The NCAA may expand the NCAA tournament to over 90 schools by 24/25

[Scoe]

Expanded MLB and NFL playoffs too.

Yep the only sport that should expand their playoff is the college football playoff and that should be 25 teams.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

P5 is a football term, it's P6 in basketball.

If you think this about getting a 25-3 South Dakota St in who loses in their conference finals and not a 17-14 Vanderbilt you’re dead wrong

 

[jake14mw]

68 teams is plenty. For most teams, making the NCAA tournament is a big goal, and an achievement to be proud of. Watering down the tournament lessens the achievement and weakens the tournament overall.

 

[huskymedic]

Both Jon Rothstein and Matt Notlander are hedging against this, saying it may only apply to other sport. Don’t mess with the tournament.

Court Report: Why major NCAA Tournament expansion won't happen despite recommendations to change March Madness

Matt Norlander's insider notebook also details NBA speculation about Nick Smith Jr.'s future at Arkansas

www.cbssports.com

-> In addition to myriad logistical alterations that would have to be accounted for, there is a humongous TV contract to consider. CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports share men's March Madness rights through 2032.

Moving forward, remember that whatever change is made for the men's tournament will also be made for the women's. If you expand the men's field to 72, the same will happen with the women, particularly in the wake of the NCAA's gender equity review after the PR disaster the NCAA brought upon itself in 2021 regarding inequalities in women's basketball.

Additionally, skepticism abounds in NCAA halls re: more teams equaling more money to the organization's coffers. This is a bottom-line business. The men's NCAA Tournament is the only money-making championship the NCAA owns. (The College Football Playoff isn't an NCAA-run event.) The women's tournament annually operates in the red. More games means more cost and more money to split up to more schools until 2032 at least. That's not an outcome many in college athletics find satisfying. Relatedly, there are ongoing discussions about how tournament money should be changed/split up in the current system. <-

 

[F101Voodoo]

With the current system, where conference tourney Champs get an automatic bid, essentially no team is eliminated until they lose in their conference tournament. Kind of makes the regular season irrelevant.

That is what I was thinking.

 

[Hi-Low]

With the current system, where conference tourney Champs get an automatic bid, essentially no team is eliminated until they lose in their conference tournament. Kind of makes the regular season irrelevant.

Not really...you could make that argument for 1 bid conferences but not for multi-bid confernces. Especially the top 8 or 9 conferences where most of the at-large bids come from, the regular season is very important. In the power confernces it's rare for a school that has a lousy regular season to win 4 or 5 games in the conference tourney...it happens (G'Town) but rare. You're also going to get a better seed if you have a good regular season, conference tournies don't have great impact on seeding.