NCAA talking about expanding March Madness to 128 teams

Submitted by fortheinfo on Sun, 06/25/2006 - 6:47pm.

The NCAA is seriously considering expanding the NCAA men's basketball tournament known as March Madness. Right now there are 65 teams invited to the big dance. That seems like a fine number to me, but now there is talk of expanding it to 128 teams.

Yes, 128 teams. Can you imagine the March Madness with 128 teams? It'd be more like March Insanity.

I love the idea of expanding to 128 teams. The draw and allure of the NCAA men's basketball tournament is the lose and go home aspect. If your team is ranked high and they get bumped off, there is no tomorrow. Heck, even if you manage to win a game you have to slug your way to the next competitor to emerge victorious. Double the amount of teams would offer:

  • Double the upsets.
  • Double the inspirational victories.
  • Double the super human performance.
  • Double the pressure.
  • Double the games.

The last point is why I'd love to see the tournament doubled. Think about it. If you love watching college basketball you can't be against this proposal. You'll get the 128 best teams in the nation beating up on each other day after day. The first games of the tournament would last a whole week, not just four days.

Alas, any changes made to the men's side need to happen on the women's side. This means that the political correctness of title IV will come back to bite everyone. For this simple fact I don't think they'll expand to 128 teams. I mean how many women's team are really that good?

In all seriousness there's going to be a numbers issue. The number of division 1A men's basketball teams is 326. If you take 128 of those to the big dance you're talking about 40% of the teams. And can you imagine the entire ACC getting into the tournament?

Still, it'd decimate the NIT , which wouldn't be a bad thing.