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I wish the headline was a bit of personal hyperbole, but I don't know how else I can really react to seeing this atrocity to the right. (Click here to see Joe Lunardi's first pass at a full 96-team bracket.)
I don't want to overreact and say the NCAA Tournament as a whole will be ruined by such a bracket, but I can say this: the first days will be destroyed. Check out some of these outstanding matchups in one region alone. Alabama-Iowa State, ODU-Morgan State, Gonzaga-Ohio, Arizona State-Saint Louis, New Mexico-Pacific, Murray State-Virginia, Virginia Tech-Coastal Carolina, Michigan-Texas Tech. These are the kind of middling games most fans skip if there's good scripted TV on in the middle of February, not the kind of games you skip two days of work for.
In this scenario, the first round has been reduced to NIT scraps and low-major conference winners. I remember our own Dan Shanoff lamenting that the only thing stopping people from caring about NIT games was the fact that they weren't called NCAA games. After looking at these games, I could not disagree more. My Give-A-Damn meter isn't even making the faintest blip for any game in the first round that doesn't involve my alma mater. After an entire season of trying to watch the best teams rise to the top, I don't want to sit through another two days of games featuring teams that never quite got it together.
Don't get me wrong; there are good game starting in the second round, you know, that traditional round of 64. It will be sad when they likely announce 96-team tournament expansion on April 29 and I'm forced to not really care about the first two days of the NCAA Tournament.
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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I think it is arrogant to assume that more teams equals more viewers. If the first two days of the tournament are going to be the NIT with the real tournament teams getting a bye then why would I tune in? NCAA tournament, especially the first weekend has consistently been one of the most exciting moments in sports every year. Why mess with this success? I realize they theoretically would make more money, but I have not heard one fan who is on board with this idea. Parity has made this tournament great, but diluting ing the talent pool and making the regular season irrelevant is a terrible idea. sports blog: http://huebnerj.wordpress.com
by JoshHuebner on Apr 15, 2010 10:02 AM EDT reply actions
What I would suggest is that when they go to 96 teams, does that mean more teams from the Big East and ACC, or does it mean more deserving teams from mid-majors? This is nothing more than a cash grab by the bix six conferences at the expense of the mid-majors.
I personally don’t want to see an 8th or 9th place Big East team in the dance. I’d rather see the second, third, or fourth place team in the MVC or Conference USA.
by fan82 on Apr 15, 2010 10:09 AM EDT reply actions
No one is crying for this expansion at all but the NCAA is doing it. But everyone is calling for a college football tourney and the NCAA isn’t doing a thing about it. The money would be bigger in a football tourney.
by ctfwest on Apr 15, 2010 9:47 PM EDT reply actions
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