UK: “Try not losing to St. Peter’s and then let’s talk”
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Big thumbs down.
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I know it has been stated by you and BQ but LEAVE THE NCAA TOURNAMENT ALONE!!!
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God no. I’d be in favor of bringing it back down to 64 teams
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I hate the thought of really changing the field, but I’d be ok with expanding it to 80. Play a “first 4” in each region. Teams wouldn’t have to travel to Dayton on a Tuesday and then be at another site on Thursday. Reserve a few of these first 4 games for conference champs from smaller leagues that don’t win their conference tournament
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Dk what you guys are talking about obviously we want more teams like this in the tourney
…I guess IF this is inevitable, I would hope all they do is make it a play in tourney for teams of this caliber.
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I forget the quote exactly, but human history is the process of wrecking things and regretting it later.
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I know that in large organizations, especially those that are financially successful, that it is really hard to be innovative or forward thinking. People love the tournament? Let’s give them more tournaments. People love cameras on their phone? Let’s add more cameras! People love NFL games? Let’s give them more games! People love cable TV? Let’s expand into more cable markets.
But the reality is this type of thinking just shows how hopeless any real change is for college sports. The B10 expansion is another example because people shout “more money!” without actually understanding what it does to the sport. I heard a discussion on ESPN Radio the other day about Clemson football trending down because they’re only playing ACC opponents and won’t get marquee games like the SEC/B10 and recruits will want to go to those big super conferences. Yet when I think about it my question is how all of these teams in the super conferences are going to win with the gauntlet of opponents and whether the flawed playoff system is going to reward a 2-loss Texas A&M or a 1-loss Clemson.
Expanding the tournament is mostly dumb. Single elimination basketball is mostly dumb. But - we love the drama and it makes money - so 80-team field here we come! Personally, I’d rather set up some other ways to get exciting basketball.
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Literally nobody is asking for this. Why is this on the table? Don’t “fix” what isn’t broken.
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The irony is that I’m not sure if expansion would really benefit Sankey and the SEC like they think. In a hypothetical 80-team tournament (yuck) would you take the 7th best SEC team and 9th best B10 team for those spots or would you take the 2nd best team from a smaller conference?
I mean you’re talking 12 more spots. That’s very likely to get an extra SEC team or two in most years
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Sure…and no doubt that’s why he’s saying it. Not to mention just trying to grow the overall pot of gold. But most “decent” P6 schools are getting in already and there’s usually a drop-off. In that list posted above there are 22 teams shown and 14 are from smaller conferences.
The scary outcome, and the one more beneficial to big conferences, is if they start sticking lots of AQ teams in play in games instead of putting these extra teams in them
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Yeah, that feels like an obvious part of it to me. There’s no part of this that is good for college basketball.
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This is the one spot I’d like to see fans take a European Supearleage approach and go scorched earth but I don’t think CBB fandom is strong enough to compel the powers that be
It would be nice to see student groups (Maize Rage and their equivalents) issue joint statements about this kind of thing. In general there probably does need to be more organizing among US fanbases to protect their sports and advance their interests.
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Are they missing one in AA?
Oh my bad - this is transfers into A10.
We’re due for a ring soon…
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