Please look at what was quoted. I was quoting someone who proposed a 128 team field in order to make sure everyone plays the same number of games.
So what? Either way that’s even more reason to have a situation where teams are not as subject to biased seeding.
At most, a team would play 1 more game. In reality, most of those lower seeded teams would lose fairly early in the tournament. Those are issues that would likely never arise. Plus, missing 11 days of school is really not that big a deal. It’s not like you can’t work on the road. Schools can easily make accommodations for the few dozen students that would be affected.
If 32 of the 64 teams already cannot or will not win the championship based on tournament history and seedings, then why on earth add even more teams that have no chance to win it all?
It should be hard to get into the tournament. Adding 32 more teams just makes it a lot easier for teams with .500 records to get in…when they shouldn’t.
Because being asked to play on a national stage is an honor in and of itself. It’s an opportunity for the athletes and the schools to share in the national spotlight. Yes, they will likely never win it all; but, they will get a chance to play against the best teams in the country with the hope that they can grow their program so that they can compete one day. Not only might they compete on the court at some future date, but also in attracting students, contributions, and research funds. Participation raises a school’s profile. That, more than attainment of a nation championship, is the highest objective most schools can reasonably expect.
You can’t pretend the current system is perfect if you think the only goal should be to find the best team in the most efficient way possible.
Why should winning your conference full of shit teams mean you deserve a spot over a middle of the pack (but still superior) big conference team? I’m not saying this is always the case, but you need to acknowledge your biases in this area. Everyone has them, which is all the more reason to minimize the effect they have on the tournament by allowing more teams to play more games.
But my point is that while its nice to say that, not all the extra schools that would be allowed into the proposed field of 96 deserve to get that national attention or spotlight.
And as for your second comment, did you notice how many teams from the Big East got into the tournament with quasi-crappy records? The system as it is now takes into account strength of schedule, whom you’ve beaten, whom you’ve lost to, etc when considering a team. You know this already.
I liked your initial post on the “why’s” of this proposal, but this post doesn’t convince me much.
More basketball games for their own sake isn’t necessarily better. I’ll concede the point that there would be some good games and compelling matchups in that first round…between teams that shouldn’t even be there in the first place. I for one will not watch them.
I’m a UK fan, and under Gillispie last year, we went to the NIT, and even there we didn’t do well. I was fine with that, if displeased that my team sucked so badly. In no way did I think they deserved an NCAA bid. Under this proposal, they would have undeservedly been in. I just don’t like the idea of rewarding mediocrity for the sake of more games, more money, or giving undeserving teams national exposure for its own sake.
Finally, a 96 team field will no more resolve the “bubble team” issue than what we have now. There’s always going to be teams that feel slighted, but under the 96 team proposal, it will be even worse. We’ll hear about Podunk U from the Nowhere Conference bitching that they should have received an invite based on their 28-4 record, despite the fact that they never played anybody of note and lost their conference championship.
I think I’ve decided…fuck that noise. 64 teams is enough.
Going to 96 teams isn’t about the teams from the smaller conferences. The issue is whether adding more games between middle of the pack teams from the major conferences adds anything. To pick on the Big Ten, Illinois was one of the “last four out”. They could have won one more game in the Big Ten tournament and got in. They could have won one more in the regular season and got in. They had their chance. And if you’re an Illinois fan, they already got to play six to eight games against ranked teams in their own conference.
How would adding Illinois to the tournament this year have made the tournament better?
The only way “the same” teams get screwed is by not winning enough games or an auto-bid conference title. Its different teams every year, and sometimes, the “big dogs” don’t get in, either. Fuck, by UNC standards they didn’t have a good year at all and under the 96 team proposal, they would have (undeservedly) gotten in.
Getting into the tournament should be hard, it should be a reward for excellence. Now its going to be a reward for mediocrity.
It’s also less of a reward at all now that the little schools don’t even get to fully participate in the tournament.
Hitting the road earlier and having to play more games (let alone 5 long distance road games in 10 days) is huge. If you think the kids are robots, then you are wrong. This is exactly the kind of thing that plays a big part in who wins in real life.
It is sort of the difference between nice trophies for those who deserve them, or cheap plastic trophies for everybody.
I’ll tell you why I’m against it. The selection committee will select every school from some conferences (Big East, Big-12, etc) and yet mid-majors will still only get one maybe two teams in.
And my bracket has Xenon not getting past the third round despite what the Steam Room says.