64 not so magical for NCAA field

By John McGrath

Tacoma News Tribune

In a move that might generate less grassroots support than the nomination of Pauly Shore for surgeon general, college administrators are considering an expansion of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Nothing is official —an escape clause from a $6 billion television contract with CBS must be triggered — but don't be surprised if the 2011 tournament field is increased from 64 to 96 teams.

Critics already are howling at the notion of revamping a format they don't believe needs revamping, accusing the NCAA of meddling with the tournament to generate additional revenues (well, duh) and taking a cynical view of coaches who endorse the a-bigger-tournament-is-a-better-tournament theory. (If more teams advance, more head-coaching positions are preserved. Those rapscallions! They're willing to compromise the integrity of a beloved springtime ritual in order to enhance their job security!)

But the loudest outcry concerns the NCAA's apparent insistence on messing with perfection. The argument goes something like this: As 90 feet between bases is perfect for a baseball diamond, and 10 yards is perfect for a set of fresh downs in football, 64 teams — actually, 65, if we count the "play-in" game for the last seed — is perfect for a college-basketball tournament field.

It's obvious the status-quo has served the tournament well since the NCAA's last major expansion in 1985, when the field was increased from 48 to 64 teams. With 64 teams, there are no first-round byes, and the pace of extracting the fringe seeds from the cream is agreeable: From 64 to 16 teams over the first week, then 16 to four over the second week. Between Selection Sunday and the national-championship game, it takes only 22 days — roughly the length of a seven-game NBA Finals — to determine a winner.

If that's your idea of perfect, then yes, the NCAA tournament is perfect.

My only question is for such a perfect format, why is there so much moaning and groaning about the work of the selection committee every year?

Last March, for instance, the complaints began, oh, maybe a millisecond after the final first-round bracket appeared on TV.

When such traditional heavyweights as Kentucky (20-13) and Florida (23-10) are left out of the field, it's bound to cause some second-guessing. But when six schools representing mid-major conferences (Creighton, Davidson, Illinois State, Saint Mary's and Tulsa) aren't chosen despite winning at least 24 games, maybe it's an indication that a field of 64 isn't the paragon of perfection most fans believe it to be.

Expanding the tournament by 32 can't guarantee that selection committees will live happily ever after — a 96-team field means a 97th team will be disappointed.

As for fears that an extra 32 teams will render the regular season useless? Nonsense. There are now 347 Division I teams. So from a pool of 347 schools, only 64 — less than 20 percent — advance to the NCAA tournament.

That's far better than not only the NBA and NHL (a preposterous 53 percent postseason rate for teams) but also the NFL ( a more reasonable 38 percent) and even Major League Baseball, which allows only 27 percent to play on in October.

When was the last time you heard football or baseball fans wailing about how their favorite sport was doomed by a watered-down playoff system that rewards mediocrity?

So a 96-team field gives a tournament opportunity to have 28 percent of Div. 1 teams. Which is to say, college basketball still would be as discerning about who is worthy and who isn't of its signature tournament as big-league baseball is with its playoffs.

Granted, the appealing, easy-math process of whittling 64 teams to a Final Four, over the course of two action-packed weeks, would be tweaked. If the top 32 seeds are allowed a first-round bye, the remaining 64 teams can be pared down to 32 in two nights.

If two networks share the responsibility of broadcasting the tournament, there's no excuse for either network to produce a truncated version of any game.

More tournament teams is good for fans at home. And the television-broadcasting rights figure to swell from the $6 billion already guaranteed through 2013, so it's good for the athletic departments of schools contemplating the elimination of such non-revenue sports as wrestling and baseball from their programs.

It's good, most of all, for the guys who play basketball at places such as Missouri State. The Bears finished the 2005-06 regular season ranked No. 21 in RPI — record-performance index, the most accurate metric there is in college basketball — only to realize they weren't worthy of advancing to the NCAA's 64-team tournament.

If such a system is perfect, we've got to revisit the definition of perfect.