[NU Sports] NCAA Poised to Expand to Field of 96; NIT Slated for Extinction

[cherron604 at aol.com]

The questions then become:

- What should the NCAA do ?

- What do we want the NCAA to do ?

- What will the NCAA do ?

And the answers would seem to be:

- Whatever is in the interest of honest competition and crowning the most worthy/deserving champion

- Whatever brings in the most $$$

How we match up the three questions to the two answers would seem to be the key.

Chuck Herron   Tech '85





-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Maycock <tkmaycock at yahoo.com>
To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
Sent: Thu, Feb 4, 2010 11:46 am
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] NCAA Poised to Expand to Field of 96; NIT Slated for Extinction


> So what is essentially 'pure' about 65 ? 
Nothing at all. As I believe I said earlier, I think 65 is too many. And 96 is 
ust stupid. 
There's nothing "purist" about it. It's just a question of what makes sense. 
The tournament should either include all teams, or only include those teams who 
ad very good years and have at least an outside shot at winning the whole 
hing. 
You can make a case for either approach. But if you go with the latter option, I 
on't think it makes any sense to invite more than, say, 32 teams, and even that 
s probably pushing it. 
I took a quick look at last year, and it appears the highest seed to make it to 
he final 16 was 12th ranked Arizona, who were promptly *destroyed* by 1 seed 
ouisville. 
So, through a bit of a fluke, Louisville essentially got a free pass in that 
ound, while every other team in the round of 16 had to face real challenges. 
hat's the sense in that?
Further, the final 8 teams all came from the top 12 seeds in the entire 
ournament. I would guess that's not uncommon. We could have done away with an 
ntire 4-day weekend of games and arrived at the same pool of teams. 
There's no question that the 65 team tournament is entertaining--those early 
ound games are often the most entertaining, and everyone enjoys the Cinderalla 
tories and the upsets. And the  cascade of money from those first few rounds is 
ndeniable, in revenue to conferences and schools, to gamblers, to networks, and 
o on. 
But ultimately, those extra games (and upsets) distort the ideal of crowning a 
rue champion. 
Tom

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