Yeah, I can assure you that nobody needed to see Michigan, Rutgers and Wisconsin added to the tournament last year. With 128 teams, it is a certainty that all would have made it. More mediocre teams is not the way to improve a tournament that nobody asked to improve
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And, like, this might sound like a nitpick, but the tournament is also the perfect size where I still feel like I can digest the big picture of it all and follow most of the games. I simply will not be able to follow the first round in the same way if there are twice as many games.
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This is an argument for fewer D1 teams, not more teams in the tournament.
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Absolutely. More mid majors is better. Donāt care if that makes it harder for Michigan. Just think the nerds are wrong about how to achieve that.
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I hate these nerds
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Yeah, beat it, nerds!
Some people are better at numbers than takes
Well, the issue with pro sports is that thereās just a practical limit to the number of teams you can have in a league and keep things workable. 30-32 is pushing that limit imo. When the NBA first instituted the draft lottery, there were only seven teams in it. Now itās 14. I donāt think it would be a good thing to have even more than that.
As for college, is 1985 the ideal to shoot for? That was the year they expanded to 64, so before then there were fewer teams getting in. That 21.9% was the all-time high.
NBA is def ripe for expansion. lots of talent out there
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A Canadian team would be fun
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itād be Las Vegas and Seattle probably
A guy can dream
Seattle is almost Canada
So is Marquette
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why? what difference would you notice between 32 and 36 teams? itās not like youāre always thinking about all 32 teams, keeping them straight in your head - how often do you think of, like, the hornets?
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Confused why this is so obvious to others
what percentage of First Fours have been non-P6?
Imo, the ideal number is in the 20s. 30-32 is already a reach. The more teams you have, the less often they play each other, the more teams miss the playoffs, the longer each round of the draft is, and in general, you increase the odds that any given franchise will be mediocre, since you can only have one champion and two finalists. More teams increases the odds of teams wandering in the wilderness forever like the Pistons have.
If they want to keep adding teams, at some point the big four leagues have to consider promotion and relegation, like the rest of the world does. Having a setup where 16-20 teams are missing the playoffs isnāt great for the spectacle.
I see where youāre coming from, but how is this:
not just this:
but more extreme?
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Okay, but it could just be functioning almost as multiple leagues, right? Multiple high-level leagues, perhaps with reduced travel (true Eastern/Western/Central/Whatever conferences, perhaps). I do think the fear of wandering in the wilderness is a good point - my ideal would be fans realizing that there are things worth celebrating short of a true championship, but thatās probably unlikely.
Iāve mentioned before that I follow hockey very closely, and there are a lot of fans who swear that expanding the playoffs beyond 16 teams would be hopelessly diluting and rewarding mediocrity. Whatās weird is thatā¦the league went to 16-team playoffs when there were only 21 teams! Iām not quite interested in that level of playoff-making - I just think this stuff is in much more flux than we realize, itās always changing, and I think itād be interesting to see a league try to expand beyond the 32-team level.
I donāt think itāll really happen, though, because more important than putting a team in every city is having existing good-sized cities to threaten your existing cities with - if MLB had expanded to Vegas, they couldnāt threaten Oakland, and now that the Aās are leaving, theyāll use Nashville, or Portland, or Oakland again, or whoever else.
Anyway, college basketball, 2022-23, things of that nature, Iām staying on topic donāt worry Dylan. also Boutros donāt respond to this youāve already gotten one of my posts deleted today