Like it or not, ready or not, the NCAA tournament is going to expand to 76 teams, starting next season.
No one much likes it, with coaches and fans at the front of the line. Money speaks, though, so they’ll water it down.
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Now we’ll get 32 automatic bids and 44 at-large bids.
The First Four is gone; in its place, we’ll get the Opening Round.
It’s very likely to hurt with Cinderella teams, and NIL and essentially free agency won’t help. So the Power Conferences should do quite well. Arkansas coach John Calipari points out that with, say, 14 bids from a big conference, bracket balancing is done. So Duke would see, say, Miami, Clemson, or UNC early.
Losing the Cinderella aspect of the tournament will be a real shame. There might occasionally be a solid team that comes of out nowhere, but now those teams will have a lot to overcome.
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Whatever. It’s a Brave New World whether we like it or not.
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