Worst Argument for Expanding the NCAA Tournament, Ever
by T.H. on Feb 17, 2010 7:06 PM EST
in Basketball
4 comments
Take it away, Jim Boeheim:
"This year, you're going to see at the end of the year, teams like Connecticut, teams that are really good teams, and North Carolina if they get winning two, three, four games here at the end, you're going to see a lot of teams that look alike, and you're not going to be able to fairly say this team's better, this team should be in. You're not going to be able to do that."
First of all, if UNC wins two, three, or four games here at the end I'll be thrilled. Over the moon with glee. But guess what? You'll definitely be able to say "this team's better, this team should be in," for a number of teams better than Carolina. And that's just what the selection committee will do, just like they do every year. I guarantee you, no UNC fan with an ounce of sense is going to be sitting a home in March thinking the tournament's a fraud because a 6-11 in conference Tar Heel team is instead hosting an NIT game.
I'll give Boeheim credit, though. He's not lapsing back on the tired trope that expanding the NCAA's would be good for mid-majors. He's got the true beneficiaries correct – bad teams with big names that have fallen to the bottom half of their large conferences. No true fan wants to replace the games they see in the tournament now with lumbering teams with better legacies than on-court performances. Expansion is a horrible idea, so please, keep with the stupid rationales like this that no one will be convinced by.
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Well put T.H.
I’m starting to think that the real reason there is talk about expanding the field is just because the talking heads are looking for something to talk about.
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. There's no use in being a damn fool about it." ---W.C. Fields
No Its Legit
Actually Big Chief its a real deal conversation. The 96 teams is the compromise between a full-fledged doubling of the field to 128, expansion to 68 teams or leaving it the same. Its being done to “save jobs” because coaches are getting fired for missing the tourney 2 or 3 years in a row.
To me if this garbage happens its the opposite of what I want to see. Call me an elitist, call me a snob but I’d like to see 1 of 2 things happen.
1) Separate the nation a la football into 1A and 1AA. Not all the same teams as FBS and FCS, rather rotate teams out a la Euro soccer leagues based upon performance evals. 1A goes to NCAA and 1AA goes to NIT.
2) Use some combination of KenPom, RPI etc to find the 64 best teams and let them play. I don’t want to see 16-15 Conference Champs with RPI’s under 200 play for a title. Regardless of the likelihood they’ve got the same shot at a title as a 31-0 team ranked #1.
Yeah BoYeeEEeeE
by InTheBleachers on Feb 19, 2010 6:54 AM EST via mobile reply actions
The Irony of the Coaches Pushing This
Is that expanding the field won’t save their jobs. If making the tournament becomes easier, fans will just raise their expectations. Just look at N.C. State fans, who never stopped complaining about Sendek even though he was making the NCAA’s; they wanted wins over UNC and Duke and greater success in the postseason.
The NCAA is considering it because in the short term it will mean more money – and the NCAA has always put money first – and most of those dollars will go to the big conferences for getting their mediocre teams in.
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