Look for NCAA to add a cherry to its expansion sundae

By Matt Vachlon

...And then, like a bad dream, it was all over.

At least, that’s how I felt upon hearing the news Thursday that the NCAA was only expanding to a 68-team tournament. After watching the quality of some of the games from this year’s NIT, it truly was unsettling to realize that all those teams could’ve been in the NCAA’s 96-team expansion model.

However, after returning to my senses, I realized that the NCAA’s new plan still had one glaring omission, which leads to one major question.

How will new teams be added into the bracket?

It’s a pretty safe bet that since the NCAA already had one play-in game with 65 teams, that it will simply add three more play-in games so that each region will now have a play-in game. Who will be playing in those games is a different story.

A common assumption is that the play-in games will continue to be for the right to be a 16-seed. I don’t deny that sounds like something the NCAA would do. After all, you can’t humiliate the big schools by making them play an extra game.

Or can you?

You can if the NCAA goes for the money grab. Seriously, I hope the NCAA goes all fifth-grade bully in a school cafeteria on this plan and tries to shake out every bit of loose change available before its implementation.

Now, before I go any further, I know what you’re thinking.

You’re saying to yourself, “How can you utter those words, Matt, especially after writing this a mere two months ago? And even more than that, why are you now backing the same selfish interests that you directly criticized the NCAA of when you wrote about expansion?”

In short: because it’s a win-win for everybody.

Let’s acknowledge for a second that the play-in game was going nowhere. Even though no one even remotely cared about Winthrop vs. Arkansas Pine-Bluff (except those associated with the schools) this past year, you never heard any rumor that the NCAA would go back to a 64-team field. That’s because you’d have to give up an at-large bid to do that since both were recipients of automatic births and likely cost yourself the presence of a big-name school.

I understand that logic, even if I disagree with it. But now, you’re going to tell me that one of the attractions of signing this TV deal for CBS/Turner was to have four of these games?

Nope, the draw is that you match up the bubble teams.

This accomplishes two things. First, it turns that Tuesday night of play-in games into a must-see event. Using teams suggested by ESPN’s Dana O'Neil, a quadruple header featuring Florida-Virginia Tech, UTEP-Illinois, Minnesota-Utah State and Mississippi State-Georgia Tech becomes instantly more palatable than the aforementioned match-up. I know that despite my protests against a larger field, I wouldn’t be against an extra day of meaningful basketball.

Second, from the NCAA’s side of things it gets us used to an extra round of games. According to CBS’s Gary Parrish, the NCAA hasn’t promised it won’t revisit expanding to 96 in teams in the future and I don’t doubt that. The jump to adding an extra round isn’t as great when you’re already used to an extra day.

I realize that my plan pushes us closer to the evil that is a 96-team field. But the reality is that if the NCAA wants it, it will come, no matter what we think. In the meantime, I just want 68 teams to be a great as it can possibly be.