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(Yeah, I know. I can't help it.)
There are currently 31 auto-bid conferences in Division I.
It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the Big East (which will be at 17 teams when TCU joins) would at some point split into football-playing and non-football conferences.
If we assume that happens, we wind up with a nice, round number of 32 auto-bid Division I conferences.
How about this, for an NCAA tournament:
The 32 conference auto-bid teams are bracketed together--let's call them the Champions' Tournament Bracket.
64 at-large teams are selected--the best non-conference-champion teams in the country--let's call this the National Invitation Tournament Bracket.
You play down each bracket until you have a final two from each--then the four teams get together for the traditional Final Four. You could designate two "regionals" for each of the two brackets so you'd still have four "regional champions" going to the Final Four.
I think this would be a way to expand the tournament while keeping a conference championship really meaningful--winning a conference--especially a power conference--rewards you with an easier bracket and one less game to play to win a national championship. You "punish" good power-conference teams that don't win their conference tournaments, by putting them in the more difficult NIT bracket.
If you play three games in a weekend for the NIT first round, you don't even have to add a weekend to the schedule, or necessarily add more host sites (although you do have to schedule those venues for another day or two to accommodate the additional NIT first round).
Or, play the NIT first round at campus sites, at the home of the higher seed on the first weekend of the tournament, and stretch the whole thing out one more week. (Maybe push the season starting date back a week from the second to the first Friday in November?) Keep in mind that this might actually cause some major-conference team to have to play in some particularly good mid-major's home arena, if that mid-major lost their conference tournament but was still among the top 50 or 60 teams in the country--such as if Oakland had lost the Summit League tournament this year, perhaps.
However you schedule it, you'll get many, many more competitive first-round games this way. The old 1-16 Duke-Hampton/Ohio State-UTSA yawners are buried on the second day of the tournament, amidst the much more competitive second-round NIT games. Instead, the NIT will give you games like Kent State-Notre Dame, maybe.
And who knows? Maybe if a mighty #1 sits out a week and gets rusty, fat, and happy, we might finally see the hitherto mythical 16-1 upset?
It sounds like the NCAA is still bound and determined to expand the tournament further, one way or another, probably to 96, in the next few years. Might as well figure out a really interesting way to do it.
Thoughts?
There are currently 31 auto-bid conferences in Division I.
It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the Big East (which will be at 17 teams when TCU joins) would at some point split into football-playing and non-football conferences.
If we assume that happens, we wind up with a nice, round number of 32 auto-bid Division I conferences.
How about this, for an NCAA tournament:
The 32 conference auto-bid teams are bracketed together--let's call them the Champions' Tournament Bracket.
64 at-large teams are selected--the best non-conference-champion teams in the country--let's call this the National Invitation Tournament Bracket.
You play down each bracket until you have a final two from each--then the four teams get together for the traditional Final Four. You could designate two "regionals" for each of the two brackets so you'd still have four "regional champions" going to the Final Four.
I think this would be a way to expand the tournament while keeping a conference championship really meaningful--winning a conference--especially a power conference--rewards you with an easier bracket and one less game to play to win a national championship. You "punish" good power-conference teams that don't win their conference tournaments, by putting them in the more difficult NIT bracket.
If you play three games in a weekend for the NIT first round, you don't even have to add a weekend to the schedule, or necessarily add more host sites (although you do have to schedule those venues for another day or two to accommodate the additional NIT first round).
Or, play the NIT first round at campus sites, at the home of the higher seed on the first weekend of the tournament, and stretch the whole thing out one more week. (Maybe push the season starting date back a week from the second to the first Friday in November?) Keep in mind that this might actually cause some major-conference team to have to play in some particularly good mid-major's home arena, if that mid-major lost their conference tournament but was still among the top 50 or 60 teams in the country--such as if Oakland had lost the Summit League tournament this year, perhaps.
However you schedule it, you'll get many, many more competitive first-round games this way. The old 1-16 Duke-Hampton/Ohio State-UTSA yawners are buried on the second day of the tournament, amidst the much more competitive second-round NIT games. Instead, the NIT will give you games like Kent State-Notre Dame, maybe.
And who knows? Maybe if a mighty #1 sits out a week and gets rusty, fat, and happy, we might finally see the hitherto mythical 16-1 upset?
It sounds like the NCAA is still bound and determined to expand the tournament further, one way or another, probably to 96, in the next few years. Might as well figure out a really interesting way to do it.
Thoughts?
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