You're surprised to hear about ESPN's role in expansion?

This post can also be found at Beyond the Arc.

Like we've said over and over again, expansionocalypse is far from over.

For those that have been out of the loop over the Columbus Day weekend, here's a quick recap: TCU is expected to officially join the Big 12 today after receiving an offer from the league late last week; Missouri, who has been flirting with everyone from the Big 10 to the SEC over the last year, is trying to decide whether or not they will stay in the Big 12 and, more importantly, whether or not they actually have an offer from the SEC; and in an effort to try and shore up their league on the football front, the Big East is considering providing offers to Temple and Central Florida as well as Navy, Air Force and Boise State for football only.


Boise State and Air Force in the Big East? So now, not only does the Big 10 have 12 teams and the Big 12 have 10 until Missouri leaves (and who can forget about the 14 team Atlantic 10), but the Big East now has teams that are farther west that current members of the Pac-12 and the West Coast Conference. Because that makes sense.

But the most talked about information to come out this weekend came from this article in the Boston Globe. For folks that live in the Northeast -- particularly folks like me, who spent the weekend in the state of Connecticut -- the big news from that story was Gene DeFilippo, the athletic director at Boston College, freely admitting that he and his school had been the driving force in the ACC adding Pitt and not UConn, whom the league originally wanted.

"We didn't want them in," DeFilippo told the Globe. "It was a matter of turf. We wanted to be the New England team."

Perhaps more interesting, however, was a different quote DeFilippo gave Mark Blaudschun where he all-but confirms what realignment conspiracy theorists have been stating all along.

"We always keep our television partners close to us," DeFilippo said. "You don't get extra money for basketball. It's 85 percent football money. TV - ESPN - is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball."

Why did this take people by surprise? Look, we've known all along that the juggling of conference alliances has been about nothing more than the money that can be generated by football and their TV contracts. Last summer, the ACC negotiated a deal with ESPN to televise their games that was worth $1.86 billion over 12 years, or $155 million annually which, more or less, comes to about $13 million for each school. With Pitt and Syracuse joining the league, the ACC will be able to renegotiate with ESPN for a bigger deal. And you're surprised that folks at the ACC had some communication with ESPN over who would be the most valuable addition?

This entire process is about money. The ACC did their due diligence in finding out from the folks that they have a television contract with which additions would make their (the ACC's) product the most valuable. And, for the record, you're naive if you believe this is the first time that ESPN has pulled some strings and influenced a change in the conference landscape.

That's why it seems so hypocritical when the folks at ESPN criticize schools for switching conferences. The company that signs their year-end bonus checks is the one that plays the role of Adam Smith's invisible hand.

Yeesh. Is anyone else sick of this yet? I'm going back to sleep. Wake me up when its over.
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Conference realignment isn't over, its just on pause

If you follow the right people on twitter, than the last four or five days have been wild.

With every article that is published, every source that is quoted, and every theory that is floated comes a wave of speculation, analysis, and rumor-mongering. And its non-stop. Expansionocalypse is moving so quickly that in a matter of hours, the entire landscape changes. Trying to keep up to date is utterly exhausting.

The good news, however, is that late on Tuesday night, it looks like we've reached a resting point. For starters, the Pac-12 announced that they would not be expanding.

"After careful review we have determined that it is in the best interests of our member institutions, student-athletes and fans to remain a 12-team conference," Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement. "While we have great respect for all of the institutions that have contacted us, and certain expansion proposals were financially attractive, we have a strong conference structure and culture of equality* that we are committed to preserve. With new landmark TV agreements and plans to launch our innovative television networks, we are going to focus solely on these great assets, our strong heritage and the bright future in front of us."


(*Culture of equality, huh? Was that a cheap shot at Texas and the Longhorn Network? Methinks that's a yes.)

There's more. The Big East's seven football schools met and made a commitment to the conference while deciding to actively pursue replacements for the departed Pitt and Syracuse.

"Our membership met this evening," the Big East said in a statement, "and we are committed as a conference to recruit top level BCS caliber institutions with strong athletic and academic histories and traditions. We have been approached by a number of such institutions and will pursue all of our options to make the Big East Conference stronger than it has ever been in both basketball and football."


The reason I call this a resting point as opposed to a stopping point is that there are still decisions to be made. First and foremost, the SEC needs a 14th. As of Tuesday afternoon, most believed that Missouri was the SEC's top target after West Virginia had their application denied. But Missouri still wants the Big 12 to work out, so with the Pac-12's decision to stay at 12 teams, Missouri is forced into a holding pattern. They don't want to be responsible for the downfall of the conference and they want a piece of Texas A&M's exit fee while avoiding having to pay the fee themselves.

Second of all, both the Big 12 and the Big East have to find some level of stability. Its no secret that UConn wants out, and that notion was reinforced on Tuesday when a source informed the AP that the Huskies still want to follow Syracuse and Pitt to the ACC. Rutgers may also accept an invite from the ACC if the league wants to go to 16 schools, while Notre Dame to the ACC was also floated today. And even if the league somehow manages to keep all seven football playing members on board, they will still need to add at least one football-playing member to retain FBS status.

What does the Big 12 do to promote stability? Can Texas and Oklahoma ever learn to get along? With schools like Baylor and Iowa State be ok with the money Texas brings in from the Longhorn Network and unequal revenue sharing? Will the conference add BYU? What about snagging TCU from the Big East? Will anyone actually want to submit themselves to this kind of squabbling, in-fighting and sibling rivalry?

This is far from over.

And even if we reach a stale-mate this fall, where the team's shifting leagues are forced into a holding pattern, will that last? Is there enough trust between league presidents and conference commissioners to prevent another round expansionocalypse next year? Or next month? Or tomorrow?

I doubt it.
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Texas A&M to the SEC would only be the first rivalry to disappear

We knew that Texas A&M was interested in the SEC and vice versa thanks to this column from Andy Staples late Wednesday night.

Tonight, we found out from Chip Brown, the reporter for Orangebloods.com that has been owning realignment from Texas' end, just how serious Texas A&M is about going to the SEC. I'm not going to go into to much detail (click the link), but Gene Stallings -- the former Alabama football coach that won the 1992 national title -- is not a regent for Texas A&M an is pushing hard for the Aggies to move east, not west. The SEC wants A&M and Texas, broadening their scope for TV, and recruiting, into the Lone Star State.

The SEC is pushing hard to get both Texas A&M and Texas, but it seems like the Longhorns, along with Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech, are firmly committed to joining the Pac 10 11 16 league on the west coast.

This right here is exactly the problem with this expansion.

It would be a travesty if Texas A&M and Texas weren't in the same conference. College sports would be a joke if these two teams didn't play at least once every single season in every single sport.

Look, I understand that history is history, the past is the past, and tradition in this day and age is irrelevant. Nebraska, a charter member of the Big 8 that has been competing against schools like Missouri and Kansas since 1892, is leaving for the Big Ten without looking back because competing for 120 years doesn't matter when bridges have been burned and there is money to be made.

But Nebraska no longer had a real rival in the Big XII in football, and in basketball (which is irrelevant itself) the Cornhuskers were irrelevant.

Texas and Texas A&M matter. The Longhorns are always a top five football team, and have developed into one of the premier college basketball programs. Texas A&M became an offensive powerhouse in football under Mike Leach, and in basketball they are consistently a team that will battle for a top four or five spot in the Big XII standings and an NCAA Tournament berth.

When these two get together, it is must see TV in both sports.

I don't watch college football. I watch Texas play Texas A&M just about every year.

And now, because Texas A&M is tired of playing second fiddle to Texas and because Texas is tired of A&M believing they are allowed to think independently, we may end up losing this rivalry.

Its not the only one.

• Many believe that, once the dust settles, Kansas will end up in the Big East. Kansas State won't. So much for that rivalry.
• Barring a miracle (or a disaster, depending on how you look at it), Missouri and Kansas, and to a lesser degree Kansas and Texas, will likely end up in separate leagues. There goes another must-watch game.
• The Big East isn't in the clear, either. Syracuse and Pitt both have been rumored to be heading to the Big Ten for months, although some of that chatter has cooled of late. If either of those two leave, a lot off great matchups -- Pitt-West Virginia; Syracuse-UConn; Syracuse-Georgetown -- will cease to exist.
• And now, there is some talk of Maryland heading to the Big Ten. Its not that long ago that Duke-Maryland basketball games were almost as good as the Duke-UNC rivalry.
  

Granted, there will also be some great matchups created. Who wouldn't want to see Kansas come to the Big East, especially those of us that actually care about basketball? Texas/Oklahoma and USC should always be entertaining football games.

But there is a difference between entertaining games and rivalry games. If two top ten teams meet up in any sport, it will be intriguing to watch. Who doesn't enjoy two teams competing at the highest level of sport.

In a rivalry game, its not just that the opponents both want to win. The two teams genuinely hate each other, and that is fantastic television. The fans are rowdier, the atmosphere is more frenzied, and the players not only want to leave with a victory, they want to do so while giving their opponent a black eye.

That passion is what college sports is about.

Playing for the love of the game, regardless of what game that is.

Sadly, the conference commissioners apparently let their paper chase blind them of that fact.

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The Expansion Crisis 2010 Day 8: Updated as news comes in

9:48 am: The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that Colorado will accept an invitation to join the Pac-10 today.

Apparently, this will happen regardless of the dealings between Nebraska and the Big Ten.

If, somehow, the Big XII manages to stay together, the Pac-10 will add Utah, which has been reported on quite a bit, in order to become a 12 team league. That means two divisions and a Pac-10 conference championship game.

This stuff happens quickly. I bet we are far from done today. Hit the jump for more:

10:10 am: The Oklahoman is reporting that they were told by a high-ranking OU official to "load up your sun-screen." Its not difficult to see that as a thinly veiled reference to the Pac-10 and the west coast.

It looks like this is happening.

11:40 am: It's offical: Colorado is going to the Pac-10.

12:50 pm: As Stewart Mandel points out, Colorado's move signifies a bad end for the Big XII. The Buffaloes were unable to buyout the contract of football coach Dan Hawkins, but if the Big XII remains once the realignment axe is finished swinging, they will owe a $9 million fee for leaving the conference. If they couldn't afford, or didn't want to pay, the buyout, would they consciously decide to pony up the $9 million?

2:00 pm: The Big XII exodus continues. TMZ Sports is now reporting that Oklahoma State will be the third team to leave the conference, as they join Colorado in heading west. If that's true, then it likely ends all speculation that the four Texas schools were considering the SEC.

4:30 pm: A television station in Kansas City is now reporting that Texas and Texas A&M are headed to the Big Ten, Oklahoma is petitioning to join the SEC, and Oklahoma State will be joining the Pac-10. An earlier report from TMZ comfirmed Oklahoma State accepting an invite from the Pac-10. Texas and Texas A&M would be leaving Baylor and Texas Tech, as well as Missouri, to their own devices.

As far as UT and A&M are concerned, many are not buying the rumor. Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com, who has been absolutely dominating this story, tweeted earlier that any news about the two schools joining the Big Ten "would be news them." So take that scoop with a grain of salt.

5:00 pm: This is not exactly expansion related, but Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins has announced that he will be resigning at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. This comes on the heels of a federal investigation into a scandal involving scalped tickets, a scandal involving athletic equipment, a fight between his football and basketball teams, and the potential for the Jayhawks to be without a conference once realignment is complete.

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Expansionocalypse 2010: Nebraska makes the first move

In the world of college sports, 2010 will go down as the year of expansion.

It started with the NCAA Tournament, where we averted disaster -- despite article after article after article claiming otherwise -- when the NCAA opted to expand to 68 teams as opposed to 96. That was only the beginning.

For much of the spring, my twitter feed has been dominated by talk of the Big Ten reaching their money hungry little paws into the Big East in order to expand to 12, 14, or even 16 teams. Then came the talk that the Big Ten was also looking at adding Nebraska and/or Missouri from the Big XII. All hell broke loose when Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com reported that the Pac-10 was planning on sending out invites to six Big XII teams, including Texas and Oklahoma. Hard to believe that report came out exactly one week ago today.

What that report did was line-up the dominoes. It doused the current structure of college in kerosene.

And yesterday, we got the spark.

With the news once again being broken by Brown (who has been all over this story), it appears as if Nebraska now has a formal invite from the Big Ten, which the Cornhuskers will gladly accept. Nebraska was facing an ultimatum from the Big XII, declare your loyalty or else, which is likely why Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany extended the offer. An announcement is expected Friday.

Assuming this information is correct (As of now, nothing is official, and one would be wise to keep in mind that every single news outlet was operating under the assumption that the NCAA Tournament to 96 teams was a done deal. Nebraska is already denying the reports.), the question becomes what next?

The general consensus is that the six schools reportedly offered by the Pac-10 -- Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Colorado -- will accept if Nebraska does leave. The New York Times is reporting that Texas and Texas A&M are meeting today to discuss where to go from here.

Its no secret why Texas would want to leave. They will be able to make much more money from a television contract with the Pac-16 -- one that features themselves, Oklahoma, and USC, among others -- and as we all know, C.R.E.A.M. In fact, some believe this situation to be so ideal that Nebraska's decision to leave was a preemptive strike, cashing in on a Big Ten invitation before Texas ran off to the west coast a few years down the road with half of the Big XII in tow.

But that still doesn't mean that the Pac-16 is a foregone conclusion. I mean, this is Texas we are talking about. With the four football schools in Texas and the two in Oklahoma, those are a lot of very passionate eyes locked onto TV sets every Saturday afternoon. Even if Nebraska, Missouri, and Colorado leave, can't the Big XII bring in, say, Memphis, TCU, and BYU without hurting their standing as a football conference too much? Would there even be a huge drop off -- if any -- in the amount of money the Big XII can get if they restructure their television contract?

That may just be wishful thinking. It appears as if the Big XII will go the way of the Southwest Conference.

The other player here is the Big Ten, who likely will not stand pat with the addition of Nebraska. Delany has said that the Big Ten could "act and act again", meaning that while bringing in Nebraska was a necessary play, the league may take some time before making their next move.

Speculating about the Big Ten's next move is where things get complicated. Does the league stand pat at 12? Do they add Missouri, who has been quite open about their desire to join the Big Ten? Will they add any teams from the Big East? For months, Syracuse, Rutgers, UConn, and Pitt (this report says Pitt is not a likely target, but are you really going to believe a word that comes out of Jim Delany's mouth?) have been discussed as potential Big Ten invitees.

Here's where it gets interesting. Let's say the Big Ten does invite those four schools, or at least intimates that an invite in imminent. That would leave the Big East with just four football schools -- West Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati, and South Florida. Will the Big East be able to remain together? Its reasonable to think that the eight non-football schools can stick together as a basketball conference -- with programs like Villanova, Georgetown, and St. John's creating something similar to the A-10 -- but its seems unlikely the football schools would want to stick around.

Needless to say, it puts the Big East in a precarious situation. Is it possible that Notre Dame, a football independent but a Big East member for other sports, will see this developing and decide that they want to join the Big Ten? If the Big Ten gets Notre Dame, do they still want Nebraska? If they don't want Nebraska anymore, can the Big XII stick together?

The last aspect that needs to be considered is what happens to the Big XII's leftovers, specifically Kansas and Kansas State. Some reports are speculating that the Big East, so long as they don't lose four schools to the Big Ten, will try and add Kansas and Kansas State to remain a BCS conference. Others are speculating that the two schools could end up in the SEC. Baylor and Iowa State may have to settle for the MWC or the MVC.

Whatever the case may be, the next few days, weeks, and months are going to be one wild ride to follow.

College sports as we know it may have forever changed.

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The Pac-16, the vanishing Big XII, and why I want to vomit in my BLT

By now, you have undoubtedly heard about the Orangebloods.com report stating that the Pac-10 is set to offer six Big XII teams -- Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado -- membership. You also should know what the effects of a move like this may have in store for the face of collegiate athletics.

Six Big XII teams would be left, with Missouri and possibly Nebraska headed to the Big Ten. So Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, and Iowa State go to ... where exactly? The SEC? Does the Big Ten raid some of the Big East's football programs? Does the Big East scoop up the remainder of the the Big XII?

Who knows, but what you can be sure of is a defection from the Big XII would only be the first domino.

(Ed. Note: Here are way too many links to get you caught up on all the latest: RTC goes off; The Dagger says it all hinges on Texas; Missouri is listening to offers; Hopefully, conference realignment won't be breaking up some great rivalries; Dennis Dodd weighs in; the Big XII cancelled a presser yesterday ... yikes; the KC Star has an interesting anecdote; Larry Scott, the Pac-10 commissioner, issued a statement (somewhat) denying the Rivals report; but wait, the Big Ten wants Texas?)

The issue no one seems to be commenting on here is how little anyone regards basketball in this decision.

Everyone knows football is the money maker. Football is the sport that draws the television revenues, that puts 100,000 people into a stadium. Its the ability to televise a conference title game that has the Big Ten looking to expand. Its the possibility of airing football games on their own network that has the Pac-10 poised to become the Pac-16. (One thing I ask is that if realignment does happen, can we adjust conference names to fit? The Big Ten and the Pac-10 cannot be the Big Ten and the Pac-10 with 16 teams. The Big T-leven is bad enough, so is the Atlantic 14 and the Big East-ern-half-of-the-United-States.)

Go back to the second sentence of this post.

Look at the four teams that would be left without a conference affiliation should expansion go down as expected: Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, and Iowa State.

Kansas is a blueblood basketball program, one of the six most storied teams in the history of the sport. Jayhawk fans aren't as crazy or as vocal as Kentucky fans, but it would be tough to argue they are an less loyal. This is a team that is just 27 months removed from winning a national title, spent much of the '09-'10 season ranked No. 1, and returns a team good enough to compete for another Big XII title, and they not only have no where to go, but no where that would make much sense at all.

Kansas State, historically, isn't much of an athletics school. Neither is Baylor. But those two teams were the Big XII's representatives in the Elite 8 last season. Both are going to be top 10-15 teams this season. Frank Martin of Kansas State and Scott Drew of Baylor are two of the better up and coming coaches in the country, and both seem primed to build their respective schools into powerhouse programs for the coming decade. Where do they end up?

(As far as Iowa State is concerned, well, the Cyclones haven't been much in basketball since Tim Floyd, Marcus Fizer, and Jamaal Tinsley left. Can we convince ISU and Iowa to join the MVC, and let Kansas and Kansas State become Big Ten members?)

And what about the great rivalries?

Kansas and Missouri is one of the most entertaining basketball games each and every season. Kansas and Texas have both built up enough of a tradition that they are annually a must watch, even ifthey aren't "rivals" in the traditional sense. Baylor and Texas A&M have developed a pretty healthy dislike for each other over the past couple of seasons.

Instead, we'll get Texas and Oregon? Arizona and Oklahoma State? Stanford and Colorado? These sound entertaining? (Hint: NO!)

I'm not mad about it. I get it. Basketball is always going to play second fiddle to football, no matter the level of the game. That's just how it is. Forget baseball, these days football is america's past time. I love it too.

Its just depressing to realize that something that I -- and countless others around the country -- care about so passionately is actually nothing more than an afterthought to the people that make decisions.

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The only post you ever need to read about tournament expansion

Yesterday, the NCAA Tournament expanded to 68 teams, not the 96 team format we all expected and predicted. As you might imagine, there was quite a bit of shock regarding the decision.

We read way too much about college basketball, and just about everyone in the business had something to say regarding the expansion. Here is a semi-comprehensive list of all you need to read about the new 68 team tournament.

Dana O'Neil, ESPN.com: But 'for now' is better than 'for never' and 68 is a whole lot better than 96. So while the NCAA is riding the good-decision train, might we pose that the people in Indianapolis pay the goodwill forward even further by making the bubble teams play the real bubble games? Shaheen said that who plays in the additional games and how those teams will be selected won't be determined until the NCAA goes through the rest of its procedural channels. A likely announcement won't be made until this summer. Here's a solution: Let the last eight in play the first four games.

Rush the Court: While everybody is familiar with CBS’s work on the NCAA Tournament since they have broadcast every NCAA championship game since 1982, which involved a freshman named Michael Jordan hitting the game-winning shot, Turner’s association with college basketball is a little less well-known. When I say “less well-known” I mean that I am unaware of any prior association between Turner and college basketball.

Jeff Goodman, FOXSports: There were questions asked to the networks and NCAA about how the revenue is split. No one cares. The bottom line here is that the integrity of the NCAA tournament hasn't been compromised, fans will get an opportunity to see all the games and the regular season will still have some meaning. The new format hasn't been determined but will be discussed at a couple of future meetings and decided sometime this summer. There could be four play-in games instead of just one. Maybe it would be eight bubble teams battling it out for a shot at a 12-seed. Whatever they opt to implement, it can't be any worse than having to see a No. 24 seed in the Big Dance.

Luke Winn, SI.com: No matter how glorious this past NCAA tournament was -- the thrilling opening day, Butler's inspiring run to a hometown Final Four, and a title game that was good to the last shot -- it was difficult to leave Indianapolis without the feeling that something horrible was on the horizon. (By that, I don't mean back-to-back titles for Duke.) Gordon Hayward's missed half-courter was going to mark the end of the era of the 64/65-team tournament, as it gave way to a bloated bracket of 96. It was depressing to think that the most perfect postseason format in all of sports would be ruined for the sake of TV money, as the NCAA was opting out of its 11-year, $6 billion deal with CBS, in hopes of a bigger deal with a CBS/Turner conglomerate or ESPN -- and only a 96-team format would lure in the cash needed to support the NCAA's other 87 championships.

Gary Parrish, CBSSports: It was clear at the NCAA's Final Four press conference that the preferred expansion number was 96, if possible. And though it might've been impossible to implement in time for next season in terms of getting arenas or domes lined up, nobody's going to convince me that the overwhelming sentiment against a 96-team field didn't play a role in the decision to only move to 68. And that's not a shot at the NCAA. That's a compliment, because too often in sports people don't listen. We want our World Series games to start earlier so kids can actually watch them, and we want our college football champion to be decided with a playoff so every school has a shot, even if it's a long shot, at eternal greatness. But baseball doesn't care what we want because it can make more money doing it the way it does it, and the BCS doesn't care what we want because the people who run the BCS are short-sighted idiots. But the NCAA? The NCAA got this right.

Mike DeCourcy, The Sporting News: The news conference that felt like it should have been conducted in 3-minute rounds had been over a while, and NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen was on his way out of Lucas Oil Stadium. As he walked through the wide hallway toward the elevator, he came upon a group of journalists working hard to avoid sitting down to write. Though he'd just been through the verbal equivalent of a Manny Pacquiao TKO, as media covering the Final Four had pounded him over proposed NCAA Tournament expansion, Shaheen somehow was able to retain the wry sense of humor he'd carried into the afternoon. He called himself "the most hated man in college sports" with some sense of irony—and though everybody in the group chuckled, nobody corrected him. Now, he is college basketball's hero. It might have been Duke's Kyle Singler on April 5, but the rest of the offseason will belong to Shaheen, interim NCAA president Jim Isch and the other staff members who secured a $10.8 billion broadcast contract with CBS and Turner Sports for the NCAA Tournament without perverting the nature of the event.

John Gasaway, Basketball Prospectus: But the larger problem with yelling Greed! and Stupidity! at the NCAA was that it was entirely beside the point. The tournament could have been expanded by wholly selfless and highly intelligent people–and it still would have been a terrible and needless mistake. Not because we know for a fact that a 96-team field really would be such an unwatchable mess but because there is no earthly reason to jeopardize what an amazing number of people already agree is a nearly perfect thing. In their haste to hit the trusty and well-worn ”LOL NCAA” button, many writers lost sight of this story’s central truth. The tournament is the thing. BONUS fodder for conspiracy theorists! But wait! Does having 68 teams in 2011 really mean the tournament is safe? After all, the NCAA noted today that it can revisit the issue of expansion anytime they wish, and there’s already speculation that “they’ll jam [96 teams] down our throats eventually.” Of course if they do the irony will be just too delicious. The TV deal has been signed and the dollars are locked in for 14 years. Expanding now to 96 teams won’t change those dollars, meaning the NCAA would be acting to placate coaches, give more teams a shot, whatever. If they do so I will of course be enraged and you’ll find me back in my tree outside NCAA headquarters with my trusty bullhorn. Just don’t call it “a greed grab,” please.

Jeff Eisenberg, The Dagger: Instead of creating three more play-in games to decide which four No. 16 seeds get ritually sacrificed to the four the No. 1s, what if the NCAA uses the impending expansion to 68 teams as an excuse to get creative with the tournament's structure? What if the four play-in games each became matchups between bubble teams to decide the final four at-large bids in the field?

Pat Forde, ESPN.com: It's always perilous to predict what the mysterious NCAA hierarchy is thinking, but let's live dangerously for a minute. The leadership has done one of two things: 1. It purposefully overplayed the likelihood of a 96-team NCAA tournament field to make the expansion to 68 teams seem wonderfully palatable in comparison. 2. It actually listened to the severe and sincere backlash to the idea of a 96-team field and opted for safer ground. Whatever the case, I'll give the NCAA credit. It either was more savvy or more receptive than I had given the institution credit for previously. Either the NCAA played us perfectly to get what it wanted all along, or it retained an open mind and listened when every non-coach with a voice screamed in reaction to the specter of 96 teams, "Don't do it!"

Matt Norlander, The Dagger: It sort of felt like that moment when you cringe, cover year eyes and brace for the worse. And then nothing happens. You slowly loosen your muscles, peek between your fingers, and that doomed circumstance that seemed to be barreling upon you simply ceased to be. That's what happened when the news broke late this morning about our 2011 (and beyond?) 68-team field. Few could believe it, and after the realization seeped into our brains, many rejoiced.

Eamonn Brennan, ESPN.com: Today brought some fantastic news: Contrary to popular belief, the NCAA tournament isn't expanding to 96 teams. I know, right? Deep breaths. Sigh of relief. All that and more. Considering the widespread consensus that the NCAA's decision to opt out of its current contract with CBS and pursue a richer deal was pursuant on its new network having more NCAA tournament games to show, this news wasn't just pleasant. It was also surprising. In this case, who doesn't love a good surprise?

Matt Norlander, College Hoops Journal (must read): Now, we don’t know if it will be 68 teams for one year or 100. I think it’s safe to say we’ll have this model for at least a half-decade, though. Why? Because CBS and Turner (specifically, TBS) will flip-flop years for broadcast rights beginning in 2015. We may see a change to 96 come then. But let’s deal with that down the road. Many were all too certain that 96 teams were coming. In fact, the only writer who was consistently against that notion was Mike DeCourcy. So I applaud him for standing strong and proving to be right … at least for now.

Matt Norlander, The Dagger: We've had a joyous day, now let us return to cynicism. There's no telling how long we'll have a 68-team tournament, after all. The press release only states that the 2011 NCAA tournament will abide by the new rules. Come 2012, we could see the field in the form we fear the most: 96 teams. What are the chances of this? Can we deduce how the NCAA and its Board of Directors will act? No, but for those who may worry this slightly inflated field may not last long — or could be a stop-gap — I think there is a good chance we see the tournament stay as is for at least a half-decade.

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ESPN lost their bid to air the NCAA Tournament, but they still won today

I doubt that I was the only one that believed that the Worldwide Leader was destined to land the NCAA Tournament's broadcasting rights.

It only made sense. They have so many channels -- ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN U, ESPN Classic, ESPNNews, ESPN FullCourt -- they are able to stream the games online with ESPN 3, and they spend more airtime covering the sport than any other broadcasting company.

ESPN had a chance to completely take over college basketball coverage by landing the NCAA Tournament.

But they didn't. CBS teamed with Turner Broadcasting to win the rights.

Here is ESPN's release:

We made an aggressive bid and believe our combination of TV distribution, digital capabilities, season-long coverage and year-round marketing would have served the interests of the NCAA and college fans very well. We remain committed to our unparalleled coverage of more than 1,200 men's and women's college basketball games each season.

But the WWL wasn't a loser today.

In fact, the announcement of a 68 team tournament may have saved their coverage of the sport.

College basketball's regular season is a bit of an afterthought as it is. Any team with a shot at winning a title, and, with very few exceptions, any team capable of making the Final Four, will know that they are in the tournament by December. The most meaningful January and February games are usually played between teams like Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech, or Florida and Mississippi State. Teams that are not generally on the national radar, fighting for the last few 11 and 12 seeds.

With a 96 team tournament, those meaningful games would have been between teams in the bottom of the power conferences, or middling teams in mid-major leagues. How many people are really going to care about potential bubble battles between the 90th and 100th best teams in the country?

When the NCAA announced that they were going to expand to just 68 teams, they made sure that games played in November and December were still meaningful. They made sure that teams still needed to play a difficult non-conference schedule -- which sets up some of the best early season, non-conference match-ups -- if they want to secure a bid to the tournament. They ensured that there would still be fans interested in watching those games.

Those early season games are the ones that ESPN broadcasts.

A 68 team tournament also means that the conference tournaments and championship week are still as important as ever. Again, those are games that ESPN owns the rights too.

So while ESPN lost out on their bid for the NCAA Tournament, they still won today because the college basketball games that they do air still matter. There will still be great early season match-ups. Championship week will be just as important as ever.

And there will still be eyes on the television sets when there are games on ESPN.

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The NCAA Tournament expanded, but not the way we all thought

Earlier today, news was leaked that the NCAA had reached an agreement with CBS and Turner Broadcasting on a 14 year deal worth $10.8 billion to televise the NCAA tournament.

The news had most of us accepting our fate: that the NCAA Tournament would officially be expanding to 96 teams today.

Well, that lasted until the NCAA put out its official release:

Late Wednesday, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee unanimously passed a recommendation to the Division I Board of Directors to increase tournament field size to 68 teams beginning with the 2011 Championship.

All that talk about 96 teams? All that worrying? All those doomsday scenarios? The watered down NCAA Tournament? The end of a meaningful regular season in college basketball?

It all gets pushed to the back burner for at least a year, as the 2011 NCAA Tournament -- and hopefully possibly more tournaments in the future -- will be played with just three additional teams.

Is this what the new tournament will look like?

The basics:

• CBS opted out of the remaining three years of their current deal -- valued at $545 million a year -- for a 14 year deal worth right around $770 million per year. For the first time ever, every tournament game will be aired live on TV. CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV will share duties, and all four stations will use the same CBS television graphics and music we have become accustomed to. The only difference is that the CBS logo will be a TBS/TNT/TruTV logo.
  
• March Madness On Demand, which airs every game on a live-stream over the internet, will still be available. The only difference is that it appears that instead of the MMOD online studio hosts, each network's studio will be used.


• There will be four play-in games in the 68 team field. The question is who will be involved in the play-in games (more on that in a later post).


• The Final Four will be aired on CBS until 2016, when CBS and TBS will alternate years until the end of the deal in 2024.
  


• "For now." "Everything is on the table." Those are the quotes to remember, which came form the lips of NCAA president Jim Isch. There is no guarantee that a 68 team field will last more than one season. From Dana O'Neil:

  Sean McManus, president of CBS News and CBS Sports, added that, "We have flexibility in our deal to accommodate expansion if that happens," and Shaheen said that the new television agreement left field size totally at the discretion of the NCAA.

  So don't think that 96 is out of the question.

There are still a number of issues to be ironed out.

Who will be playing in the play-in games? Where will the play-in games be played? Does anyone know what "TruTV" is, and is it in HD? Can we ink Gus Johnson for a 14 year contract as well? Hell, this decision isn't even official yet. It is a proposal that the NCAA Board of Officials still has to approve on April 29th.

That doesn't matter.

What matters is that the NCAA is not pushing for a 96 team tournament just yet, which means that, for at least the short term, our beloved tournament is still recognizable.

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Big Ten expansion hasn't been accelerated, but it is inevitable, and college basketball won't matter

During the college hoops season, there was a little bit of talk about the expansion of the Big Ten and the Pac 10, and the resulting trickle down effect to some of the smaller conferences.

This week, that talk has exploded, as the Chicago Tribune reported that the expansion could happen as early as June. Around the country, writers and fan bases waited patiently to hear from Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany to speak at today's BCS meetings, hoping for some hint as too what schools could be added and when it could happen.

And what did Delany say?

A whole lotta nothin'.

"There are no announcements here and there are no notifications here," he said.
...
Delany said the expansion process remains in an early phase. He said it's too early to tell whether the 11-team conference would add one or as many as five teams. He said his thinking wasn't being heavily influenced by a desire to hold a conference championship game in December. He also said he doesn't know how quickly an expanded league could be put together.

He would not deny, however, that programs are being evaluated for their potential fit in the Big Ten.

"I didn't say we weren't at that phase," Delany said. "I said we are not at the phase of any need to provide notice to an institution, that we were in formal discussions with an institution."

USA Today was able to land an interview with Delany:

"We have not accelerated anything," Delany said, refuting a Chicago Tribune report late last week that the league had alteredstepped up its timetable. In revealing it would ponder adding topanding beyond its current 11 members, the Big Ten said in December that Delany would take 12-18 months to draw up recommendations to its council of school presidents and chancellors.

He met with those officers in conjunction with semiannual meetings of the Association of American Universities in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, but described the discussions as routine. While "I'm not saying it didn't come up," Delany said of expansion, he insisted it merely was one of several league issues addressed.
...
"We'll work with our athletic directors and our presidents. If there's a need to have formal discussions about expansion with another institution, we'll reach out," Delany said. "But we're still in the process of analyzing and gathering information, and we're not anywhere near what I would describe as formal expansion discussions with any member. We haven't changed anything, neither the timetable nor the process that was described."

The good news is that it seems as if the original timetable -- 12 to 18 months -- is still in effect. The bad news is that it seems as if expansion is a virtual certainty.

The frustrating part of this for hoopheads is that the effect this conference realignment will have on college basketball has all but been ignored. Instead, the Big Ten, which has its own TV network and thus much higher payouts to its member universities, is more concerned about adding valuable television markets and ratings-drawing football programs.

If Syracuse goes to the Big Ten, what does that mean for the rivalry between the Cuse and Georgetown? If Missouri switches leagues, will the Border War still exist?

It is a frustrating thing to think about, and not just because it is likely that this will happen.

It is frustrating because the effects that realignment will have on college basketball are about as relevant to the decision making process as the accessibility of a Starbucks should the commissioner decide to attend a game at one of the newly added schools.

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So expansion is happening

Even before Jim Delany said that expansion was "probable" yesterday, I had all but resigned myself to the fact that it was happening. And while I think the 65 team format is worlds better, it is what it is, and there are some things to like about the new format. We can complain about it now, but we all know that we will be watching the games.

That said, I have no problem ripping the NCAA. Today in Indianapolis, Greg Shaheen, the NCAA senior vice president of basketball and business strategies, spoke at a press conference and essentially told us that the NCAA Tournament would, in fact, be expanding.

Specifically, he said that formats for 65, 68, 80, and 96 team tournaments were discussed, but during the press conference he went deep into specifics about just the 96 team tournament. Shaheen spent a lot of time trying to justify expansion, giving a list of reasons that you no doubt have heard before. You can read the entire transcript here (and for hoop-heads like myself, it is more than worth it), but this is the part of the presser that had everyone talking. Here is the format for the 96 team event:

The model that has been talked about a great deal, the 96-team model, looks as follows:

It starts on the same day. Technically speaking it starts two days later than the current championship because it would eliminate the opening round game. Rather than starting on Tuesday, it would start on Thursday. Start at the same time as the current championship does. It would conclude on the same day. It would conclude on Monday that the current championship does, as well.

It would not require any more competition venues. In fact, it would require one fewer venues in terms of what we normally operate with now.

In terms of days away from class and time away from class and campus, the models that we have studied, depending on which you look at, offer an equal or lesser amount of travel and time away from campus based on a comparison model in looking at the 96-team model.

You notice he doesn't mention anything about the second week. John Feinstein called him on it, and the following took place:

Q. Greg, you laid out in great detail the travel schedule for the first week. Just so I'm sure I have it right, you're going to play the round of 64 Saturday/Sunday, correct?
GREG SHAHEEN: Uh-huh.

Q. So you didn't lay out the travel schedule for the second week when presumably teams will be playing Monday/Tuesday, then winners would go almost directly to regionals on Thursday/Friday, if that's the schedule as I think it is.
GREG SHAHEEN: It's one of several models that exist. But actually it doesn't necessarily mean that the play continues on Monday/Tuesday. Actually, depending on the structure, there can be a break on Monday so that a team that, for example, is playing Saturday could play Saturday, then Tuesday. So they would have both Sunday and Monday without games.

You also have to keep in mind that on any day of competition, you're losing half the field. Half of the teams are losing and returning home. So, for example, in the first four days of the championship, whereas right now you go from 65 during that time to 16, here you go from 96 to 32. So the majority of teams by number will be back home at that point in time.

But then for the teams that do advance, they would play -- they could play that Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, for example, going into regional week.

Q. To follow up, if you're going Saturday/Tuesday, Sunday/Tuesday then with the teams that advance if they're playing Saturday/Sunday games, right?
GREG SHAHEEN: They would play Saturday/Tuesday.

Q. So you're not going to play any games on Sunday of the first weekend?
GREG SHAHEEN: No. You'd play half the games on Saturday, half the games on Sunday.

Q. The Sunday teams that advance would play on Tuesday or are you saying Wednesday?
GREG SHAHEEN: Wednesday.

Q. Basically they'll be out of school an entire week the second week?
GREG SHAHEEN: Actually, if you were to look at the window for each individual team, you have to take each team and contemplate the fact right now you have half the field leaving campus on Tuesday, returning on Sunday or Monday.

Q. If they lose. I'm talking about the teams that win in advance. You're going to advance 16 teams.
GREG SHAHEEN: No, actually in the current model you have teams that depart on Tuesday, and even if they win, return on Sunday.

Q. We're misunderstanding each other. Under the new model that you laid out, you play 64 teams Thursday/Friday. 32 advance to games Saturday/Sunday. Then you are down after those games to 32 teams.
GREG SHAHEEN: Right.

Q. You're saying you play games in the round of 32 Tuesday/Wednesday. They would then advance to regionals when?
GREG SHAHEEN: They would continue into the regional as it's normally scheduled now.

Q. So they would go Tuesday to Thursday, Wednesday to Friday?
GREG SHAHEEN: Right.

Q. So they miss an entire week of school. That's what I'm trying to get.
GREG SHAHEEN: If you listened to my original answer, they leave now on Tuesday.

Q. I'm talking about the second week, not the first week. They play a game Saturday/Sunday, play a game Tuesday or Wednesday, then go directly to the regional. Tell me when in that second week they're going to be in class.
GREG SHAHEEN: The entire first week, the majority of the teams would be in class.

Q. You're just not going to answer the question about the second week. You're going to keep referring back to the first week, right? They're going to miss the entire second week under this model.
GREG SHAHEEN: So they're going to go to school the first week, and then they're --

Q. They're going to be under the same schedule you said basically the first week, and then they'll miss the entire second week.
GREG SHAHEEN: I'm clearly missing the nuance of your point.

Q. You and I miss nuances a lot. Thank you.
BOB WILLIAMS: Next question, please.

So let me get this straight. We still have a BCS system because the NCAA doesn't want kids to miss additional class time for a football tournament, but they have no problem making the teams that advance in the basketball tournament miss a week of class? And correct me if I'm wrong -- I've been out of college for a couple of years -- but isn't this right when midterms usually occur? Explain to me how that makes any sense.

Did you notice in the transcript that Shaheen refused to directly answer the question of scheduling for that week?

And the NCAA isn't all about making money. Right.

At this point we should just call it like it is and pay these players.

For more analysis about the presser, check the twitter feeds of Pat Forde and Gary Parrish

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Maybe 96 teams isn't so bad after all...

This is probably going to get me ripped. To be honest, I can't believe I'm actually about to type the words I am going to type. This here column may get me banned from the internet, or at the very least suspended from all online activity for conduct detrimental to hoop-heads worldwide. If I end up the pariah of the blogosphere, a heretic that will be black-balled from all future linkage, I'll have to accept that I, in fact, brought it upon myself.

Here it is.

You ready for it?

I think I am warming up to the idea of a 96 team tournament.

(Keyword: think)

This may be the last time you actually see this bracket.
(photo credit: ESPN)

Yesterday, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany stated that he believed that NCAA tournament expansion to 96 teams was probably, a kick to the already-sore-collective-groin of college hoops junkies.

I've been vocal in my displeasure with the tournament expansion talk. I think everyone has. But for the first time this afternoon, I actually really sat down and thought about it.

And I wasn't disgusted.

I may just be reaching the fifth stage of grieving -- acceptance -- but hear me out.

For starters, the way that it seems to be playing out is that the first weekend of the tournament will turn into the first week. 32 teams -- the top eight seeds from each region -- will get a bye, while 64 more teams will play a play-in game for the last 32 spots on that Tuesday and Wednesday. The Round of 64 and the Round of 32 will continue to be played on the same Thursday-Sunday schedule.

In other words, we won't just be getting 16 games over the course of 12 hours on Thursday and Friday, we will be getting it on Tuesday and Wednesday as well. I'm always a fan of midweek, noontime college hoops. West coasters can pull for an upset while sipping their Starbucks. The only people really hurt by that are the bosses who would have to deal with their employees watching MMOD.

The team's that would be joining the tournament are essentially the teams that would be in the NIT. Typically, the NIT is where you are banished when your team simply isn't good enough, right?

Right. But the NIT has been kind of exciting this season, especially the first round. Memphis beat St. John's on a buzzer beater. Jacksonville banked in a three to beat Arizona State, an eight seed knocking off a one seed. Kent State beat Tulsa in the final minute, while UConn went down to the wire against Northeastern.

Hell, we even had some outrage, albeit minor, over a call in the NIT semis last night.

Look, I'm not saying that this was great basketball. I'm not even saying it was good. But it was exciting. It was fun. The theory right now is that the NIT would essentially be folded into the NCAA's. If the teams came to play in the NIT opening round, you better believe that they would come to play in the NCAA's.

Now imagine if one of those teams makes a run into the second weekend. How long would it take to see a team get three first weekend wins? You're telling me you wouldn't be intrigued by a 20 seed playing a five seed for the right to go to the Sweet 16? Talk about a cinderella story.

Another argument against expansion is that it makes the regular season meaningless. If the NIT is truly being folded into the NCAA Tournament, then that means that all conference regular season champions will be getting automatic bids to the Big Dance as well as the tournament champions.

And believe it or not, there is still going to be a cut line. There won't be 12 ACC teams in the Big Dance. The Big East isn't sending all 16 teams from the conference to the tournament. They may get nine or ten, but there is still going to be a bubble. Its just further down the totem pole.

There is also another dynamic here as well. The bye line.

Perhaps the most interesting race in the college basketball regular season is for conference tournament byes. If Georgetown is the nine seed instead of the eight seed in the Big East tournament, do they still make the finals playing that extra game? Three games in five days is a tough thing to do, let alone three NCAA Tournament games. It will wear on you mentally and physically. For a team at the 8-9 cut line, the difference could be a real shot at upsetting a #1 seed.

No, the regular season is going to matter quite a bit.

I love the tournament the way it is set up. Its nearly perfect the way it is (that stupid play-in game). If it were up to me, I wouldn't change a thing.

But its not up to me. And it is looking more and more likely that this is going to happen.

Maybe its time we all just accept our fate, make the best of it, and move on.
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Public Opinion: Tournament Expansion

Every sport has "hot-button issues". For the NFL, it's concussion safety and collective bargaining agreements, The MLB's is obviously steroids, and college football has the BCS debate. No college hoops topic has been more "hot-button" this year than tournament expansion talk.

Nearly every blogger, columnist, analyst, commentator and coach has voiced their opinion on the matter in some fashion. But after 3-4 months of discussion, it is very easy to forget who said what, who was for it and who was vehemently against it.

We are here to help draw that line in the sand. I could sit here and tell you my opinion on the matter, but somebody probably already said what I was thinking in a much more educated and constructive manner.. It's a much better waste of my time to construct a list of the coaches and media-type who have addressed the matter.

Coaches

Scott Drew - Baylor

I think we should expand even more. Go up to 128. I've thought that for several years. There's that many good teams, and it gives everybody one more game.

To everyone who says, 'What about a missed class?'—trust me, those players would trade a day of class for a chance to play in this tournament any day.

Jim Boeheim - Syracuse

I've been for expansion for years. The NCAA tournament has always been expanded when there's been a need. It started out with eight teams and then went to 12, to 16, to 24, to 32, to 48, to 64.

I mean, it's been expanded seven or eight times. Expansion is nothing new. And we're in the longest time between expansions in history. The fact is, we have better teams. We have more good teams than ever before. And they should get the chance to play in the Tournament.

Paul Hewitt - Georgia Tech

We have [347] Division I teams now, and only 65 are going. We've increased it by one since 1985. That just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

It should be expanded. The obvious cry is going to be, ‘Well, coaches are just trying to save their jobs.' I look at the bowl season, and I see that 50 percent of the teams play in bowl games. And I see the emotion those kids have after they win a bowl game, how good they feel about themselves. That should be a part of college basketball. I think you should have more kids participate in the NCAA tournament.

Billy Donovan - Florida

I felt bad for our kids the last couple of years. You’re right there, a game or two away from maybe being in and then they don’t get a chance to go.

And then there’s a perception that if you’re in the NIT, it’s quote-unquote a loser’s tournament. And I think that any time you expand something, where you’re playing for that main trophy that everyone’s trying to play for, I think it’s always good to have more opportunities for more people.

Bruce Pearl - Tennessee

I think the public conversation is great; I can’t believe it starts in January. But you’ve got a lot of good teams that aren’t going to make the tournament every year; this year might be the most in a long, long time.

Now I know the purists, and I’m one of them, are going to say, ‘If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. It’s a great tournament, don’t lessen the quality.’ My favorite weekend … is the first weekend. It’s all those crazy matchups that just have you glued. We’ll still have that if 32 teams get a bye and you pick it up from there.

When you’ve got 20-something win teams not going to the NCAA tournament and you’ve got 6-5 really bad football teams going to the toilet bowl, it’s not equal. I do think we need some expansion. Is 96 teams too many? Maybe. … I’ve gotta represent my side of things. … Right now, for fans, making the NCAA tournament doesn’t mean anything. They just expect you to make the NCAA tournament It’s HARD to make the NCAA tournament.

Jay Wright - Villanova

There are so many great teams, and I think coaches' jobs are being determined on whether they are picked in the 65 rather than are they are doing a good job. If more teams got into the tournament, I think you could see coaches concentrate on what they all want to do, and that is teach and educate.

Al Skinner - Boston College

I can’t be against it because coaches are penalized tremendously for not making the tournament.To me, too much attention is paid to (making the tournament), but I understand it because everybody needs dollars and it generates dollars. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about.

Greg Marshall - Wichita State

My point is, that's ridiculous. Obviously there's the bias that the 7th place team in a BCS league is better than the second or third place team in our league. With the non-conference performance from our league this year and the wins we have against BCS teams, I just don't think that's the case.

Rod Barnes - Georgia State

You have teams with great records being left out. When these kids play on teams that have won 23 and 24 games but don't get in because their team didn't win their conference tournament, I just don't agree with that. I just think that if you go out every night and play decent against the teams that are on your schedule and in your conference and you win 23 and 24 games, you should get in.

Oliver Purnell - Clemson

George Mason could have easily been left out. Obviously, they're a deserving team. If you expand it, you decrease the possibility of leaving out more deserving teams.

Rick Barnes - Texas

You see what expansion has done around the country in all these leagues, in some ways it's diluted it. I don't know that there is a benefit. You talk about expansion, but it does start in your conference tournament. That's really the beginning of the N.C.A.A. tournament.

Pat Knight - Texas Tech

If you're talking about adding more teams, I don't think the games would change a bit. They'd be just as competitive and I think you'd see more Cinderella stories, more teams people didn't think had a chance and there'd be a lot more upsets if the NCAA expanded the tournament.

Mike Krzyzewski - Duke

That would add more relevance to the regular season, instead of just having big games being bracket busters and things like that.I could see it going to 96, but if they do, I would like to see the regular season champs rewarded. That would give the conferences who don't get more than one bid a chance to have two bids. If you expand, you would want that to happen.

Ken Bone - Washington State

I think it makes it a really special tournament when only 64 get in. I really like the way it is right now.

Ben Jacobson - Northern Iowa

I like it where it's at. I like the 65. Obviously it's difficult to make that field but that's why it's the best sporting event of the entire year, regardless of college or professional.

Mark Few - Gonzaga

I like the way the tournament is right now. I think it's an honor when that name flashes up there on Selection Sunday. It's a sense of accomplishment -- not everybody gets invited. I mean, just think of the teams that aren't going to make it this year.

To reach the tournament should be a very special accomplishment. There are not 96 teams that are deserving to go.

Bruiser Flint - Drexel

I can understand why they might say it and want it, but I like it the way it is. With the NIT the way it is now [40 teams], you're putting 100 teams in the postseason. That's about one-third of Division I. Sixty-four teams gives it a little bit of legitimacy.

Jim Calhoun - UConn

The basketball tournament takes 98 percent of all the money the NCAA makes; it's another way in which they can use basketball to take money. If I thought it benefited the student-athletes and, most importantly, benefited basketball ... I'm opposed to it only in the sense that it means we'll make 99 percent of the money. That's the only reason I'd be necessarily opposed to it because I just don't think everything should be on our back.

I know that's a funny, different answer, but I think it's the reason they want to go to 96 because it's so many more games being televised which means advertising spots during those times.

Mark Fox - Georgia

Having come from a school [Nevada] where we looked at that process very closely, I think the NCAA tournament would be best served and most easily adjusted by going to 68 teams. You would not have to add any more TV weekends. You wouldn't have to change the basic structure of the tournament.

Usually there are not many more than one or two teams that have a legitimate argument about being left out. I don't think you should dilute the tournament by going much bigger than that.

There are not 96 programs that schedule in the non-conference in a way that says they're dying to get to the NCAA tournament and are willing to do what it takes.

Thad Motta - Ohio State

The greatest thing I ever heard was from John Wooden and he said, ‘People put too much emphasis on the last game of the year.’ There is so much excitement along the way and I think that we lose the sight of what’s happening now as it’s all geared toward getting into the NCAA Tournament. There is so much great basketball to be played in the month of February and even in early March.

[A larger tournament] allows you to be a little more risky in your non-conference schedule. We’ve [played] Tennessee, we’ve done Florida and we’ve done LSU, but you can get out and do those things a little bit better and know that you’re going to be rewarded.

Bill Carmody - Northwestern

If you expand it this much, it seems like you'd dilute it a little bit.

Doug Elgin - Commissioner of Missouri Valley Conference

The early rounds are the riveting part of the tournament. If we had an expansion, it would deepen the tournament in the middle. You're going to see much more balance and maybe more upsets in these first and second round games. I know there's going to be whining and moaning when the 97th and 98th teams don't get in, but right now, they're leaving out a lot of teams that are worthy.

Bernadette McGlade - Commissioner of Atlantic-10

I'm a proponent of the tournament expanding. There's so much parity in the game today, it's become necessary.

The Media

Gene Wojciechowski - ESPN

Yes, of course, we should absolutely expand the NCAA men's basketball tournament to 96 teams. And while we're at it, let's rework the opening of Clapton's "Layla," tell Penelope Cruz she needs a nip and tuck, and replace all the azaleas and pines at Augusta National with strip-club signage.

Tracee Hamilton - Washington Post

It's so great, it's co-opted the name of an entire month. We don't have April Ennui or May Mania or December Delirium. Well, we may have all those things, but they aren't official national monikers. March Madness is. As the great Andy Williams sang, "It's the most wonderful time of the year."

So of course the NCAA wants to screw it up.

The good ol' NCAA, the burr under the saddle of college sports, is considering expanding the men's basketball tournament field from 65 to 96 teams. This would lengthen the tournament by a week, give the top 32 seeds a first-round bye and make zillions of dollars for the NCAA and some lucky TV network, probably ESPN.

In other words, this is the worst idea in the history of ideas. Well, Jay Leno at 10 p.m. was the worst idea in the history of ideas. This is the worst idea in the history of sports ideas, and that includes the Bowl Championship Series, the previous leader in the category.

John Feinstein - Sports Illustrated, Washington Post

The important part of the story concerned the make-up of the tournament. Apparently the NCAA is looking into expansion—going from the current 65 teams to 96 in order to add a week of TV that would add more money to the new contract.

I can’t call this the worst idea I’ve ever heard because the BCS still exists. But it is a solid No. 2.

Chris Chase - The Dagger

It would be a flop on par with New Coke, the Edsel or Adam Morrison in the NBA: The NCAA is exploring the possibility of expanding the field of the NCAA tournament.

It's the worst idea the NCAA has ever had, and it has had a bunch of them. Decisions based solely on financial reasons inevitably fail. And since money is the only -- ONLY -- reason the NCAA would consider expanding the tournament, this would be a disaster. (And that's assuming expansion would make money, which I don't think it would in the long run.)

Seth Davis - Sports Illustrated, CBS

Do. Not. Expand.

I'm sure you've heard about the crusade led by coaches such as Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and Georgia Tech's Paul Hewitt to get more teams into the NCAA tournament. Their central argument is that, aside from the addition of the opening round game in 2001, the tournament has not expanded since it went to 64 teams in 1985. But when you actually sit down, crunch the numbers and try to find 34 teams deserving of an at-large bid, the problem isn't that you have too many good teams to choose from. The problem is you don't have nearly enough. As you look at all the résumés, all you can see are warts.

Pat Forde - ESPN

In what might be the dumbest idea since "Rocky VI," a movement has emerged to double the size of the NCAA Tournament to 128 teams.

If you want to know how galvanizing the 128-team tournament might have been, scan the final pre-tournament RPI from the 2005-06 season. When you reach triple digits, cue the CBS tournament theme music in your head and feel your pulse pound as you envision the Drexel Dragons taking the floor in the first round.

That's 15-16 Drexel, the No. 128 team in America.

Do you want to be the guy who draws up the bracket for this thing? Plans the sites, does the seeding, arranges the team hotels, the practice schedules, the interview schedules? It's a mammoth undertaking as it is. Doubling it for the sake of Siena and UMass is silly.

Gary Parrish - CBS

I never want to hear about expanding the NCAA tournament field again.

Never.

And when I say never, what I mean is as long as I live -- plus as long as my 6-year-old son lives -- plus as long as all eight of Octo-Mom's kids live -- and then like 600 more years after that. Seriously, never again. Because it's ridiculous. So ridiculous, in fact, that I'm ready to cut the field of 65 to 32 -- just give automatic bids to the champions of the 16 best leagues, then dish out 16 at-large bids and call it a day.

I have no desire to watch 65 schools be rewarded with a trip to the NCAA tournament when roughly 30 of them are mediocre. And if you sat around Wednesday night watching college basketball and tracking scores right here at CBSSports.com, then you know why I feel this way, and you probably feel this way, too.

John Gasaway - The Mid-Majority

Personally, I am very leery of changing the tournament, for the simple reason that when you find yourself in the rare and treasured moment of having something that you actually venerate, you don't set about knocking down walls and adding whole new wings. Careful preservation and simple upkeep are enough.

To the depths of my sports being, I am hard-wired with the same protective impulse that drives this outrage. No, the 65-team tournament isn't perfect, but then again neither are any of us. Good grief, I watched this tournament for years--decades--when it was announced by Billy Packer. Need I say more? March Madness is quite simply the gold standard to which all other American team-sport postseasons are held. (Ask college football.) You don't trifle with the gold standard lightly.

Jeff Eisenberg - The Dagger

Have you ever had an inkling that something awful was about to happen and you were powerless to stop it? That's the way I feel about the possibility of the NCAA Tournament expanding to 96 teams.

Andrew Sharp - SB Nation

Oh, right. It's always good to have more opportunities for people. We should just go ahead and expand to 128, just to make sure not a single underachieving team (like Florida the past few years) ever gets left out of the NCAAs.

Like last year, the Florida team that started 16-2, and then finished the year losing five of eight in an SEC down year. That team totally should've made the tournament. Nick Calathes!!

In college basketball, there are no true losers. And you know what that means? Everyone gets a spot in the tournament... AND a trophy!

Darren Everson - Wall Street Journal

The NCAA is in the very early stages of exploring making changes to its men's basketball tournament. One idea that's been batted around: expanding it to 96 teams. Here's a simple suggestion: Stop exploring. Start doing.

Expanding the 65-team tournament—the NCAA's universally beloved, crown-jewel property—is the biggest no-brainer in sports right now. Far bigger, even, than all the talk of imposing a playoff on college football.

Most important of all, adding an extra round or stage to the tournament would mean an extra helping of what fans love most about the event: the early rounds, the unpredictable festival of games that go on all day and create wild excitement all across the country.

Gregg Doyel - CBS

You don't want the NCAA tournament to expand because you're used to it the way it is.

Never mind that the NCAA tournament has been at 65 teams only since 2001. And that before that, it was at 64 teams for 16 years. Before that? It was 53 teams for one year. After being 52 teams for one year. And 48 teams for three years. And 40 teams for one year. And that takes us back to just 1979.

The NCAA tournament started with eight teams in 1939, but grew to 16 in 1951, then to 22, and to 25 and to 32 in 1975. Then came 1979, and those 40 teams.

You follow? Expansion won't hurt the tradition of the NCAA tournament -- expansion is the tradition of the NCAA tournament. So if tradition is your biggest concern here, I'm sorry, but you just lost.

There's not a single valid argument against the NCAA tournament growing to 96 teams.

So If you are keeping score at home, Thats 12 coaches/commissioners for expansion and 10 of them against expansion with three undecided.

Obviously the media was less welcoming of the idea of a 96-team post-season. Seven journalists are avidly against expansion, while just two media people are for some sort of expansion.

While this list could have been as long as Kelvin Sampson's cell phone bill, I think after reading nearly 50 quotes, you should get the picture: some coaches like it, others don't, but everybody watching it thinks it 's the dumbest idea since the XFL.
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NCAA Tournament expansion will probably happen, the only question is where we will watch it

Talk of the NCAA Tournament expanding has been bubbling for months, but on Monday it exploded, as Sports by Brooks quoted a source at ESPN as saying

It's a done deal with the expansion of the tournament. Depending on how soon a (TV) deal is done, the added teams could start next year. The NCAA confirmed that bidders would be interested in 96 teams, so they're going with it.

If you think that is bad, it only gets worse. Sports Business Journal was able to obtain a copy of the Request for Proposal put out by the NCAA. For those with weak stomachs, you may want to avoid the following blockquote.

The NCAA has its sights set on expanding from a 65-team tournament to either 68 or 96 teams if it opts out of the CBS contract, according to the 12-page RFP.

According to SBJ, CBS, Turner Sports, Fox, and ESPN have all shown interest in making a bid for the Tournament's rights. The NCAA has three years left on their current deal with CBS, worth $2.131 billion, but have a clause in their contract that allows them to opt out after this year.

Jeff Goodman was able to catch up with Greg Shaheen, who SBJ names as spearheading the campaign for expansion. Shaheen said all the right things -- "Nothing is a done deal. ... We're talking with parties who have interest. ... We have to look into it, but we don’t even know if we'd do it. Just because we're checking into it doesn't mean we’re going to do it. ... It's part of our due diligence" -- but as John Gasaway points out, this is all smoke and mirrors:

Due diligence requires looking at all contingencies, but if Ourand and Smith are correct none of the scenarios that the NCAA is currently reviewing involve what is usually the baseline course of action, the status quo. Keep in mind an RFP is the least spontaneous and most vetted document known to humankind. Add to that the fact that an RFP coming from a bureaucracy like the NCAA would be even less spontaneous and even more vetted. And add to that the fact that an NCAA RFP concerning an event that will bring in several billion dollars over the 14-year term of the contract would be even less spontaneous and more vetted.

The bottom line is that the NCAA is always about the bottom line. Are they making money, and how much of it is coming in? The sad truth is that the NCAA Tournament is where the overwhelming majority of the money is made during the college basketball season, from the lucrative television deal to the tickets sold at the door to the merchandise sold at the games to the advertising dollars.

You don't think that adding an extra 31 games is going to bring in more money, more viewers, and more ticket sales? And you think the NCAA really cares about lowering the quality of the event?

The NCAA views it like this: those extra 31 teams that will get bids to the tournament all have fan bases. Every one of those fan bases is going to follow their team's run through the tournament whether they are the 60th team or the 90th team. To think otherwise is preposterous, which is why the NCAA will look to expand despite to outcry from die-hards like myself claiming an inferior product.

The issue with this line of thinking is that the NCAA completely ignores the reason that the tournament is so popular. Namely, the bracket. I've written about this before:

While the basketball is always great, with story books to be written and legends to be made and buzzers to be beaten, what draws in so many random fans (casual fans would be watching regardless, random fans are the people that show up just because they filled out a bracket) is the bracket. Think about it. By printing out this one Tournament Tree that perfectly fills an 8X11 piece of paper and picking 63 winners, all of a sudden every "random fan" that has never heard of John Wall or Coach K, that thinks a pick-and-roll is the most effective way to dispose of a booger, that makes their picks based on how well the team's colors would match their bedset, now has a dog in every fight.

They now have a reason to cheer and yell and scream and get into each and every game on TV. It doesn't matter that they don't know the names of the players, the coaches, or even the team. All that matters is that they picked the blue team, and the blue team has the ball, down by one with 30 seconds left.

Seriously, take a second and think about the pools you entered last season. How many people filled out a bracket that knew absolutely nothing about college basketball? And how many of those people ended up watching the tournament, or portions of it, simply because they had filled out a bracket?

Quite a few?

How many of those people will still fill out a bracket when it involves two pages of games? And if they don't fill out a bracket, how many of those people will still watch the tournament?

The funny thing is that I'm not even against expansion. I actually think that it would be a good move for the NCAA to expand to 68 or 72 teams. Instead of making the one play-in game seem like a consolation prize for the two worst teams in the field, have all the 15 and 16 seeds be play-in games. Instead of having just one game in Dayton on the Tuesday before the tournament starts, there can be two days of quadruple-headers. Not only does it open up three or seven more spots in the tournament, it gives the NCAA a chance to advertise, sell tickets, sell television rights, etc. for two more days chock full of hoops.

Want to make it even more interesting?

Instead of having the play-in games be for the 15 and 16 seeds, make the play-in games be for the 11 and 12 seeds, which generally end up being the last eight spots for at-large teams. Look at last season. You don't think that people would have been excited for games like Creighton-Arizona? St. Mary's-Maryland? Florida-Wisconsin?

The most ironic part in all of this talk of tournament expansion has nothing to do with basketball.

By expanding to 96 teams, the NCAA is only going to take more college students out of class for that much more time during March.

Isn't missed class time the NCAA's main argument as to why the BCS is still around?

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