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

[Scott Zeller]

Wouldn't 96 mean the bottom 64 teams have a play-in game to make a round of
64 with the top 32? Just like when they had 48 teams, and 32 were in a
play-in to compete against the top 16 seeds?

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:12 PM, SjT (Stephen J. Truog) <sjtruog at yahoo.com>wrote:

> > > So what is essentially 'pure'
> > about 65 ?
>
> Well, 64 works out pretty niceley to two games in a weekend, three weekends
> in the format. Dropping it to 32 still keeps it at 3 weekends with one only
> having one round of games. Opening it to 96 does the same in the other
> direction. (don't even say 128!:) )
>
> And 64 seems to be a good balance as well with the 31 auto-qualifiers from
> league tourneys and the 33 (34) at-large teams. There are a few bubble teams
> that burst, but it strikes a nice balance between giving league champs from
> small leagues a shot and giving good teams that might finish 4th or 5th in
> their league but get hot late (or had injuries early) a chance as well.
>
> Like I said, 68 would be OK because having just one play-in game seems dumb
> ... this way those small-league teams get a chance at a meaningful game
> before being fed to the #1 seed.
>
> There's no magic number, but 64 has worked well and makes sense.
>
> But 96 is just a mess all around. What will they have? Three games opening
> weekend? Sheesh.
>
> GO CATS!!!
> -SjT
>
>
>
>
>
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