Last fall, when asked if he favored expanding the NCAA tournament field, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said no.
“It’s kind of like not moving out of Cameron (Indoor Stadium, the Blue Devils’ hallowed home). This works so well. It’s packaged so well,” he explained.
With that sentiment he gave life to the belief of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who once wrote: “Every tradition grows ever more venerable … [and] finally becomes holy and inspires awe.”
But even earlier, way back in 1838, the essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson noted: “Men grind and grind in the mill of truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue … all flock to their aid.”
So, with due respect to Coach K, here’s a thought as the smoke clears on the unveiling of the field for this year’s NCAA tournament.
Expand now.
Expand by at least three teams, which would involve nothing more than having four play-in games instead of one. Or, if you desire a radical break with tradition, expand by 32, which would involve a bit more planning. But no matter what, the time for expansion is now.
Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim would certainly agree. At last year’s Final Four, long before the selection committee snubbed his 22-10 Orange on Sunday, he pushed the issue to the front burner.
“This year, more than ever, has proved that there are teams (think George Mason) that might not get in, or might just barely get in, that can win games,” he said. “In the past, there were always teams who wanted to get in, but you really knew they couldn’t win any games if they did. But in college basketball today, the quality of teams has increased so much.”
Another who would agree is Kansas State coach Bob Huggins, whose Wildcats were also snubbed despite going 22-11 overall and 10-6 in the Big 12, finishing fourth in the league.
“The whole deal about whether we are in or not, it’s ludicrous,” he said Friday shortly after his team defeated Texas Tech, which did get an invite, in the Big 12 tournament.
“I mean, we’ve got two teams in our league (Kansas and Texas A&M) that are playing for a [No.] 1 seed. And Texas has got to be, what, a 3 or a 4 (it ended as a 4)? So then you’re going to tell me … the next best team in the league, which has been us, that we’re not in the best 65 in the country? I felt like we were in before we played this game.”
K-State certainly be in after closing out the regular season 11-4 and then beating the Red Raiders before narrowly falling to Kansas in a conference semifinal. Then there’s Drexel, which had road wins over tournament teams Villanova and Creighton–as well as Syracuse–and Air Force, which stumbled late but had an RPI of 30 and wins over tournament teams Stanford, Long Beach State and Texas Tech.
That would expand the field to 68, which would be reduced to the magical 64 after the eight teams on the bottom two lines staged their play-in games Tuesday in Dayton. It would also reward more midmajors, which received only six at-large bids this year after getting eight in ’06, nine in ’05 and 12 in ’04.
“I see no reason not to expand,” Texas Tech coach Bob Knight said last week. “It would reward the players, which is what this is supposed to be about.”
“I might be in favor of adding three games. Test that …,” Krzyzewski said. “Actually, the 16th seed then would have a better chance of beating No. 1 after playing a game. So you’re helping the quality of the tournament . . . But the tournament doesn’t need much help.”
That certainly is true. But, as Emerson noted, more teams could use some hope of getting in, which they would receive with this radical suggestion. Expand to 96. Have the bottom 64 stage play-in games on campuses across the land on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday’s winners then move on to a Thursday-Saturday site and Wednesday’s winners to a Friday-Sunday site.
Now you would have a larger number of midmajors involved, which would add to the uncertainty of an already uncertain event. But that would also cheapen the worth of the regular season, endanger the top teams, who would sit by idly while the lower teams got a game under their belt, and, most important, reward teams who deserved no reward.
Oklahoma State would be one case in point. The Cowboys opened the season 15-1 and reached No. 9 in the polls, but then went dysfunctional and lost eight of the last 10. OSU did play well at the Big 12 tournament and finished 21-12 with an RPI of 50, which would surely get it into our field of 96. But the belief here is no team should be rewarded for truly playing only a half-season.
Or for beating up on mediocre teams, which is what Michigan did this season. The Wolverines would be in our field of 96 with their 21-12 record and RPI of 54. But they would be there after blowing every chance they had for a signature win, which is what they did against UCLA, Georgetown, Wisconsin and Ohio State (twice). That performance, like Oklahoma State’s, deserves no reward.
But Drexel’s does, as do Kansas State’s and Air Force’s and Bradley’s and Missouri State’s and West Virginia’s.
So the way is clear. Heed Emerson. Abandon tradition. Give hope. Expand now.
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smyslenski@tribune.com
