Changing the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

The big change in the NCAA man’s basketball tournament this year is the First Four. I believe I am one of just a small number of people who thought the First Four was a good idea. A lot of people slammed the idea. I heard all the noise, and before the tournament began I stated that the First Four would never have any relevance with fans until the year after one of those teams reached the Sweet Sixteen. When it comes to the NCAA tournament, fans only care about three things: their team, their team’s biggest rival, and their brackets. I think it’s safe to say that Virginia Commonwealth destroyed a few brackets these past two weekends.

First, before any new early rounds can be fully accepted and appreciated by the public, they must start on the Thursday after selection Sunday. This year, the First Four began on Tuesday, about 24 hours after the brackets were released. That’s not enough time for people to fill out brackets and put money into their office pools.

(And if you happen to be one of those people who believes that the NCAA tournament would be a big deal in America without the brackets and pools, then this planet Earth is not quite the place for you. The NCAA must consider the brackets in every change they make to their big moneymaker. And since the NCAA neither benefits from nor runs the bowls, this is their big moneymaker.)

If the First Four began on Thursday—and were televised on a network not named TruTV—there would have been a bigger buzz for those games. Also, the NCAA could have made the First Four matchups between the last eight at-large teams selected for the field. Nobody cares about the lowest rund of automatic qualifiers outside of those schools’ fans and alumni. A First Four comprised entirely of BCS, MVC, and A-10 conference teams would have been a much bigger ratings draw.

But I want to be more drastic than that. Taking into consideration VCU’s run this March as well as those made in recent years by George Mason, Davidson, and even BCS conference schools like Marquette, I think it’s time to do a full expansion of the tournament. The mini-expansions from 64 to 65 and 65 to 68 were small changes without much effect. Remember, the brackets are the big thing.

I’ve read various pundits suggest changes for the selection committee. I saw one man say that Selection Sunday should occur before the conference tournaments because teams that feel assured of a place in the field don’t take the tournament seriously anyway and teams that don’t really belong in the field play their way in. I don’t happen to believe that, but fine, that guy is entitled to his opinion. It got me thinking though…

There are enough teams out there that can compete. Maybe there aren’t 50 schools that can reasonable win a national championship each year, but there are a hundred or so who can compete on a night-to-night basis. Teams’ tournament profiles are judged on records versus the RPI top 50 and top 100. Isn’t it time the tournament fields 96 teams? I think so.

A 96-team tournament would feature 32 first round games that would produce winners to face 32 teams who had earned first-round byes. And I say let’s give the byes to the teams who earned their conferences’ automatic bids (I know there are only 31 conferences; they can create another or we could just give the last bye to the highest ranked team who did not earn an automatic berth).

24 teams per region. The top seed would face the winner of the game between the teams seeded 16 and 17 in the region. I know what you’re wondering. What if a top-seeded team failed to win its conference tournament? Of this year’s top seeds, only Pittsburgh failed to win a conference tournament. In such a case, Pittsburgh could have been seeded #1 in the Southeast. They would have played a first round game against the 24th (lowest) seeded team. Teams with byes don’t necessarily have to play teams that played a first round game. This can be flexible depending on who wins conference championships and who doesn’t. The only hard rule would be 8 byes per region.

This makes sense to me. It gives teams a reason to play for the conference championship, it is more inclusive, and it gives fans who care about such things a reasonable expectation that any team left out of the field wasn’t going to win the thing anyway. Tell me what the downside is.