The NCAA continues to inch closer to a major expansion of March Madness by announcing how a 96-team tournament would be set up.
NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen outlined this possible schedule on Thursday.
- As previously suggested, the format would include first-round byes for the top 32 teams in the field while seeds nine through 24 would play in a new first round.
- The Tuesday play-in game would be eliminated
- The new first round would be played on Thursday and Friday.
- The teams that advance would play on Saturday and Sunday, matching up against teams that sat out the new first round.
- The round of 32 would then be played on Tuesday and Wednesday.
- As with the current format, the Sweet Sixteen would be played on the second Thursday and Friday of the tournament, with the teams playing Tuesday in the Thursday bracket and Wednesday winners playing on Friday.
The format successfully shoe-horns another round of games in the space of three weeks — which minimizes disruption of the conference tournaments and Selection Sunday and avoids a potential conflict with The Masters golf tournament, which CBS televises the weekend after the Final Four every year.
But playing mid-week games raises other concerns. At this point, the NCAA hasn’t determined if the Tuesday/Wednesday games will be played at the first-round sites or the regional sites. Either way, the proposed new schedule virtually eliminates any chance that players on those teams will see the inside of a classroom during the second week of the tournament — a point that John Feinstein of The Washington Post raised during the press conference and Shaheen attempted — quite unsuccessfully — to dodge.
If you’re thinking, “Wait. The NCAA claims “missed class time” is one of the reasons they’re against a playoff in college football,” you’re not alone.
Now, I’m opposed to tournament expansion on general principle. But Feinstein’s unanswered question raises a much bigger issue about this situation:
- Obviously, the motivation behind tournament expansion is money.
- Because of the NCAA’s own rules on amateurism, the players don’t see a single dime of it.
- The benefit they do get — their scholarships — are compromised, to some extent, by the fact that they’ll be pulled out of class for a full week.
That’s the story a lot of college hoops writers will be telling this weekend. And that’s probably not the story the NCAA suits wanted leading off during the Final Four.
Tournament Expansion Taking Shape originally appeared on About.com Basketball on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 09:36:44.
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