Thursday, February 4, 2010
On Monday, the sports celebrity news website sportsbybrooks.com reported it was a “done deal” that the NCAA men’s basketball tournament would expand from 65 to 96 teams. They cited sources at ESPN and people inside the administration at a “powerhouse” NCAA basketball school. Nothing has been confirmed or announced as of yet.
Expanding the tournament would be a bad thing for the NCAA in my opinion. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. The NCAA basketball tournament is already one of the most exciting sporting events to watch, and watering it down with teams that aren’t talented enough to compete past the first couple of rounds could cause the first weekend of the tournament to lose its excitement. Even though I don’t like it, the extra money from these extra games will be too tempting for the NCAA.
Later on Monday, Jeff Caplan, who reports for ESPNDallas.com, asked head coach Bill Self what he thought of the rumor, and Self said while he was in favor of the expansion, teams on the outside would still feel left out.
“Whatever it is, if it’s 96 there’s going to be 97, 98, 99 that feel like they got left out,” Self said. “I think television will dictate so much of it. I think it’s worth discussing, but I haven’t seen anyone’s formula that would be the right formula. Football can’t figure it out and they deal with less teams.”
It might be true that there has been a slight increase in talent among college basketball players, because of the NBA rule in place since 2006 that requires players to be at least one year removed from high school before entering the NBA draft. However, that does not mean there has been a substantial enough increase in good teams to warrant an increase in the NCAA tournament field. At Texas, forward Kevin Durant, in his one and only NCAA tournament in 2007, lost to Southern California in the second round. Kansas State’s Michael Beasley also lost to USC in his only tournament in 2008.
The tournament field has included at least 64 teams since 1985. In that time, a 16-seed has never defeated a 1-seed and there have only been four 15-seeds to defeat 2-seeds in the first round, the last being Hampton’s defeat of Iowa State in 2001. A 15-seed has never advanced past the second round. So why add more worthless teams by expanding the field to 96? The tournament field is perfect the way it is.
The issue is that the NCAA is tempted by the increase in revenue it would receive by broadcasting extra tournament games. CBS, which saw the exciting television value of the tournament years ago, and the NCAA agreed to a $6 billion, 11-year contract to broadcast various NCAA events. This included all the tournament games. The NCAA can opt out of this current contract this summer, with an even bigger contract — and even more games — possible.
— Edited by Jesse Rangel
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Comments
Morning Brew: NCAA shouldn’t expand tourney from 65 to 96
Instead of adding more teams why don't they sell to more than one station? Every year good games are missed because the station they sell the rights to can not broadcast all the games.
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