Think the tournament field is crowded enough? Apparently Jim Boeheim and other coaches are proposing expanding the field by another half dozen teams or so.
This isn't as crazy as it sounds. In our "Shot Across the Bow" thread (see below), the Matthew Yglesias article compared the tournament unfavorably to the NBA playoffs since so many more teams are invited. But 65 is a proportionally small number, amounting to less than a fifth of the 334 D-1 schools. Whereas in the NBA more than half the teams (16 out of 30) make the playoffs each year. And while the NCAAs take a total of three weekends, the NBA playoffs drag on for a full two months. Which system would you say is better?
Even if you added say, ten teams to the tournament, that would still amount to considerably less than a fourth of the D-1 field, and all you'd have to do is add another weekend on to what is a fairly short schedule as it is.
Boeheim and others point out that many deserving teams are left out in the current format. Consider, for instance, that George Mason was very much on the bubble, and their rival Hofstra, a team that many felt was more deserving, was not invited at all.
Having said all that, I still don't think they should invite more teams. Why mess with a good thing?
The more I think about it, and read some of the stories out there on the subject, the more I think that having, say, four play-in games instead of one seems reasonable.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, they "messed with a good thing" in 2001 (by adding the 65th team) and that doesn't seem to have done any harm; I've heard many say this year's tourney (excepting, I imagine, Saturday's semi-final games) is one of the best ever. . . .