Seliga: Why the NCAA Tournament shouldn't be expanded

By Jacob Seliga

Lead Writer

JJ Digos/Contributor

As millions of Americans gathered around their televisions on Sunday evening to watch the selection show to see which 68 teams would be chosen to participate in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, I couldn’t help but have a lump in my throat.

In the final days of conference championship week, while in the midst of one of the weakest bubbles in the history of the tournament field, it became abundantly clear to not just myself but to the majority of college basketball fans that at least one, if not multiple teams, were about to be selected to participate in March Madness that had no business being in the “big dance."

The “last team in” was the North Carolina Tar Heels, much to the chagrin of West Virginia, a team the majority of media and bracketologists who spend the year predicting and projecting how the field of 68 will look, had comfortably in the field.

North Carolina, a team that was 1-12 in Quad 1 games and had only two wins against teams in the field, a two-point victory UCLA on a neutral court and a blow out against one of the last teams in, a 16-seed, American University. 

In an expanded tournament, North Carolina would’ve been comfortably in, and that doesn’t sit right when trying to determine which teams are truly deserving when others such as West Virginia and other mid majors who have a small margin of error as is already will see it narrow. 

The Regular Season and Conference Tournaments would lose more value

To most college basketball fans, the attraction to last Friday’s Duke-North Carolina matchup wasn’t that it’s one of the premier matchups in the sport but rather or not the Tar Heels could pull an upset to move off the proverbial bubble and firmly into the field.

It was a chaotic back-and-forth game in the second half that saw a lane violation on a free throw end what many thought would be their tournament hopes.

Although North Carolina still got in, the allure and enjoyment of a potential win-and-in matchup prior to the tournament starting is what makes the sport so special. Where one shot falling or in the case of that game, a lane violation could shatter the hearts of a fanbase or be the biggest celebration.

With expansion on the mind, those moments lose luster as they go from meaningful matchups to just another game in the eyes of most.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is helping lead the charge for tournament expansion and lays out the reason why very clearly. 

"I’m in favor of expansion to 76. I think that’s the right number … I think the economics, has to work … But in order for us to expand, they have to come to the table and provide the right economics,” said Yormark. 

Yormark knows West Virginia likely was left out due to a loss to Colorado, the lowest seed in the conference tournament in the second round of the conference tournament. 

Is Yormark trying to push for expansion because it’s beneficial for all? Or because it’s beneficial for teams in conference’s like his to have more of a room for error when teams like Colorado pull an upset in their respective conference tournaments?

Worthy teams from smaller conferences will be shut out

This is the biggest reason why people should be weary of expansion. 

Proponents of tournament expansion will create the fake notion that mid-major and smaller schools will benefit from the extra spots but that is far from a guarantee.

The NCAA expanded the field from 64 teams to 68 teams in 2011 and in that time, 21/56 of the non 16 seed play-in teams were mid-major teams or from mid-major conferences, or roughly ≈ 37%.

By adding additional spots, the first teams left out of the field this year for example (Boise State, West Virginia, Ohio State, and Indiana) would find themselves slotted into the tournament when each were inherently flawed teams with very questionable resumés. 

A team such as UC Irvine, which lost in the Big West Conference championship who had 28 wins, which is comfortable more than each team on the bubble and had the same amount of Quad 1 wins as North Carolina, didn’t come close to touching the bubble this year, yet is supposed to feel comfortable with an expanded field knowing that multiple average to below average teams were ahead of them this year.

If getting the 68 best teams into the field isn’t the goal now but rather who is the bigger television draw and is in a bigger conference, why would that change with more money on the table and even more of an investment to pull more financially from the gold mine that’s running out of gold. 

Television executives are meeting with conference commissioners in the coming months to discuss the framework for expansion and what it may look like, and as the professionalizing of college sports continues, it appears old people with no care in their world but their own pockets are hellbent on continuing to destroy sacred land, such as March Madness.

Whether or not they’re successful, it remains to be seen, but look at all the negatives that came in college football when its playoff was expanded.

There’s as few things as sacred in sports as the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, and that’s in danger as television people and rich individuals try to control the beautiful game of college basketball.