NCAA President Charlie Baker declined to address “whether the organization would move ahead with expansion of the Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in the coming days,” according to Mickey Shueyt of the INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS JOURNAL. A report on Friday said that the NCAA “plans to increase each tournament by eight teams, from the current 68 to 76,” which is “expected to be announced following the conclusion of this year’s March Madness tournaments.” Baker said, “We were told by the basketball committees to stop talking about that. I think it’s a really good policy, because we’ve got all kinds of great stuff going on in Phoenix, going on here, so let’s play the games. … We’ll get back to that discussion at some point” (INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS JOURNAL, 4/4).
WON’T MATTER: In San Jose, Jon Wilner wrote expansion is “inevitable,” but the tournament “would not become a better event” with the inclusion of 15-loss Oklahoma and 16-loss Auburn -- the first teams left out on Selection Sunday. If the NCAA guaranteed that half of the eight additional at-large slots would be “reserved for mid-major teams that didn’t win their conference tournaments,” the “view might change.” But everyone knows the majority of the extra bids, if not the entirety, “will go to mediocre teams in the power conferences.” Wilner: “For all their “faults and failings, college sports executives are absolutely the gold standard when it comes to screwing up a good thing” (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 4/3).
HEY, WHY NOT? USA TODAY’s Nancy Armour wrote officials “appear set on watering down the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments” so the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 “can get a few more of their mediocre teams in.” Why not just “say the hell with it and make it all comers?” If 76 teams will bring a “few more zeroes out of CBS and TNT and ESPN, imagine what 350-plus would bring!” Armour: “It’s shameful, and it will do more to destroy the best thing left in college athletics than any 20-something who’s finally getting paid” (USA TODAY, 4/3).
