AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > February > 09 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.US65 bids out of 336 is out of date
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
There are still four weeks of games between Georgia Tech and “Selection Sunday.” It’s not a bubble team, if for no other reason than the fact the bubble hasn’t formed yet.
But it wasn’t lost on coach Paul Hewitt Friday that Villanova over Georgetown, which punctuates everybody’s “Greatest Sports Upsets,” lists, could not take place in this season’s tournament.
Why?
“Villanova doesn’t get in the tournament today,” Hewitt said.
Step back, please. We need room for the soapbox.
March Madness in Atlanta:
Check out the AJC’s Final Four pageHewitt believes it’s time to expand the NCAA tournament field. It’s understandable if some might believe the timing of this might be tied to the Jackets’ immediate roller-coaster past and uncertain future, but that’s really not the case.
“I said it last year — and we weren’t anywhere in sight,” he said. “We weren’t even on the board.”
This isn’t another campaign to double the tournament field to 128, which too many coaches grasping for job security believed was a wonderful concept after George Mason reached the Final Four. Hewitt’s plea is far more realistic and based on simple math. It came up Friday when I asked him if the Jackets’ problems this season related to defense and consistency aren’t merely endemic of college basketball’s general malady: early NBA defections have made for too much youth.
“I think it’s more indicative of the parity in the game,” he said. “Ever since the 1992 [Olympic] Dream Team, basketball has become one of the most popular sports in the world. We have two players from Senegal. Connecticut has a center from Tanzania. There are players everywhere now. Yes, we’re suffering from ills of youth. But it’s why I think the tournament needs to be expanded. People will say it’s just another coach crying for another spot. But in 1985 when the tournament was expanded to 64, there were like 285 teams in Division I. Now we have [336] teams, and only 65 go.
“It’s too simplistic to say, ‘You’re too young. You’re not ready yet.’ Yeah, there is some of that. But I remember when teams could lose three or four guys off a team and it wouldn’t matter. Duke has five McDonald’s All-Americans. Fifteen years ago, a team with five McDonald’s All-Americans could figure out a way to win.”
In 2001, the NCAA added a 65th tournament team and introduced the “play-in” game. Hewitt believes there should be “at least” three play-in teams added, increasing the field to 68. Adding seven teams would create four play-in games.
“Right now we’re short-changing the players,” he said. “Who are we running the tournament for — the deserving teams or the spectators? Just don’t tell me the best [34] at-large teams are getting in, because they’re not. My concern is that the selection is becoming more of a subjective thing instead of an objective thing.”
Hewitt said reference college football, where “50 percent of the players have a chance to go to a bowl game, and maybe get a nice jacket, a watch or a ring.” (The math: 119 Division I football schools, 32 bowl games, 64 teams.)
The NCAA has discussed expanding the field. The only certainty: It’s not happening this March. That leaves the Jackets (15-8) in limbo. They’ve won two straight since a four-game losing streak and Sunday play Connecticut, a general national power suffering similar issues. This game is more about the big picture than whatever evolves in the ACC.
Hewitt feels better about things after wins over Clemson and North Carolina State. But can he be certain there won’t be another backslide?
“No,” he said. “But I can say I feel a lot better about where we are as a program than in the last two years. A whole lot.”
He has attempted to refocus (euphemism) his players in several ways: He has made them wash practice jerseys. He removed their names from the jerseys and lockers, and forced them to carry the water bottles and basketballs to the gym. Also, he yelled. A lot.
“My honesty gets the best of me sometimes, and I might dampen their spirits at times,” he said. “But I’m going to tell you how it is. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.”
The idea now is to make a run that pretty much takes it out of the selection committee’s hands. Because when 65 out of 336 make it, sometimes things don’t add up.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment | Categories: Final Four, Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Comments
By Nono
February 9, 2007 07:12 PM | Link to this
I have nothing but respect for Paul Hewitt I hope the Jackets can make a run at the top 64 but if not they are still a well coached team. Ever since Cremins, the Jackets have been a team of admiration. I like and support their efforts and sometimes struggles.
By Najeh Davenpoop
February 9, 2007 07:42 PM | Link to this
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The NCAA basketball tournament as it stands is the best playoff system in any American sport. The reference to college football only undermines Hewitt’s argument — college football right now has the worst playoff system of any American sport, and the significance of bowl games has been cheapened by games like the Micron PC Bowl and the Galleryfurniture.com Bowl. 65 out of 336 gives the top 1/5 of teams a chance of winning it all… basically, if you are not the cream of the crop, you don’t get a chance. Keep it the way it is.
By HughG
February 9, 2007 10:50 PM | Link to this
Adding more teams would be stupid. No 16 has ever beaten a 1. What makes us think that 32 will beat one? Or 28 beat a 4? The first days are good because you have the potential for upsets are high, and 4 games on at once means the odds are good you’ll have a good one. The only good games you get out of the new system would probably be 16 vs. 17 or something like that, as Oral Roberts barely beats James Madison, or some such. More than 65 teams means each conference sends something like 6 or 7 teams, even when there aren’t that many deserving ones in any of them. Paul Hewitt, Jim Boeheim and other coaches love this idea, because it means they would make the tourney in a snap, and can take that nugget home to alumni and keep their job. Doing that would make streaks like most consecutive tournaments made as worthless as the most consecutive bowls made, where unless you really screw up like Tenn the year before last, you’ll probably go to. I mean, Florida State kept that streak alive with the Emerald Nut bowl this year. Don’t cheapen the NCAA tourney too.
By HughG
February 9, 2007 10:53 PM | Link to this
Also, Schultzie, why exactly doesn’t Villanova get into the Tourney today? Neither you nor Paulie explain that. Further, expanding even to 65 means that we’ll in all likelihood push more small conference winners to these tuesday night games ignored before the Thursday start, and we’d see more big conference mediocrity (a la the Jackets or Dawgs, or any other middle of the pack ACC, SEC, or whatever conference team) in the spotlight instead of giving the little guys their one moment in the sun?
By Greg
February 9, 2007 11:24 PM | Link to this
The problem is that there are teams that get in the NCAA tourney that have no business being there. Rooty poot schools that win their conference tournaments then get a #16 seed, have about as much chance of advancing as a snow ball in you know where. With all due respect, you look at some of the teams that got in the dance last year via conference tournament wins, and some legit teams gets denied. This play in game is a joke. Those two teams could combine their best players and still probably not defeat a legit deserving team. Don’t add more teams and drag out the tourney but cut out some of these “wanna be” Division I teams and get the real Division I teams in the tourney.
By Edgar
February 10, 2007 11:06 AM | Link to this
The NCAA Tournament to me is just as exciting as playoff time in the NFL. I stay glued to the set from beginning to end. The games to me are just pure basketball at it’s finest. But to expand the field for more teams is something that has to be looked at so it doesn’t water down what I think is perfect now. They would have to add another week onto the 3 that is now in play. Extra games for those seeds that are below the 64 could be set or maybe some byes for the upper seeded teams could be in the new formula. I love it the way it is but if they expanded it I wouldn’t complain.
By leave it alone
February 10, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this
Simply put, leave it alone, the tournament was fine at 64 teams …it now fields 65.
If you are at .500 in one of the power conferences, you usually make the field, but if you don’t you really have no gripe.
Besides, everybody, with the exception of the few conferences who choose to do otherwise, IS in the tournament by means of their conference tournament.
By Adolph Rupp
February 10, 2007 03:27 PM | Link to this
Hey even though I’ve been dead for awhile I thought I would chime in. First I must ask how an avowed racist as myself got an arena named after him?? I wonder if these guys now playing in Rupp have any sense of history as to the sleeze ball I really was. Remember how I characterized the Texas Western players with all those racial slurs before that championship game. Boy, I was a piece of garbage. Guess my first name should have given people a clue. Guess that name has lost a lot of favor. Well, anyway I still miss those lily white starting line-ups, but I guess today we wouldn’t have enough guys to put out there.
By the way I found out that God frowns on racists as it really is true that all people are his creation. I wish I would have heeded that concept when alive, but I don’t really want to discuss it now. Too Hot of a topic!!
By Akagi
February 10, 2007 04:35 PM | Link to this
The reform that should be taken is invite the true top 64 or 65 teams in a given year. Stop inviting the Delaware States (currently 12-11)and Mississippi Valley States (currently 11-12) of the world. Who cares if you happen to win your conference tournment but play in a conference of losers—e.g. the MEAC or the SWAC? if your are not one of the top 65 teams based on your RPI you don’t deserve to go. Last year I beleive one of these “champions” actually entered the tournment with a losing record, but simply because it won its conference tournment it got in. Does any sane person think this team was one of the top 65 teams in the NCAA?
So instead of making the field even weaker, simply cut the minnows from the noname conferences. This would allow you to invite strong also rans from the major and mid-major conferences. You would lose the flunky runs of the likes of the Richmond Spiders or George Mason and the big upsets in the first and second rounds such as Coppin State over South Carolina or Valparaiso over Ole Miss on that last second 3-point shot, but I think we can live without the few flunks and have the tournment as a true top-65 team contest instead of a contest of 49 top teams and 16 bottom feeders.
By Akagi
February 10, 2007 04:38 PM | Link to this
Also why is it on every AJC sports blog some idiot (e.g. “Adolph Rupp” post)has to inject race into the topic.
By mdbatl
February 10, 2007 05:26 PM | Link to this
Even as a Georgia student and fan, I have nothing but respect for Paul Hewitt; he’s a classy guy who knows how to coach, unlike that other guy in Atlanta. However, he’s way off on this one.
The NCAA tourney is, BAR NONE, the most exciting and fair playoff in American sports. It’s simple- you win your conference, you’re in. To get an at-large berth, having a winning conference record, even in tough conferences like the SEC or ACC, is a must. Adding teams to the tourney would only serve remove the overall level of talent and excitemment in the tourney. For example, say a mid-major wins its conference but gets relegated to one of the additonal play-in games. Now, not only do they have to win the first game, but then face of a number 1 or 2 seed in the “second round.” Clearly, this type of “solution” would serve to create a kind of BCS-style elitism, as at-large teams from big conferences would surely be spared from the play-in games.
In short, expanding the tourney would be an awful idea. Expansion will weaken it by giving the basketball equivalent of a 6-5 team advantages over samller, mid-major type teams. And this is coming from a fan of a bubble team, a team that would definitely benefit from a 128 team tourney. Like some of today’s other bloggers have said, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
By jason
February 10, 2007 07:26 PM | Link to this
I love how some people are like “Get rid of the MEAC and SWAC teams.” Get rid of them and then people will say “Get rid of the Big Sky and the Big South.” Okay, get rid of them. Then it turns into, “Get rid of the SoCon and the WCC.” So get rid of them. Eventually you whittle it away until the BCS schools are the only schools in the tournament. And by then, the field has been expanded to 128 so just about every team that finishes with a .500 record in their conference gets in. Yeah, let’s trash the tournament like that.