Thinking of expanding the NCAA tournament
by SouthernFriedInfidel | Published on March 3rd, 2010, 7:43 am | Sports
Every year, I really look forward to March Madness. Three weeks in which the best basketball teams fight it out in single-elimination tournament over a 3-week period for the championship. It's a pretty good formula that works well, I think. I mean other than the fact that CBS, even after all these years still has no frickin CLUE how to cover the games over that first weekend. But that's hardly the fault of the NCAA, I think.Anyway, there are flaws. Like having a 65th team in the mix. Regardless of all the times I've heard that one explained, it still makes absolutely no sense to me. And of course, there are always people second-guessing the at-large invitations. But generally, the ones that get frozen out of the Big Dance get invited to the NIT, so they still have a shot at post-season revenues and a trophy.
But of course, there are folks who want to change stuff. Like expand the tournament from ONE play-in game to 32. Excuse me? We already know that the bottom of the barrel is getting scraped the way things are now. How would adding 32 extra teams that the NIT could readily use improve matters for the NCAA? I think it's not a good idea to expand things. 64 games seems to be a pretty good set-up to get to a champion.
I've sometimes thought it might be better to make the Final Four into a best 2 out of 3 affair, but that's an idea that I wouldn't really push for. Overall, the format seems fine to me. Don't mess with it.
