LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Thursday's topic is perfection:
Labrador retriever puppies.
Marvin Gaye.
The Mona Lisa
The Godfather (Parts I AND II).
60 feet, 6 inches.
And, of course, at the absolute top of the list: The men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.
(The women’s tournament remains a step below perfection until it grows into playing its opening rounds on off-campus sites.)
If you know anybody who does not drool over the current 68-team event, send me their phone number.
But perfection isn’t good enough for the folks who run college sports — the conference commissioners, NCAA officials and the television networks. Not if they sniff an opportunity to squeeze a few more dollars from the March and April calendars.
Updating a story that has percolated for months, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reported on Wednesday that Dan Gavitt, the NCAA vice president for the men’s basketball championship, made a presentation to conference commissioners on plans to add four or eight teams to the tournament, growing it from 68 teams to 72 or 76, likely for the 2025-26 season.
Making room for another First Four and planting it somewhere on the West Coast.
Making room for more No. 10 or 11 seeds.
Making the regular season schedule and power league conference tournaments more irrelevant than they’ve already become.
Making room to celebrate more mediocrity.
What’s next, participation ribbons?
Since 1939, the tournament has expanded from 8 to 16 to 22 to 25 to 32 to 40 to 48 to 52 to 53 to 64 (1985) to 68 teams. The product has been routinely wonderful with regular servings of fantastic and out of this world. It fits neatly (or you could say perfectly) in a 3-week stretch.
But the poobahs of the game don’t see it that way. They see it the same way they see everything, They need more.
More, more, more.
St. John’s, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Villanova, Wake Forest and their combined 69 losses failed to make the tournament last season.
Outrageous! Unacceptable! A travesty! Call a Congressional hearing. That can never happen again.
Let’s be real here: I didn’t include Indiana State in my example of faux outrage about teams left out of the 2024 field. This is not about anything other than ensuring the Big 12, Atlantic Coast, Southeastern, Big Ten and Big East conferences get more than the 30 of 68 bids they received on Selection Sunday.
(The power league breakdown was actually 34 of 68 last season. Four invitations went to the Pac-12, which has lost all but two of its school to conference realignment, another blessing bestowed by these greedy overlords.)
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey squawked about more opportunities for teams from power conferences, like the SEC. Ditto for Brett Yormark of the Big 12.
Who can forget this gem from Michigan State coach Tom Izzo last spring?
“I just think what’s happening now, everybody likes the upsets in the first weekend but I’m not sure moving on that’s what’s best for the game,” Izzo said. “I think it’s got to be looked at seriously.”
To be fair, Izzo insisted that he’s always tried to look out for the little guy but … how many moves in college sports have been made with the primary purpose of looking out for the little guy?
I rest my case.
This is about making room for more teams that finish in the bottom half of their leagues during the regular season, sometimes with a losing record.
This is about making certain the power leagues get more than their share of the revenue from the NCAA’s television package.
This is about the power leagues understanding the NCAA is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The NCAA can’t survive 30 seconds without the money from the men’s basketball tournament. It will do what the power conferences want it to do.
Period.
This is about rewarding teams that have already failed twice — once in the regular season and a second time in their conference tournaments, events that already provide an opportunity to play your way into the event that matters.
Another hat tip to Kevin Keatts and North Carolina State. The Wolfpack showed the world the way you’re supposed to do it if you want to be part of the fun — you win five league tournament games in five days and then play your way into the Final Four.
Nobody who loves the NCAA Tournament had a problem with that, despite NC State’s record of 17-14 overall and 9-11 in league play before the ACC Tournament began.
The issue is the growing trend of rewarding mediocrity.
If the NCAA and the conference commissioners want to strengthen the sport and tournament, they should consider a plan that would make it harder, not easier, to make the NCAA field.
Do something to put juice in the regular season.
Add a requirement that schools with losing records in conference play are not eligible for at-large berths
Or a clause that says the maximum number of bids any league receives cannot exceed half of its total membership.
You want to put legitimate sizzle into the final weeks of conference play? That would deliver.
I believe that would give college basketball coaches, players and fans something to talk about more than trying to improve something cannot be improved.
Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All rights reserved.
