Marcus Traxler: SDSU women's success is a silver lining for projected NCAA tourney expansion to 76 teams

May 2—For college basketball purists, the reported news this week that the NCAA tournament is going to expand from 68 teams to 76 isn't greeted with immediate joy.

The idea of messing with the most famous bracket in sports is not appealing.

The bracket may become bigger, but it's not clear that's positive for Summit League teams. Except one.

The South Dakota State women's basketball team is the conference's certified powerhouse, and the expansion of the NCAA tournament will be nothing but positive for the Jackrabbits. They have won 13 conference tournament titles and made 14 trips to the NCAA bracket since becoming eligible in 2009.

The Jackrabbit women have been the most consistent program in the Summit League. And, they've had tournament success, winning six games and reaching the Sweet 16 in 2019.

Adding eight more at-large spots in the tournament bracket just gives South Dakota State more leeway and opportunities to make the Big Dance. If there's 45 at-large spots being given out and SDSU doesn't win the conference tournament, its recent track record indicates it will be a likely contender for one of those spots.

In the past five seasons, the Jacks have had a NET rating of 55 or better each year, and four times in the top-45. That's one of the key evaluation tools used to pick the NCAA tournament field.

There's rightful concern with the men's bracket that power conference teams with middling 18-15 or 17-16 records will take up those added spots, and the smaller schools that are 26-5 will be left out.

But the SDSU women have regularly stacked up wins over other peer mid-major schools or beaten teams from power conferences, and put their metrics in a strong position by the end of the season. SDSU has beaten Creighton, Gonzaga, Kansas State, Wisconsin, Mississippi State, Rutgers and Louisville in the last four seasons. They will have less to worry about.

In the past 10 seasons, Summit League women's basketball has traditionally had a running mate that has allowed the conference to be a two-bid league to the NCAA bracket, doing so in 2019 and 2021. North Dakota State was deemed among the first four teams out when the selections were made in March, and the Bison would have been in the 76-team bracket. USD had a top-35 NET ranking each season from 2020 to 2022, meaning the Coyotes would have been an easy at-large pick in those seasons if they didn't win the league tournament title.

For what it's worth, Summit League commissioner Josh Fenton

has been in favor

of NCAA tournament expansion. He's looked at it from the standpoint of NCAA tournament units, which are the payments conferences receive from the TV deal of the Big Dance, and as long as those still go to conferences like the Summit, giving more teams a chance to compete is a good thing. The men's tournament units are worth about $2 million paid out over six years, and the women's tournament began distributing units in 2025, as well.