INDIANAPOLIS — You want your March Madness next year? How about Seton Hall vs. Mississippi in Milwaukee? Is that even worth breaking out any bean dip? If the NCAA’s latest money grab succeeds and the tournament is expanded to 96 teams, as appears likely, that’s the kind of first-round matchup you’ll get.
I listened to Thursday’s NCAA news conference discussing expansion models while wondering why NCAA officials aren’t undergoing drug testing. This is the dumbest idea since the hammer throw.
The plan is to give the top 32 seeds first-round byes. That means the most anxiously awaited sports event outside the Super Bowl kicks off with teams in the 30s against teams in the 90s.
I curbed my urge to ask NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen his hallucinogen of choice when he devised this and, instead, asked who in America would watch this rubbish.
“Throughout the season right now, people go watch teams in the 30s play teams in the 90s,” he told me. “Actually, there are a number of sold-out games where you have teams in the top 10 that play teams in the 300s.”
But no one outside those gyms knows those games even exist. And they want to shove them down our throats during the NCAA Tournament? Already college basketball’s regular season is as inconsequential as regular tennis events. What sense of urgency will teams have to be selected as one of the lucky 96?
No one buys the notion that this will help more mid-majors make the tournament. The NCAA can’t give automatic bids to regular-season champions from the mid-majors. It would make those league tournaments moot. Instead of more Wisconsin-Green Bays or New Mexico States, you’ll get more of Texas Tech or Boston College.
Shaheen said he doesn’t know how much more revenue an extra round of games would mean. That seems ludicrous. The NCAA should know. Otherwise, why would it be worth the negative fallout this has created?
Expansion talk is the buzz of this Final Four. Reporters and fans are looking at this weekend as the last of its kind, like a last trip to the Palestra before it’s torn down. In its place will be a monstrosity.
Butler gets standing “O”.
Practice at Lucas Oil is slick. Friday’s free, hour-long workouts drew about 30,000 fans to Lucas Oil Stadium. I’m betting Butler has a fair homecourt advantage today. The majority of the crowd gave the hometown Bulldogs a standing ovation after their shootaround.
The players turned around and returned the applause.
By the way, Lucas Oil is massive. They didn’t curtain off the end zone seats, leaving the Colts’ giant white horseshoe clearly visible. It will seat an ungodly 71,300.
Oregon eyes Stevens.
Former Oregon athletic director Pat Kilkenny, the point man on the rudderless Ducks’ coaching search, flew here to check out the interest of Butler coach Brad Stevens. Stevens fits exactly with what Oregon wants. He has become a big-name coach and only makes $900,000.
After getting turned down by Pitt’s Jamie Dixon and Texas A&M’s Mark Turgeon and never having a shot at Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, the Ducks could view Stevens as their last shot at a “name” coach.
Recruiting rumblings.
I sat across from Frank Burlison, the Long Beach Press-Telegram’s ace college basketball recruiting junkie, here Friday. He said the best uncommitted high school player in the U.S. is Brandon Knight, a point guard from Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Burlison said he’s a lock for Kentucky.
