9 Reasons to Expand the NCAA Tournament

What if everyone had a shot at "one shining moment?" What if David played Goliath not in November or December when nothing was at stake, but in March and April when the National Championship was on the line?

It's time for the NCAA tournament to expand to 347. Aren't we headed there anyway? Let's stop worrying about bubbles and stop waiting for expansion every few years.

Give everyone a chance in a single-elimination 10-round tournament. As it stands, the current tournament is seven rounds. Remember, the play-in game is a round and if a play-in team ran the table, seven wins would take the tournament.

The nine reasons to expand the tournament:

1) The NCAA committee makes the BCS look fair. The NCAA committee sits behind closed doors and swears everyone to secrecy involved in the selection process as to how the at-large teams are selected and how teams are seeded. If the process were transparent, we would not need bracketologists. It would not matter who is on the bubble, who the last four in are and who the last first four out are. We would know who is going to make the tournament every year and each team's seeding.

2) The NCAA does not invite the best 65 teams. They invite conference champions and some others. Instead of inviting the 65 teams who the committee thinks would make the best tournament, how about letting the teams decide the championship on the floor? Isn't this the biggest complaint with the BCS?

3) Having 347 teams does not necessarily mean more games, it means a 10-game postseason tournament with a level playing field. Currently, many teams are eligible for 10-game postseasons anyway. Some conferences have champions that need to win 5 games in their conference tournament, and then if they make the NIT, they could get 5 more games or if they make the NCAA, they could play 7 (assuming they are in the play-in game). This amounts to the possibility of playing 10 to 12 postseason games. If the field were expanded to 347 teams, the maximum number of games needed to be played would be 10. If teams have the possibility of playing 10 to 12 postseason games anyway, why not have a winner-take-all tournament?

4) Mid-majors and small conferences could finally unravel the NCAA power conference monopoly. One of the big complaints in college basketball is mid-major teams like Butler can't find a team to play them because they are a little "too good" for the power conferences. Under the plan below, conferences will have to play other conferences and this will raise everyone's level of play and level the playing field.

5) The end of the "we were robbed" and "we did everything we could to get in the tourney" whining. Isn't everyone tired of this selection show bitterness that then must be turned around into"we want to win the NIT tourney to lay the ground work for next year" optimism? The whining and complaining of teams feeling left out would be eliminated.

6) Conference tournaments are not the opening rounds of the NCAA tournament. If they were, then only conference champions would be eligible to play in the tournament. Can the seventh-best team in the Big East that qualifies for the current tournament beat the second place team in the Ohio Valley conference 10 times out of 10? Are you ready to guarantee this?

7) People watch the tournament for Cinderella not Godzilla. We pull for George Mason and Gonzaga to upset teams, not for Kansas to run through teams or Duke to get a No. 1 seed and win six in a row. There is widespread hope of Cornell getting a high seed and having a chance to advance in the tournament. There doesn't appear to be outrage that North Carolina isn't going to qualify for the tournament or that the Pac-10 has only one or two teams that might make it. There is excitement because this means the Missouri Valley Conference could put more teams in the tournament.

8) A 10-round winner-take-all tournament means a serious amount of incremental revenue for television networks and the NCAA and tragically, that is what expansion and NCAA sports are all about anyway, isn't it? Why not find a way to make more money, and make it fair for everyone? There is a way to get more money and fairness in the NCAA? Clearly, this is an oxymoron whose time has come.

9) Power conference teams already play small conference teams in November and December. How about playing these teams with everything on the line in March and April? If the argument is that the teams from the lesser conferences are that much worse than the power conferences in March and April, then why are the lesser conference champions even invited to the tournament? If the thinking is the tournament should be reserved for "good teams," then setup a tournament for BCS conferences only and the rest can go home ... wait, that is the college football system.

How to Expand the Tournament

Seeding

Seed all 347 teams using three components: RPI, conference vs. conference, and conference championship. The RPI is worth 60% of a team's score, conference vs. conference 20%, and conference championship 20%. The team that has the No. 1 RPI is given 347 points and the weakest gets 1 point. This way the scores can be added together.

The three components:

1) The RPI would remain in its current form.

2) Conference vs. conference is a series of mini-tournaments. Currently, there are 32 conferences (including independents as a conference) in NCAA Division 1 basketball. Conferences would need to face four other conferences similar to the ACC vs. Big Ten Challenge. Conference matchups would be drawn like the lottery numbers are drawn: air-driven ping-pong balls. Each conference would randomly draw 7 teams from their conferences with the same ping-pong ball method (the smallest conferences has 8 teams).

The conference that wins 4 out of 7 games is the conference head-to-head winner. In their overall seeding score, each team from a winning conference is then awarded 20 points. Each conference is required to play four conferences, and if they play more than four, there is a possibility of getting more points. The chance for another 20 points per team increases the chances of conferences of playing each other.

3) The conference champion of each conference is awarded an extra 50 points. For independents, their "conference champion" is the team with the highest RPI.

Rounds Explained

After seeding all 347 teams, the tournament is setup the following way: rounds 9 and 10 are play-in games. Round 10 has team 346 vs. 347 play at the home site of team 346. Winner of 346 vs. 347 plays seed 257 at 257's home site. The rest of this round is the following: Team 258 vs. 345 at Team 258, Team 259 vs. Team 344 at team 259, etc.

The 45 teams to emerge from round 9 then advance to round 8 as teams 211 thru 256. These 45 teams get re-seeded with the highest seed to emerge from round 9 becoming 211, next highest seed 212, third highest seed 213, etc. Once round 8 begins, there are 256 teams left and seeds 1-128 get home games. Round 7 will again re-seed the teams the same way round 8 did and seeds 1-64 will again have home games. Round 7 will again re-seed teams using the same methods previously discussed, but at this point, the bracket and seeds get locked and the tournament functions the way it does now. Round 6 forward will have teams go into regional parts of the country, similar to today as higher-seeded home teams will be placed closer to home than lower-seeded teams.

It may be argued that teams 257 to 347 don't belong on the same court as teams 1-256, but remember more than half of these teams won't advance and teams 1-256 were given a bye anyway. If it is argued that teams 96 thru 256 don't belong on the court with teams 1-95, then let 1-95 prove it. From round 7 forward, all teams have to play 7 games to win. The current setup asks two teams to play 7 games to win it all. If a team has to play seven games to win a championship, why not make more teams play seven?

The real question on the table is not why the tournament should expand, but when will the tournament expand and give everyone a chance? The tournament started with 8 teams and is now looking at 96. Also, if Kansas wants to play Hofstra November 13, and Central Arkansas November 19th, with nothing on the line, why not have Kansas play these teams in March with everything on the line? Time to face your fears power conferences and let all of the Davids line up to play all of the Goliaths, not just the Davids who get hot in the first week of March and win their conference tournament.