Ken Pomeroy and I still believe

No, really, expand the field

The NCAA men’s basketball committee met last week and took no action on the question of expanding the Division I championship field from 68 teams to 72 or 76. Prior to the meeting the idea of expansion was widely and vociferously condemned online. One unscientific but no less handy Twitter/X poll put the level of support for keeping the current 68-team field at 93 percent.

Then there’s Ken Pomeroy and yours truly. We think expanding the field could be a fine idea. With the committee choosing to sit tight for the time being and the internet rejoicing, Ken and I got together over the weekend to compare notes.

John Gasaway: Ken, thanks for joining me here at Now and Again.

At the height of last week’s expansion melee, you and I were referenced together in the following sentence:

“Everyone except two of the most respected voices in college basketball hates the idea.”

That’s a rather stark dichotomy, no? Respected voices, but everyone hates the idea we support. I have no notes to add to the uncommonly perceptive first half of the dichotomy. But what’s with that second bit?

Ken Pomeroy: The fact that everyone hates the idea is part of the reason I haven’t commented too much on it. The opposition to the idea is so forceful that there’s almost no room for discussion. Not that I mind getting hated, it’s part of the job description. But this is unusual.

John: It’s wild, isn’t it? You and I go back a ways and we’ve done this before, right? We’ve said change this, get rid of that. But we always had allies. We said rebound margin is bad or the RPI is useless. In real time there were people online saying, “Yes, we agree with you!”

Ken: And we were right about those things, John!

John: Definitely. But this expansion thing’s different. I feel like I went charging forward one more time. Change this, expand the field. And then I looked over my shoulder expecting to see allies and there’s…Ken Pomeroy. And don’t get me wrong, you’re great. I’m glad we’re both here, but….

Ken: And Seth Davis.

John: (Laughing.) Seth’s a squish! Last week he said he’s not pro-expansion as much as anti-anti-expansion.

Ken: I know, I know.

John: He bailed on us, Ken!

Ken: He did bail on us.

John: No, really, have you ever experienced something like this where “everyone” hates an idea you support?

Ken: I mean, I’m sure I’ve had some objectively terrible ideas. You may have had some too.

John: No, never.

Ken: Well, previous expansion episodes could furnish a good example, right? I don’t know how you felt about the original expansion from 65 to 68.

John: I hated it.

Ken: I wasn’t a big fan either.

John: In fact, if you go to the Wayback Machine for what I was saying at Basketball Prospectus in 2010 when the NCAA was talking about 96 teams, I was an outraged zealot totally opposed to expansion.

Ken: It would have been a big jump to 96.

John: Right, 96 was a big number, they were just going that far down the at-large list with no additional automatic qualifying for mid-majors, the RPI was still running amok, and the NCAA was still all-powerful. In my defense, there were a lot of things different at that point.

Ken: I think that’s the whole crux of the argument now, right? There are so many things different now than they were in 1985. The winds of change are blowing. Just like the RPI needed to be refreshed and the tournament selection process needed to be updated, there are compelling reasons for adding more at-large teams to the tournament.

John: Apparently we need to do a better job selling our compelling reasons in the marketplace of ideas. I devoured every pro-status-quo piece I could find last week and it was a heavy lift. What’s the best such piece you’ve seen?

Ken: (Pause.) Ah, I don’t remember a best one.

John: I see.

Ken: Almost every one of the pieces I see leaves no room for nuance or interpretation in how to discuss this. They’re missing the main point on why the tournament needs to change. There’s hardly any room now for the at-large mid-major team.

When the 64-team tournament started, most years in that first decade you’d have 12 or 13 conferences that were getting multiple bids. In 1995 you had 15 conferences that earned multiple bids, which is really hard to do in a 64-team tournament.

This past year we had seven.

To me, UC San Diego exemplifies this point. They had an outstanding year in the 12th-best league in the country. In 1987 they would have earned an at-large bid with ease. This year they wouldn’t have made the bracket if they didn’t win their tournament.

VCU’s another example, co-champion of the eighth-best league in the country. The Rams probably don’t get in if they don’t win their conference tournament.

I understand that if you have eight more bids you could get six power-conference teams. Watching Texas vs. Xavier in the First Four didn’t offend me. It was a really good basketball game. I’ll take that along with getting VCU or getting UC San Diego in those years when they don’t have the automatic bid.

John: Today 19 percent of D-I makes the tournament, the lowest share since 1984. The response to this last week was, if I may paraphrase, “So what, the new programs added to D-I since 1985 never get at-large bids anyway. Today we have effectively the same population of programs competing for effectively the same number of bids as in 1985. Quit whining about ‘access.’” How does this line of thinking land with you?

Ken: There is some truth to it in that the whole “access” idea tends to refer to power-conference teams. The Big 12 wants more teams in, or whatever. That’s not the reason to expand. I have zero sympathy for that. I would join the rest of the world in opposing expansion on those grounds.

John: I was struck by the specificity of the category “at-large bids earned by programs that joined D-I after 1985.” An at-large bid is both a performance threshold and a label of happenstance. For example, Florida Atlantic absolutely would have earned an at-large if they’d needed it in 2023.

Ken: Right. Yeah.

John: Or Wofford in 2019. They were a No. 7 seed for goodness sake, but they happened to get an auto bid. These are programs that joined D-I after 1985. Now, you’re still going to end up with a tiny number in this category. But the lightning does strike.

Ken: It’s a small number, but, you know, look at Belmont over the years. UC San Diego as already mentioned. South Dakota State’s had good teams in the past.

John: In this same vein here’s a headline from last week: “The extra teams will overwhelmingly be the dregs of the top five conferences.” Speaking as an expansion true believer, I often run into this response. What about that?

Ken: If you look at history most of the “new” teams will be from the top five leagues. I accept that trade as worth it. In exchange for the power-conference teams you get UC San Diego and VCU this past year and Indiana State in 2024.

John: Right, it does kind of feel like pounding sand on this topic. I may dash out and get two sentences printed on a T-shirt. Call it the expansion paradox:

Most of the additional bids in a 70-something-team field would likely go to major-conference programs. But expansion will still improve the odds for mid-majors relative to the probabilities they face now with 68 teams.

Ken: Yes. And you think that’s worth the trade?

John: Yeah!

Ken: Not to mention if you hate the idea of Tuesday-Wednesday basketball, just watch a movie on Tuesday or Wednesday night. Show up on Thursday morning. We still have the awesome round of 64. It will still exist.

Then there’s another argument people make against expansion that really annoys me. It’s the idea that the regular season will become less meaningful if you expand to 76. It will become more meaningful! There will be eight, 10, 12 more teams or more down the stretch who have bids to play for. There will be a higher number of meaningful games in the conference tournaments.

John: Yes. Preach. And teams would be playing for a bye straight through to the round of 64. It could be its own bubble within the bubble.

Ken: You allude to one thing there that’s a secret hope of mine with expansion. Possibly the selection of teams becomes such a difficult process for the committee that they continue their lurch towards a completely objective approach. If you have more teams it makes sense to have an objective approach.

You’ve been on this bandwagon for a long time. If you just had “the list,” you know, and say we’re using WAB or whatever formula we’re using. You’ve got that list going the last two weeks of the season and updating every morning. You know in real time who’s on the cut line to go straight to Thursday and Friday and who’s on the cut line just to get in the field. It would be such an amazing experience.

John: Amen. We’ll get there. Now, I do have one last headline from last week: “The best argument for expansion is ‘Eh, it won’t be that bad.’” (Laughing.)

Ken: (Laughing.) I’ll gladly take all the people who say, “Eh, it won’t be that bad.”

John: I’m guessing you believe you have an even better argument than that one. Maybe we can get a third member in our club!

Ken: The No. 1 argument is giving a chance to a team from the 12th-best conference that won 30 games. Won on the road at Utah State, one of the toughest places to play in the country. Give them a chance to be in the event.

That’s the main argument. The other argument is the First Four games are actually pretty fun. I like more basketball, and these games should be super competitive. In 2025 we had one of the most boring first rounds in memory in terms of scoring margin. I wouldn’t mind a bunch of Tuesday-Wednesday games that come down to the wire.

Your thoughts, John? What’s your top argument?

John: I’m interested in two probabilities: 1) the likelihood that a mid-major can earn an at-large; and 2) the odds that in 2030 or 2035 the NCAA tournament will still be here as we’ve long cherished it, awarding the one and only recognized national title. Expansion clearly increases the first probability. In my estimation it would do the same for the second one.

Mid-majors, to the extent that they’re quoted by Seth Davis, appear to support expansion. They may correctly apprehend that it will improve their chances relative to today even as, yes, most of the new bids will go to major conferences. I’m bemused by how infrequently this point is addressed in pro-status-quo polemic.

Ken: I appreciate you bringing that up. The quotes Seth got from mid-major conference commissioners were pretty telling even if you’re against expansion. There are people in the game who see this as a good idea and who aren’t shills for power conferences.

John: But wait, there’s more! As you know, I’m concerned about medium-term schemes being hatched by the echelon of D-I that I call Big Football. My 35,000-foot governing assumption with anything connected to revenue sports is that Big Football will get its way eventually. Which is why I consider us incredibly lucky in the near term.

Instead of Big Football saying, “Hey, let us run the men’s basketball selection committee ourselves,” or something equally malignant, all they’re saying is, “Hey, let’s expand the field a bit.” This is a golden opportunity to buy a few precious years of detente with a constituency that can destroy this treasure anytime they choose. And their asking price is something we could do just on the merits.

You said the winds of change are blowing. The big four football conferences have roughed out a proposal to run their own March Madness. If you told pre-pandemic me that such a document would exist in 2025 and that by this time the NCAA is in decline, I would have said: “Pundits and fans must be laser-focused on preserving the tournament’s existence at all costs.” Instead it’s crickets on that front. The idea of another game or two that first Tuesday and Wednesday is absorbing all their outrage. I cannot believe much less explain what I’m seeing.

Ken: That’s kind of how I feel about the idea of the printed bracket, which is another objection that’s raised against expansion. You know, “The bracket is the reason this event is so great.” I just fundamentally disagree with that. (Laughing.)

There are many events that have tried to duplicate the 64-team field or some sort of bracket. Golf has this thing called the World Golf Championships Match Play, which they initially tried to pattern exactly after the NCAA basketball tournament. Nobody’s doing brackets for the World Match Play because nobody gets into golf the way they get into college basketball.

The reason we do brackets is because we love college basketball, not vice versa. And if it becomes more difficult to do brackets in the expansion era (sinister pause), so be it!

John: (Laughing.) Whoa!

Ken: You’re still going to have tons of people watching this event.

John: You’re more controversial than I am when I talk about my idea for a four-weekend tournament.

Ken: No doubt.

John: I’m going to leave it there and wait for social media to be engulfed by all the “You guys convinced me, sign me up!” responses.

Ken: Yes. I look forward to what I’m sure will be a measured reaction to discussing expansion.