96 team ncaa spells trouble for tulsa

[cannon_fodder]

1. 96 team ncaa tournament is a stupid idea.  No 16 has ever beat a 1.  The bottom half of teams currently have never won the tournament.  A number 14 has only a 5% chance of winning one game.  But #96-64 will add value to the tournament?  NO.  It is adding 30 worthless teams while allowing more name brand teams in and seeding potential cinerelllas in must-lose situations (nobody vs nobody) while at the same time granting byes to the favorites.

Which is where tulsa loses out.  As a first round host it is likely we draw far fewer visiters as the #93 seed would bring a crowd and the top seeds have only one game here (halving the odds of people coming to see it).  Stupid ncaa.

/not really a done deal, but its a done deal...

[TheTed]

1. 96 team ncaa tournament is a stupid idea.  No 16 has ever beat a 1.  The bottom half of teams currently have never won the tournament.  A number 14 has only a 5% chance of winning one game.  But #96-64 will add value to the tournament?  NO.  It is adding 30 worthless teams while allowing more name brand teams in and seeding potential cinerelllas in must-lose situations (nobody vs nobody) while at the same time granting byes to the favorites.

Which is where tulsa loses out.  As a first round host it is likely we draw far fewer visiters as the #93 seed would bring a crowd and the top seeds have only one game here (halving the odds of people coming to see it).  Stupid ncaa.

/not really a done deal, but its a done deal...

I agree with you that it's stupid and I hope they wait a few years, so Tulsa can get better teams and so maybe somebody can change the NCAA's minds.

But a minor quibble: your point about a No. 16 never beating a No. 1 is not relevant. The new teams included in the tournament will be much better than current No. 16 seeds. The 16 seeds are only in the field because of auto bids, not because they're among the top 65 teams. There will probably be more of a chance of a 16 seed beating a 1 seed under the new setup.

But again, just a minor quibble. I fully agree that it's a stupid idea. I don't care to see a bunch of BCS teams who've bought their way to 15 nonconference wins, then won five conference games, included in the field. This whole idea is just gonna be slanted toward BCS schools even more, just like everything else in college basketball and football.

Non-BCS schools will have to have spectacular seasons to earn a first-round bye, while BCS teams just have to stay slightly above .500 in their leagues.

[JCnOwasso]

I know it is a little irritating, but look for it to benefit Tulsa more.  They would need to expand the first round to 3 games, rather than 2.  The top 32 teams receive a bye, and you have 33-96 who would play game 1.  Now it would be financial suicide to only have 1 game played at a site, it would also not play into the best interests of the schools to send the teams in the top 32 to only play 1 game at a site so you would need to extend the first round to include the Bye round and then the 64/32.

I said this theoretically, however I just read that this is one of the proposals.  So you add another 3 days of tax revenue generation (wed-wed rather than wed-sun).  

[JCnOwasso]

I do agree with the auto-bid thing... the only reason a 16 hasn't beat a 1 is because you have teams like Arkansas Pine bluff who win a conference championship and are required to be in the tourney.  They have to put them somewhere even though you have a North Carolina, who played in the NIT , who could have probably beat them with 4 guys on the court.

So instead of having A-PB as a 16 seed, they end up as a 24 seed.  Rather than have NC as a NIT participant, they end up being a 16 seed (I know, but for stuffs and giggles)... think of that game, the 1 seed in a bracket has their first round game with NC.  Even if though NC is down this year, that is still a tough game.

And for the truth of the matter.  The 1-8 seeds in a bracket are generally pretty well set, you rarely will see a confusing choice from 1-8 (though there may be some irritation in the seeding from 1-8).  A subpar BCS school is not going to bust in to a first round bye merely because they float along with a little over a .500 record.  You will see named schools like that in the teens.  I think the only team that was hugely questionable this year was G-town

[TheTed]

I know it is a little irritating, but look for it to benefit Tulsa more.  They would need to expand the first round to 3 games, rather than 2.  The top 32 teams receive a bye, and you have 33-96 who would play game 1.  Now it would be financial suicide to only have 1 game played at a site, it would also not play into the best interests of the schools to send the teams in the top 32 to only play 1 game at a site so you would need to extend the first round to include the Bye round and then the 64/32.

I said this theoretically, however I just read that this is one of the proposals.  So you add another 3 days of tax revenue generation (wed-wed rather than wed-sun).  

The NCAA's plan is to play the third round Tuesday-Wednesday of the second week at the regional sites, so Tulsa would not gain any games. We would just get crappier teams.

The first and second round games in OKC this year didn't sell out. The end sections in the upper deck were barren. And that was with Kansas and K-State playing in each session as one and two seeds.

Replace Kansas with Texas Tech or some other team that won't bring more than 50 fans and the economic impact for Tulsa plummets.

They charge $68 per session now, and people aren't paying that. I'm sure there won't be a price decrease to watch the 10th place Big 12 team vs. some auto bid team.