Men's NCAA Tournament could expand by 4 or 8 Teams as soon as 2025-26

[Franisdaman]

This is something that doesn't need tinkered with but they're doing it any way.

Click on sports.yahoo.com in the tweet below to take you to the full story.

 

[cmhawks99]

Dumb

 

[HawkAlum2002]

I'd just prefer they get rid of conference tournaments and put everyone in one big tournament anyway. Then everyone gets a fair shot, one loss and you are done until the last team standing. Let the regular season set up the seeding by computer and have at it. No more bubbles, no more NIT and CBI tournaments, no worrying about strength of schedule in the big picture (still effect computer rankings).

 

[LaQuintaHawkeye]

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

I'd just prefer they get rid of conference tournaments and put everyone in one big tournament anyway. Then everyone gets a fair shot, one loss and you are done until the last team standing. Let the regular season set up the seeding by computer and have at it. No more bubbles, no more NIT and CBI tournaments, no worrying about strength of schedule in the big picture (still effect computer rankings).

The Committee will tell us that these smaller conference tourneys effectively serve as an extension to the NCAA Tournament already, even though we know that's bullsh**.

As for the major conferences, as these idiot commissioners continue to f*** everything up by catering to football, it's gonna get to the point where they either have no choice but to do away with conference tourneys, or start doing cutoffs and only taking so many teams like college baseball conf. tournaments do.

And yet by doing that it would also defeat the concept of "every team has a chance" which is what college basketball is trying to pride itself on.

So if that's the case, then what I propose is to start pairing conferences together and to your point, make it one super tournament, but instead of trying to seed teams 1-362, combine conferences into pods of 4. Remember there are 32 conferences so pairing them together would be easy enough.

The Sweet 16 would serve as the Regional Final now. Then the winners leave you with your "Elite 8", and you can host a tournament of 8 teams instead of just 4, similar to how the HS state tournament does it. Yes, that would dampen the whole "Final 4" marketing, but wouldn't cheapen reaching the Final Four by any means.

Of course if you really wanted to keep the Final Four special, then you just have 4 pods of 8 conferences combined and seeded.

Will that hinder the chances of the "Cinderella" small schools a bit? Sure.

But it would still present the idea that "everyone has a chance".

 

[HawkAlum2002]

The Committee will tell us that these smaller conference tourneys effectively serve as an extension to the NCAA Tournament already, even though we know that's bullsh**.

As for the major conferences, as these idiot commissioners continue to f*** everything up by catering to football, it's gonna get to the point where they either have no choice but to do away with conference tourneys, or start doing cutoffs and only taking so many teams like college baseball conf. tournaments do.

And yet by doing that it would also defeat the concept of "every team has a chance" which is what college basketball is trying to pride itself on.

So if that's the case, then what I propose is to start pairing conferences together and to your point, make it one super tournament, but instead of trying to seed teams 1-362, combine conferences into pods of 4. Remember there are 32 conferences so pairing them together would be easy enough.

The Sweet 16 would serve as the Regional Final now. Then the winners leave you with your "Elite 8", and you can host a tournament of 8 teams instead of just 4, similar to how the HS state tournament does it. Yes, that would dampen the whole "Final 4" marketing, but wouldn't cheapen reaching the Final Four by any means.

Of course if you really wanted to keep the Final Four special, then you just have 4 pods of 8 conferences combined and seeded.

Will that hinder the chances of the "Cinderella" small schools a bit? Sure.

But it would still present the idea that "everyone has a chance".

I could get behind that idea of pairing conferences. Even next year the B10 is only having 15 teams make the conference tourney, so it's already starting soon with not every team getting a last chance to make a run.

Or they could model it after something like the FA Cup in English soccer. You'd have the conferences ranked by strength of schedule so the early rounds eliminate the majority of the smaller schools and as the rounds progress the teams from the bigger conferences are added in to the bracket with the small conference survivors. I think in the FA Cup they don't even add teams from the Premiere League and the second level league until they even reach the round of 64. You'd have to do it earlier with 300 teams but pair the smaller conferences down until the round of 128 with the bigger conferences. You'll still have some small conference teams on a roll and take down P6 teams along the way, although they aren't likely to survive until the final four. Of course soccer uses a blind draw rather than a computer or committe to determine matches, but I'm sure they are capable of coming up with a format.

 

[LetsGoHawks83]

But it probably means more $$$. And we know that is all that matters.

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

I could get behind that idea of pairing conferences. Even next year the B10 is only having 15 teams make the conference tourney, so it's already starting soon with not every team getting a last chance to make a run.

Or they could model it after something like the FA Cup in English soccer. You'd have the conferences ranked by strength of schedule so the early rounds eliminate the majority of the smaller schools and as the rounds progress the teams from the bigger conferences are added in to the bracket with the small conference survivors. I think in the FA Cup they don't even add teams from the Premiere League and the second level league until they even reach the round of 64. You'd have to do it earlier with 300 teams but pair the smaller conferences down until the round of 128 with the bigger conferences. You'll still have some small conference teams on a roll and take down P6 teams along the way, although they aren't likely to survive until the final four. Of course soccer uses a blind draw rather than a computer or committe to determine matches, but I'm sure they are capable of coming up with a format.

I like that idea as well.

The way mine would work rewards conference strength. The Committee would power rate all the conferences and pair them similar to how they do the Top 16 (highest 1 seed paired with lowest 4 seed etc etc)

So for example you'd have the 1st conference (ex. Big 12), the 32nd, the 16th and the 17th.

If you take the NET power rankings from last year, you got a pod of:

1 Big 12
32 Northeast

16th Big West
17th ASUN

The Big Ten would be:

2 Big Ten
31 SWAC

15 Missouri Valley
18 Big Sky


The idea is if the regular season conference champs played to seed (which they more than likely would not), you would get a Round of 32 consisting of

Houston
Central Connecticut State

UC Irvine
Eastern Kentucky


Purdue
Gambling State

Indiana State
Eastern Washington