96 teams in March Madness...
by cincyblue on Feb 4, 2010 8:42 PM EST
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Take a look at this
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=4887774
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First off, I am trying to do the “Que Sera, Sera” thing (Doris Day was hot, by the way...... )
but not quite making it.
So my real first thought:
MONEY TALKS... I think ESPN will get in on the tournament. And may eventually take over the whole darn thing with their multiple channels. That may not be a bad thing, unless you don't have cable.
Of course, that could sour if the media capitalists figure out a way to charge beyond cable fees.
Second coherent thought: Number 1 playing number number 24?
Where is the “madness” in that? BORING.
Please work in some "bye" games.
And there is a badge of honor to making the field of 64/65. I think that may fade, if 96 teams are invited.
And let's look at UK 08-09. They'd have made the dance. There wouldn not have been an
“Are you (insert inappropriate word here) me?... The NIT?” from fans. BCG was probably gone, regardless. But the bar lowers for other coaches.
Stick with 64. And even drop the 64/65 game. Dayton will survive.
But whatever will be, will be....
Thoughts? This should be fun
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The part of me that truly loves the tournament concept loves the idea of
expanding the tournament. The Purist in me says not on your life. I have really mixed feelings on this one. I could care less about CBS being profitable on the tournament, because ESPN would pick it up in a heartbeat and never look back. Maybe there needs to be a situation where the conference tournaments could be tied in or something, I dont know. But 96 teams?…..my goodness…..where does it end???
If that is what they are going for, then maybe they really do need to get all conferences to hold a tournament, and take both the reg season champ and the tournament champ from every conference.
Remember, we're having fun now!!!
I've got mixed thoughts as well
like you said, where does it end? The tournament has got to be a badge of honor.
No matter where you're at, there you are
Going to the tournament is
not a badge of honor, winning it is.
for UK that may be right
but for mid majors and even some BCS schools just making the tourney is more than they get normally and shows how “good” that years’ team was.
"Come test me every day if you want," says Pujols, "Everything I ever made in this game I would give back to the Cardinals if I got caught."
See Northwestern
They’ve never even made the tournament.
EVER.
Of course its difficult, its a shortcut... if it was easy it'd just be "the way."
I know right ....
Where will it end? It’ll be like hockey, the regular season won’t matter since every team makes the playoffs ….
64 is plenty
I have enough trouble with my bracket as it is….lol
F no
Keep it the way it is
First time I shot her, shot her in the side.
Hard to watch her suffer, but with the second shot she died...
I have to agree with this
I mean, is the thing broken?? So why fix it? It seems bass ackwards to me that there is talk of retooling the basketball tourney, when everyone in the country apparently already loves it, and nothing doing on the football front, where everyone complains incessantly about their postseason clusterf***.
by blue kentucky girl on Feb 5, 2010 10:52 AM EST up reply actions
As
bad as I hated UK missing the dance, we didn’t deserve it last year. We would not have deserved it with 96 teams either. I think 64 is too much. 64 teams for one trophy? I don’t like it. Kentucky has been the victim of some no name team getting hot on the three and beating them after a hard fought regular season. We don’t want riff raff in there that don’t deserve to be there. You need the best of the best. The regular season needs to count for something.
You have to be kidding me.
That is the beauty of the tournament. It lets the players decide who gets to the championship, not sportswriters and league officials. 64 is great and it is an exciting three weeks.
What
is the beauty of a 13-13 team going just because they won a conference tourney and a team that has seven losses doesn’t go?
For the sake of discussion...
Is there that much difference between a 13-13 Hoops team making the Dance and a 7-6 Football team going to a Bowl?? The only difference, I see, in that case is that the 7-6 FB team doesn’t have a chance to win the NC, but the 13-13 Hoops team does!
If your wings don't sweep....
Precisely why
letting more teams go is fair to more teams.
I like the idea of the conference winners getting in the tourney.
For some teams that is their only shot and IMO running your conference tourney seems like a pretty good accomplishment and admittance to the tourney a fair reward. The conference win just gets them in, its up to them how far they go once they get there.
It is not worth an intelligent man’s time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.
by kentuckygirl0724 on Feb 5, 2010 12:39 PM EST up reply actions
I don't know...
Seems to me like 64 is the right number… That’s 3 weekends worth of hoops; 64 teams start off, by the end of the first weekend you are down to 32. Next weekend, 16 & 8 games, you are down to 4. Last weekend, the 4 & 2 games, you end up with the NC at the end of the weekend.
If you go with 96 teams, then you end up with more than 3 weekends of games which is certainly good for the Networks, but not so much for the sports enthusiast. I think the regular season and conference tourneys would still count for something… Could be reflected in your seeding and you probably wouldn’t play the first round of games. But Cincy is right, it’s all about the money, that will drive what happens!
If your wings don't sweep....
Honestly
I wish it was more like the NBA…….more then one game determines the winner………one and done…….just don’t like it.
but the NBA playoffs are
HORRIBLE. They drag on and on and on and on. I think the short, sweet, high-stakes quality of the college postseason is the reason it is approximately 1000 times more exciting that the NBA version.
by blue kentucky girl on Feb 5, 2010 10:55 AM EST up reply actions
Agreed
I like the one and dones… A chance to prove how good you really are. Either you play your best game or you go home. Each team knows that if they are not producing their A-game, the season is over. I see this attitude in the number of games that go into overtime or won by only a couple of points. Tourney basketball is very exciting.
Blue... there is no other color to Bleed !!!
I agree.
You get in the tourney and you better be on your game! One loss and its all over. High stakes and lots of fun and excitement! I also have really enjoyed the tourneys when a George Mason or Bucknell gets hot and knocks down some big dawgs (not so much when it happens to UK ofcourse, but stuff happens). One and done is what the tourney is all about – you gotta bring it EVERY game or any game could be your last.
I LOVE the tourney AS IS. Dont change a thing! :)
It is not worth an intelligent man’s time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.
by kentuckygirl0724 on Feb 5, 2010 12:37 PM EST up reply actions
True for me, as well.
And, you know what’s even funnier about that is that the NBA’s playoff motto is "Win or go home". When in truth, that motto is more apt to describe the NCAA tourney rather than the NBA playoffs as their system is literally "Win best of seven or go home".
And, I also agree with you blue kentucky girl, on the excitement level of NCAA tourney compared to NBA. The NBA system doesn’t even begin to hold a candle to the current NCAA tourney structure as far as providing that "thrill" that we all love about those 3 glorious weekends in March/April, and truthfully, I don’t even start watching the majority of the NBA playoffs until they reach like the 4th or 5th game in a series anyway, because of the aforementioned lack of excitement.
I HATE the idea of expanding
I don’t care about change most of the time, in fact I embrace it as the saying goes: “The only thing that doesn’t change is change.” But if this tournament expands, I will be pissed. Will I get over it…yeah, but the powers that be who can make the decision to expand should really take the fan’s desires into consideration. But I guess only in a perfect world would that ever happen.
I cried myself to sleep (literally), pounding my pillow the night Laettner made me hate Duke. I would still love to punch Laettner in the face!
96 teams ...
… will essentially include over 25% of all college basketball teams. The NIT and other post-season tournaments will die off completely.
This is a boondoggle that shouldn’t even be in the discussion. Going to four play-in games is stupid, but I could live unhappily with that . 96 teams is just an abomination.
96 teams in the NCAA tournament is the devil.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
Over 50% of the teams in football go to bowls.
I have be correctly accused of having a 'football fetish'. You know, someone who doesn't think football is the warm up sport to basketball season.
But not in a playoff....
First time I shot her, shot her in the side.
Hard to watch her suffer, but with the second shot she died...
And yet only 2 have a chance to win the title
Of course its difficult, its a shortcut... if it was easy it'd just be "the way."
No way should they do that
It cheapens the accomplishments of the teams from the 48 school dance, for sure, and dulls the achievements of the 64 team dance partners. Just making the field is an accomplishment for a program. Let’s not take that incentive for hard play away. If you WERE going to do that; though, lets have the entire season as one big tournament, with 2 parts, an early season conference schedule of 8-12 games to establish seeding; and an NCAA seeded “anyone against anyone” regardless of conference affiliation tournament as the rest of the season. If we do have a 96 team tournament, watch the ratings die, and overall NCAA BBall wither.
"Ignorance, I can fix, stupidity, well that's another matter!"-82nd Airborne NCO
Anyone familiar with the history of Expansion?
What were the percentages of teams getting in just before and after other times the tournament expanded?
While UK is my first love, I’ve become fond of ETSU living in Johnson City, TN. For teams in the Atlantic Sun, the regular already means little. Only their tournament winner will go the the NCAA and there is little chance of anything higher than a 15 seed. In 2006-2007, they went 14-2 in conference, also just losing by 5 in Knoxville. All that earned them was the lowest seed in the NIT.
I am for expansion with the inclusion of regular season conference winners and more top of their conference mid-majors as opposed to middle of the pack high-majors.
In my opinion
the NCAA Tourney is designed to decide which team is the best in the nation. You cannot tell me that the best team in the country can’t be decided by choosing 65 teams.
Increasing the teams to 96 will most definitely take away the prestige of making the tourney. When 16 seeds start beating 1 seeds, the maybe we will talk about more than 65 teams having a legit shot a winning it all.
by The Fake Calipari on Feb 5, 2010 9:26 AM EST reply actions
I agree.
I also want to see the best teams in the nation competing against each other for the national championship. Teams that have been proving themselves and their worth all season long — not a team who has all of a sudden found their stride and has the hot hand, so to speak. To me, expansion is sort of like rewarding mediocrity.
Mediocrity..., agreed
Heh, let’s just see a sign in the dance… “We’re #96, We’re #96.”
No matter where you're at, there you are
We are kidding ourselves about one thing here folks
If the NCAA and the TV networks can figure out how to make more $$$ out of doing this, then it is already done, and we are wasting our breath, and our digits. The tournament was expanded before because of the $$$ and if it happens again, it will be for the same reason.
I still say, that if every conference has a tournament, and all teams play in their conference tournament, that they should suffice as the play-ins for the NCAA tournament, and the NIT.
Set a number of schools to go to the NCAA, give the regular season champ from each conference a slot, then the conf tournament champ. If those teams are the same school, then you take the runner-up, etc. Let the independents have a tournament of their own for the play in game.
Remember, we're having fun now!!!
Too many unworthy teams
I already think the tournament is too big. Go back to 48, I say.
We're all just a banana peel away from eternity.
ICQ: 591535544
Yahoo IM: jacksbrain
More than a champion
I know I will be in the vast minority on this, so please pardon me for debating the other side. I think there is more to the NCAA tournament than crowning a national champion. Since schools are paid for appearance and that price goes up by round, I feel that this should make the tournament a reward for a good season. This is especially true in the scenario of a school without football where men’s basketball may be the only sport to make money. Some conferences will never get more than one bid. To reward a team that gets hot over one weekend is not right. Many of those tournaments require wins on three or four days in a row, which is not how college basketball is played the rest of the year.
I wold be happy if the automatic bids went to the regular season winners, but that won’t happen because the conference tournaments would become meaningless and they make too much money. The current setup of giving regular season champions an automatic bid to the NIT was a nice step, but that is less money and typically requires the smaller schools to play on the road for the first several rounds. Thus I am for some form of expansion that rewards regular season winners and one that excludes anyone below .500 in their conference.
The blog Rush the Court
says if this expansion were to happen, as of today, all 12 ACC teams make the dance. FWIW, the “light blue ones” are listed at #70. Did they ever make it to 2000? Just askin’ ;-)
Blue... there is no other color to Bleed !!!
Make that 10 losses.
And Kenpom only predicts 2 more this season.
They may be holding their celebration next year. ROFL
Of course its difficult, its a shortcut... if it was easy it'd just be "the way."
I didn't like the idea of expansion at first,
but after thinking about it, will it really change anything? Either the 1st round games will be on the Tuesday night (like the opening round 64/65 game now) or they’ll be on the first weekend with a bye weekend for the top 32 teams. And after these 1st round games, we’ll be right back to our 64 team playoff, just like the current tournament. Does anyone honestly think that a team that was seeded 17 – 24 would ever actually win the championship anyway? They’d have to win 7 straight games to do it. And it will still be the best of the best at the end of the tournament, just like it is now.
I would like to just keep it at 65 teams, but it won’t really change the tournament that much IMO.
That's actually a good point
Of course its difficult, its a shortcut... if it was easy it'd just be "the way."
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