beat a Kentucky in the first round pretty much once every second year.
What about that Arkansas State/UNLV game? UNLV is a pretty good team, with an RPI of 41, while Arkansas State’s is in the mid-140s. Figure UNLV is pretty likely to win that game. But not necessarily overwhelmingly so. Figure an Arkansas State-type wins this game somewhere between once a year and once every other year.
Whenever an Arkansas State-type wins, your second round matchup will look like this:
1) Kentucky vs. 17) Seton Hall
8) Missouri vs. 24) Arkansas StateEven if Arkansas State doesn’t play the spoiler in Kentucky’s mini-bracket, some crappy, 20-something seeded team in their region will win in the first round, which in a perfect world would be reshuffled to give Kentucky the easy first-round matchup (and keep the marquee teams in the tournament for more than one game). Instead, there’s going to be a Seton Hall waiting for Kentucky.
Jazz’s estimation of a #24 beating a #9 “somewhere between once a year and once every other year” is almost certainly far too generous — we’re talking about the teams formerly known as #16 teams, squads with 150+ RPIs, who are usually not even competitive against big-conference opponents, so while they’ll certainly win sometimes, I’d put it at more like once every 3-5 years. Likewise, his estimate of a #16 or #17 beating a #1 “pretty much once every second year” is also too generous, IMHO: #8 and #9 seeds are a combined 18-108 in the modern era, which is just 1.3 times every two years, and you’d expect #16 and #17 seeds to be significantly less successful (they’ll generally have RPIs around ~65 rather than ~40). Perhaps somewhere around 0.67 times every two years, which is once every 3 years. But those are nitpicky points. His larger argument, that the #1 seeds aren’t being rewarded for their excellent seasons by getting to play a team without a pulse in the round of 64 — and will occasionally be disadvantaged by playing a tough round-of-64 game while their likely round-of-32 opponent, the #8 seed, lucks out by getting to face such a team — is true.
[Bumped. Original timestamp 2/4/10 at 8:54 AM. -ed.]
At the end of the day, because it is sports we are talking about, the only criteria that matters for the 96-team tournament is: will it be more fun than the 65-team tourney?
If I can condense Andrew’s argument, the 96-team tournament is more fun because you get higher-quality upsets and you lose the distraction of the NIT/CBI. I can do without the NIT/CBI, though I am not sure the upsets would be more enjoyable in the 96-team tournament.
Here’s the deal: I really really don’t want to see Seton Hall defeat Kentucky. I know Seton Hall can beat Pittsburgh because they did, I assume they can beat Villanova because they were led the first 25 minutes of the game the other night, so I am confident that Seton Hall has maybe a 10%+ chance of winning vs. Kentucky.
When Seton Hall defeats Kentucky, that won’t be exciting or memorable, because I can already envision it. It won’t be that crazy coach of 15-seed Hampton with his legs and arms in the air, looking as if he’d died and had rigor mortis instantly set in, Seton Hall’s win will be…just a game…entirely forgettable. Until two days later, when fans are faced with the unpleasant prospect of 8-seed Missouri having a ‘9-seed/17-seed’ road to the Sweet 16. What fun is that?
In addition to the romance of the Hamptons (!), the other problem with the 96-team tourney is that underdog-lovers really need the top seeds to be who we think they are. The great fun of George Mason four years ago was that they had to give everything they had to knock off 1-seed Connecticut in the regional final. The bar for an 11-seed to make the Final Four has to be high, in order for their making the Final Four be fun and memorable. Putting another ~difficult game in the path of a 1 or 2 seed only lowers the bar for an 11 to make the Final Four.
Might be fair. Probably not fun.
I kind of agree with Jazz and certainly see Andrew’s points. I have thought all along that Brendan was over the top with opposition to the idea. I think there are merits to exploring the idea. Having read much of the debate here, I am now fully on Brendan’s side. I truly don’t want to see the field expanded. Do away with the NIT & CBI, I am fine with that, but don’t expand the field of 65. Yes, the play in game is meaningless, it’s like drawing straws to see who goes in front of the firing squad first. Expanding simply would allow too many major conference teams in that don’t really belong. I think a field of 96 will promote mediocrity, not excellence. Case in point is my favorite school. Notre Dame would almost certainly make the field of 96 every year, Mike Brey could then say his teams make the tourney every year, and ND Administration would take no action to improve a pretty average program. They may win a game, possibly even two if they are hot from 3 point land, but they don’t deserve to be in this year. The BE probably only deserves to get 6 in, even though they will probably get 7 or 8 in the field of 65.
I agree with Jazz and Brendan, keep it at 65.
Here’s another idea that I may, at some point, do a separate post about. If the NCAA is absolutely dead set on expansion, how about this:
Instead of expanding the field to 96, as such, replace with “opening round game” (i.e., the play-in game) with an actual opening round that isn’t considered part of the tournament, but is rather a final prerequisite — for all potential at-large teams — to make the tournament. Since there are 31 auto bids, we need 33 at-larges for a 64-team tournament… so select the 66 best teams that didn’t receive auto bids (everyone from whichever two teams out of the Kansas-Texas-KState trifecta don’t win the Big 12 tourney, all the way down to BCS mediocrities like Notre Dame and iffy mid-majors like Wichita State), seed those teams from #1 to #66, and match them up in 33 opening round games (1 vs. 66, 2 vs. 65, etc.). Then take the 33 winners, call them “NCAA Tournament at-large teams,” throw them into the field with the 31 auto bid winners, re-seed the entire field into a proper 64-team bracket (so a top-notch at-large team like Kansas/Texas/K-State could still get a #1 seed, and the auto-bid bottom feeders like Morehead State would still be #16 seeds), and start from there.
This, to my & Jazz’s delight and Andrew’s chagrin, would preserve the frequent lopsidedness — but occasional absolute Hampton-style magic — of the games between #1-4 seeds and #13-16 seeds, since #s 13-16 would still be lowly auto-bid teams. Yet Andrew would still get an additional round of potential upsets, as the highest level teams (with the exception, basically, of the six auto bid winners from the BCS conferences) are playing teams in the opening round they will periodically lose to… and they’d have to win those games in order to call themselves “tournament teams,” and earn the right to play the Morehead State type teams in the first round of the actual tournament.
This would somewhat (though not entirely) restore the old notion of the NCAA Tournament being a “tournament of champions.” Conference champs like a Morehead State would actually get an advantage over a non-champion like, say, Kansas, in that they’re automatically in the tournament, while a Kansas team that loses to Texas or K-State in the Big 12 tourney has an extra hurdle to clear (winning an opening-round game over a Notre Dame-type team). If you’re a conference championship purist, this is a feature, not a bug. At-larges can join the party, but only when they’ve earned their way in — they don’t just get selected in by a committee, they’ve gotta win a game to get in, and it’s not that easy of a game. Yet, once they do earn their way in, they’re seeded properly.
This would also solve Jeff’s problem of teams like Notre Dame being able to say “we made the tournament” just by being in the field of 96. No, you didn’t: you only “make the tournament” if you either: 1) win your conference tournament, or 2) win your opening-round game. Heck, if desired, in order to further emphasize that the opening round is separate and distinct from The Dance, the opening-round losers can be shunted over to the NIT, which would have the side effect of making the NIT more interesting to casual fans because, instead of being purely made of mediocrities, it’d have the occasional Kansas or Kentucky, a really good team that loses in its conference tournament and then loses its opening round game, and thus misses the NCAAs entirely, but is still super awesome and talented and fun to watch.
Another benefit: this would create a huge incentive to win your conference tournament, for everyone. Right now, many teams are guaranteed a bid and a high seed regardless of how they do in their conference tournament, so some teams sometimes “mail it in” a bit. In this new system, on the other hand, winning your conference tournament eliminates a potentially difficult opening-round game, and means you only have to win 6 games, instead of 7, to be the national champion. So it would make all conference tournaments more compelling, across the board, because everyone is fighting for something concrete (instead of the current situation, where a lot of BCS conference teams are just “playing for seeding,” which is an awfully amorphous goal, since nobody knows for sure what their status-quo seed is, or what their if-they-win seed is).
At the same time, Andrew’s goal of “everyone with a pulse” having a shot is fulfilled. The only teams excluded from the opening round would be CBI-type teams. Teams like, say, Hofstra in 2006, which was utterly jobbed out of a bid, would be solidly in the opening round, and we’d find out on the court whether they make the Dance or not.
Meanwhile, office pools would be free to ignore the opening round and still start with 64. Indeed, they’d basically have no choice, because of the reseeding — though I suppose people could run separate “opening-round pools” if they want. (I probably would!) Either way, there’d be no need for legal-length paper. 🙂
Oh yeah, and the entire opening round could be played on a single day, to avoid teams having unfair advantages based on timing. This would become a totally awesome day of hoops for casual fans — 33 play-in games between teams with pulses, and nary a Morehead State in sight, and everything on the line. Win and you’re in; lose and you’re done (or in the NIT or whatever).
I still prefer a 64-team tournament, but I almost like this manifestation of expansion.
I think this is a fantastic idea. Brings up a side question: what is the plan for the first round of the NCAA tournament in 2010? Are the additional games planned for the Tuesday/Wednesday before the Thursday when March Madness traditionally tips? (I got that impression from Andrew’s email, though he didn’t state it definitively).
If indeed the 2010 first round is planned for that Tuesday/Wednesday, then effectively the NCAA will be adding two teams to what used to be each first weekend’s quad, reformatting them to look like the NFL conference playoffs, and dragging a two-game weekend into a three-game week. Will the average fan see that? Will I be interested in #9 UNLV v. #24 Arkansas State and #16 Va. Tech vs. #17 Seton Hall to the extent that they are like the first week’s equivalent of the NFL wild card games?
There’s no reason I shouldn’t make the connection; structurally the wild card comparison is valid. But the wild card weekend is fun, and I’m thinking that UNLV v. Arkansas State doesn’t look fun. In not being fun, I won’t be interested, I won’t bother to find out which 8 seed that game feeds into, and I’m pretty sure I won’t spend my entire Tuesday keeping tabs on UNLV/Arkansas State, et.al.
By contrast, if the NCAA adds another weekend (not part of Brendan’s proposal above, but work with me here), and devotes the first weekend to 33 death matches, that looks like a lot of fun. There’s no need to recall which bracket the death matches feed into, as they won’t be determined until the smoke clears Sunday night. Each game would be like a life-or-death featurette of its own, which seems pretty fun.
(I realize that each game in the NCAA tournament is life-or-death, I just don’t think we fans process it as such. When 2-seeded Gonzaga is losing in the 2nd half to 10-seeded Nevada, that’s troubling for Bulldog fans, but a significant part of your attention is on what happened in the 3-seed minibracket, in case Gonzaga pulls it out, and who’s left in the rest of the region, in case they pull it out and pick up momentum. You’re rarely watching only one game without thinking about what’s going on in the rest of the region and the implications for the teams involved).
Death match weekend – it would be pure and simple, win and you’re in, and we’ll talk later about where you go, don’t worry about that now. It would also ratchet up the interest in the conference tournaments.
Arguably one of the best ideas to come from this blog.
Sorry, so eager to make my point I forgot that this is 2010, so the questions above obviously have to do with the 2011 tourney.
Aw, shucks. 🙂 Glad you like my idea.
Another minor side-benefit: if, or rather when, a new splinter conference forms, or a Division II conference moves up to Division I, or whatever, thus increasing the number of auto bids from 31 to 32 to 33 etc., the solution is simply to shrink the Death Match Round by 2, or 4, etc., teams. This feels like much less of a big deal than, say, reducing the number of at larges from 34 to 33 would’ve been when the number of auto bids increased from 30 to 31 — which is precisely resulted in the farcical play-in game, because cutting out at-large team #34 was too painful to contemplate. Cutting out potential at-large teams #65 and #66? Not so painful.
The same is also true in reverse: if, because of Kyle Whelliston’s “Sports Bubble” or whatever other reason, a conference up and disappears, we simply add 2 more teams to the Death Match Round. Unlike now, such changes would have no structural effect on the shape of the tournament, and would only impact teams we don’t really care about anyway.
*Not to channel the BCS’s awful P.R. team, but it must be said that, if the field expands (in whatever format) to include 60-something at-large teams, we inevitably will start to care about the final at-large teams (or potential at-large teams) who get in, probably more than we think right now we’ll care. Debating the merits of a 6-12 Big East team vs. a 5-11 ACC team vs. the third-place team in a “down” Missouri Valley vs. the fifth-place team in an “up” CAA will become the “new normal,” and we’ll have Billy Packer bemoaning the Big East team’s exclusion, Dick Vitale singing the praises of the little guy, coaches bitching up a storm about their teams being jobbed, and Brendan Loy blogging furiously about how it’s an OUTRAGE that Pepperdine was excluded in favor of N.C. State, when the Waves, what with their close game at Gonzaga and only four WCC losses overall and third-place finish in the conference, plus a signature non-conference win over DePaul, clearly deserved the bid.
But, although we will end up (to our surprise) subjectively caring about these things, 1) we still won’t subjectively care about them as much as we do about the current debates over #34 vs. #35 for at-large inclusion, and 2) however much we subjectively care, these debates will be objectively far less important, because Pepperdine and N.C. State (in my random made-up example) BOTH SUCK.
I’ve said for several years now that the simplest compromise to eliminate the ridiculous and insulting play-in game and to foster expansion is to take the “Last Four In” and “First Four Out” — which the Selection Committee publishes — and make them face each other during Play-In Week.
1) I’m 99.9% certain you’re incorrect that the Selection Committee publishes that info. The media always tries to reconstruct the “last four in” by looking at the lowest-seeded at-large teams, and speculates ad nauseam about the “first four out.” But the “last four in” reconstruction is imperfect because of bracketing rules that allow bumping teams up or down one seed line, and the “first four out” speculation is just that: speculation.
2) This solution would mess up office pools beyond recognition. Whereas now, pool administrators like myself can safely ignore the play-in game — because nobody picks #16 seeds to win anyway, and certainly not to win more than one game — there’s no way you could ignore a quartet of games between #12a and #12b or #13a and #13b type teams. Those are teams with realistic dark-horse Sweet 16/Elite 8/maybe even Final Four potential. (See: Mason, George. Admittedly they were an #11 seed — but I think they may have been a “true” #12 seed that was bumped up a line for bracketing purposes. In any event, it was widely believed that Mason was one of the very last at-large teams in. See also the #12-seeded Missouri team that made the Elite Eight a few years ago. And #12 seeds make it to the Sweet 16 all the time.)
3) This solution would give an unearned advantage to randomly chosen teams on the #4 or #5 seed lines, who would get to play a tired #12 or #13 seed, while some other #4 and #5 seeds (and all #1-3 seeds) wouldn’t have the same luxury. This makes no sense, from a fairness perspective. If there’s going to be a reward along the lines of “Team X gets more rest than Team Y,” it needs to be a rational reward for something: for having a better seed, for winning your conference tournament, something. Not just “you randomly lucked out by happening to land on this particular seed line in this particular region” — in some cases because a late loss dropped you from, say, a #3 to a #4, or whatever. A team should never be structurally better off by virtue of having a worse seed.
4) This solution would not actually solve much of anything. As I mentioned earlier, we will start to care less — we won’t completely stop caring, but we’ll care less — about the teams below the at-large “cut line” if we move that line down from #34/35 to #65/66 (or whatever). But if we merely move it down to #37/38, as you’re proposing, that won’t make very much difference at all in the level of outrage about the teams being left out. Although three more teams will get in, we still be talking about the same types of teams being left out, rather than the paradigm shift from talking about 9-9 or 8-10 Big East teams and 8-8 or 7-9 ACC teams and second-place Valley teams and third-place CAA teams, as we do now, to talking about 6-12 Big East teams and 5-11 ACC teams and third- or fourth-place Valley teams and fourth- or fifth-place CAA teams, as we would in a 96-team tournament.
It’s simply not worth the trouble if all you’re going to accomplish is move the “cut line” down 3 spots. To put it in Andrew’s lingo, there will be teams “with a pulse” below #37, who will still be left out. Will their exclusion be a crime against humanity? No, but neither is the exclusion of the teams below #34 right now. If anything, the better solution is to freakin’ eliminate at-large spot #34 and go back to a 64-team tournament, with 31 auto bids and 33 at-larges. Either that, or expand the way I’ve proposed. Half-assed expansion like this accomplishes virtually nothing, and costs a great deal (not monetarily, but in terms of all the hassles and problems it causes).
Frankly, the “solution” of creating four at-large “play-in” games is one of those things that’s constantly proposed off-handedly, as an obvious solution to an obvious problem, because it sounds good and fair and just and wonderful when painted in broad brush strokes … but if you give more than 30 seconds’ thought to the details of how it would work, it makes absolutely no sense.
P.S. A similarly smart-sounding-but-actually-really-dumb “solution” that’s sometimes proposed is to keep the one existing play-in game, but make the “first team out” and “last team in” play in it. For the same reasons cited above, this too makes no sense. I understand the motivation: it’s, as you say, ridiculous and insulting to make two conference champions compete for a spot in the Dance — and it’s absurd and condescending to pretend, as the NCAA does, that they’re “in the tournament” by virtue of being in the play-in game. Giving a #16 seed credit for an “NCAA Tournament win” for beating another #16 seed, as the NCAA officially does, is, with apologies in advance to Sarah Palin, f***ing retarded. Everyone knows it’s not a tournament win; it’s Orwellian to pretend otherwise. It’s not an “opening round” game; it’s a play-in game. Again, everyone knows this.
Anyway… if we have a single play-in game between two at-larges, which is theoretically more justifable than a play-in game between two conference champions for the reasons noted above, unanswerable questions arise. Are you going to put the winner on the #16 seed line? If so, that’s grossly unfair to one of the four #1 seeds. If not — if you’re going to seed the winner properly — then, again, you’re giving an unfair advantage to a randomly chosen #4 or #5 seed. And in the process you’re immensely complicating office pools, and accomplishing virtually nothing, because by moving the cut line down from #34/35 to #35/36, you’ve simply changed the identity of which team is bitching about its exclusion, without really reducing the potential validity of those gripes.
Separately from the points made above, I guess I never understood why the “Last Four Out” was a problem that needed to be solved. After all, if our goal is to maximize the fun quotient (this is sports, after all), isn’t the chagrin of the snubbed fan base, in addition to the debates about the fairness of the selection committee…fun?
As Brendan says above, we won’t stop having those debates as a result of additional play-in games, because, well, those debates are fun.
I agree, Jazz: it’s not a problem. In fact, as I said, my preferred solution would be to eliminate one of the at-large spots, and thus do away with the play-in game altogether. Would this sometimes cost one of my preferred mid-major Cinderellas a bid? Yes. It would also sometimes cost a mediocre power-conference team a bid. But, in the grand scheme of things, who cares? The exclusion of the 34th-best at-large team in the country (usually the 46th or so best team overall) would not be an outrage that needs to be corrected.
Something else I have been thinking about, following Andrew’s argument #1 that the 96-team tournament makes the “play-in Tuesday and Wednesday more interesting”:
One of the things that makes the current format so elegant is that the tournament basically shakes out into three weekends of four-game pods. You could think of the first weekend as 16 Sub-Regional Final Fours, the second weekend as 4 Regional Final Fours, and the final weekend is the National Final Four. Each weekend sort of plays out that way.
The extra 32 teams sort of throws a wrench into that. Unlike Andrew, I don’t think I will be interested in those 32 games on Tuesday and Wednesday, its usually hard to keep up with that much basketball on a weekday, and when the games are of the “UNLV vs. Arkansas State” variety, its that much harder. Its still hard on the first Thursday and Friday in the current system, but with the pod concept at least all the games fit in a framework. UNLV vs. Arkansas State fits in a framework too, but I’m about 90% certain I’d never bother to determine where.
Which could leave the NCAA and the television rights-holder in a bit of a jam. One way to solve the disinterest in the first Tuesday/Wednesday, and the fact that those Tuesday/Wednesday games lead to 80 total games the first 6 days (a bit much) is to push the first round to the weekend, and move the rest of the tournament back a weekend.
Of course, *that* idea bumps the NCAA Finals into the Masters weekend, which weekend probably isn’t sacred for the Masters, but then would the Masters also move back a weekend if the reason is to provide a prime weekend stage to the likes of UNLV vs. Arkansas State?
At first I thought this was a cynical ploy by the NCAA to grab the extra dough from the 32 additional games. Now I’m not even certain that the NCAA will make more money on this, in spite of the extra games.
Of course, somebody could very easily argue “screw the Masters”, since golf is an old man’s sport and college basketball skews much younger, meaning many more advertising dollars, so the NCAA doesn’t have to fear bumping the Masters if they need to move back a weekend.
Problem is, the Masters is ideally situated to call the NCAA’s bluff. The Masters’ money day is Sunday afternoon, which is an off-day for NCAA Final Four weekend. Worse, the Masters’ second-best day is Saturday (moving day), which comes to a close right around the time that the NCAA semifinals would be tipping.
Assuming the NCAA dared to invade the Masters’ weekend, the Masters’ Saturday could end up being gripping theater, thus wearing out the attention of crossover fans and making them quite sick of the drama of sport, just as the NCAA semifinals are tipping off.
Seems to me you can’t mess with the Masters if you’re the NCAA, even if you’re generally more popular, as the schedule gives the Masters a huge advantage. As a result, the NCAAs may be pinned in their three wekends, which could be a recipe for disaster in the 96-team tournament.
I don’t follow basketball enough to know this (i root for the Huskies, and participate in pools in March, s’about it) but does the NCAA tournament atleast have the limitation that you have to have a better than .500 record to get in like the bowls do for football?
No, it doesn’t, David. And if it did, that would conflict with the automatic bid system: conferences decide how to award their auto bids, and all except the Ivy League do so by having a league tournament. Some conferences limit those tournaments to a subset of their teams (for instance, the Big Sky Conference only lets in the top 6 teams, out of 9 I believe), but others allow all conference teams in — and occasionally, a team with a losing record will catch fire and win the conference tournament, and thus get an auto bid.
A team with a losing record has never received, or been close to receiving, an at-large bid, though. When I talk about 7-9 or 8-10 teams, I’m referring to records in conference play. Generally, a team that’s 8-10 in Big East play might have an overall record of something like 18-12.
I imagine, though, that in a 96-team tournament, you could potentially start to see a few teams with overall records at or below .500 getting at-large consideration. Imagine, for instance, a Big East team that played a killer conference schedule and also a handful of really difficult non-conference games… and lost most of tough games, but was competitive in most of them, and maybe one 1 or 2 (while also losing 1 or 2 that it shouldn’t have). You could realistically have a team that’s 5-11 in conference, and 14-16 overall, saying it deserves an at-large bid in a 96-team field. Wouldn’t happen very often, but I can imagine the scenario.
It should be noted, incidentally, that football disregards its .500 bowl rule when it comes to its own bowl “auto bids.” For instance, I think it’s either happened or almost happened that the MAC champion has been below .500 overall. MAC teams tend to be the designated doormats of a lot of BCS teams, so it’s not hard to imagine this occurring… suppose a MAC team goes 0-4 in non-conference play and wins a splintered division with a 5-3 record, so it heads to the MAC title game 5-7 overall. Win and they’re 6-7, and GMAC Bowl-bound. I’m fairly certain this is allowed, and exceptions are even sometimes made (or have been proposed and seriously considered) for 6-7 title-game losers.
(As I recall, one reason this is especially possible in the MAC is that, at least in the past, divisional crowns were determined solely by intra-divisional records; overall conference record was only used as a tiebreaker. So, you could be, say, 4-4 in conference play, but if 3 of your 4 losses came in your 3 games against MAC West teams, and you were 4-1 in MAC East play, then you win the MAC East even if there’s another MAC East team that’s 5-3 in conference but 3-2 in the division. I believe that this is no longer true, but was true until 2008.)