So the NCAA men’s basketball tournament could expand to 96 teams as early as next season, drastically changing the dynamics of March Madness as we know it and rendering the regular season all but moot. Of course, this is a stupid idea. Everybody thinks it’s a stupid idea. I can’t think of anybody who doesn’t think this is a stupid idea.
Here is my reaction to this proposal: I hate it. There you go. Next.
Hold on one second. What? Seven hundred fifty words? Really? Oh. Well, OK, then.
In that case, let’s try to think of somebody who might not think this is a stupid idea.
1. The banner-sewing industry. I can see this. This would be a huge uptick in business, what with the increased number of schools each year which could claim to be NCAA tournament teams. Times are tough, and this move would be like the banner industry’s own economic stimulus package.
2. The NCAA and its member institutions. OK, I still don’t like it. But if there’s a possibility someone might give you a ba-jillion dollars, you owe it to yourself to at least check it out.
3. Division I men’s basketball coaches. Yes, the coaches. The caretakers of the game. The ones who have its best interest at heart. The ones who love it most. Well, if a number of high-profile coaches have come forward in favor of expansion – and they have – then maybe there’s something I’m missing. Maybe I’ve been looking at this all wrong.
And yes. It turns out there is a very good reason for expanding the NCAA tournament: If you expand the NCAA tournament from 65 to 96 teams, more coaches will be able to show what a good job they’re doing by making the NCAA tournament.
At least that’s the gist I’m getting from Florida coach Billy Donovan and others, in their recent comments.
(To be fair, Donovan led off with, it should expand For the Children. “I think it's difficult for a player to go through college and never get a chance to play in an NCAA tournament,” he said, making his case for an expanded tournament in an as-told-to piece for SI.com. He then channeled his inner JV parent: “These kids work so hard. If it's supposed to be about these kids, and you're saying that the NCAA tournament is the biggest sporting event in our country, why would you not want to have more kids participate?”)
I will admit, I had not looked at it this way before. Why not just take the pressure off? Let everyone in, and then coaches don’t have to be held to subjective standards such as whether they’re on the bubble, or if they make the tournament, or how far they advance or whether they win or lose. I mean, how unfair is that? Billy?
“Coaches are judged on whether their team makes the tournament and what their team does in the tournament, even though tournament performance can sometimes be misleading,” Donovan said.
Yes. Misleading! Of course, Bill Parcells said, “You are what your record says you are.” But what the heck did he know. We’re talking deep here. We’re talking deep, deep. We’re talking Rosie Perez in “White Men Can’t Jump” deep: “Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie.”
She is wise, that Rosie.
Sounds like the basketball coaches just want what the football coaches have, where a plethora of postseason games added in recent years mean most everyone with a winning record makes a bowl, when it was much tougher to do so in the past. “How many bowls did (school) go to before (coach) got there?!” goes the rallying cry. Man, basketball coaches wish they had it so good.
When told that North Carolina coach Roy Williams said making the NCAA tournament field should be hard, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim said on CNN, “With all respect to coach Williams, how hard should it be?”
I mean, let’s not be unreasonable here.
Said Donovan, “If you make the tournament a little bit bigger, it makes it a little easier on administrators to evaluate what's really important instead of just whether a guy made the tournament.”
OK, we get it, take the pressure off. Everyone should get to say they made the tournament. I only wonder if these coaches think we – and their bosses – wouldn’t adjust accordingly.
And, this: If you still lose in the first round, what’s the difference?
Kalani Simpson is an award-winning journalist who has earned national recognition as a sports columnist at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and editor at Nebraska Sports America magazine.
