We have officially made it to March and, in the college basketball world, that means let the madness begin. In both men’s and women’s college basketball, this whole month is going to be crazy. Conference tournaments are coming up, and after that comes the big NCAA tournament that will conclude in early April. Since 1985, the tournament has included 64 teams, and more recently added four more to see eight teams battle it out for the last four spots. This tournament formatting has been perfect in my eyes, but there have recently been talks of expanding the field to 96 teams. This would be a big mistake.
There are currently 351 schools that make up Division I basketball. With the current format, that means that roughly 18% of teams make it into the tournament. If they were to expand the tournament to 96 teams, this percentage would move up to around 27%. That is a big jump, and I believe that adding more teams would take away from the great accomplishment that making the tournament is.
The composition of the current tournament is as follows: There are 32 automatic qualifiers who won their conference tournament, and then there are 36 at large bids. In last season’s tournament, mid-major teams, like UNI, only accounted for four of these at large bids. It is nearly impossible for these mid-majors to get into the tournament if they do not win their conference tournament. This would not change with an expanded tournament. We would likely just see more of the schools from power conferences getting the extra bids, while the mid-majors might get just a few more.
Those additional 28 teams, would mostly be coming from big name teams that had mediocre seasons unworthy of an NCAA tournament appearance. By allowing these teams in, the tournament begins to lose its luster. It would make you wonder where they might stop. Down the road, they might want to add even more teams to increase the amount of revenue that can be made off of the event.
The tournament has had its current format for so long for a reason, because it works and it is what people enjoy. It is perfect the way that it is, and changing it would begin to diminish one of the greatest events in all of sports.
