NCAA Tournament expansion is on track for next season

NCAA Basketball: NCAA Tournament First Round-Robert Morris at Alabama

Get ready for more March Madness. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t ask for it, Greg Sankey wants to make sure his next 17-16 squad gets their opportunity to head to Dayton to play another 13 seed.

Yesterday, word started to spread that the NCAA and their media partners were almost done with a deal to expand the men’s and women’s tournaments to 76 teams beginning next season. Good news for Syracuse men’s basketball in their attempts to finally get back to the Big Dance and better news for Joe Lunardi who can now do a “Last 12 Teams” section in his 26-27 bracketology.

Here’s how it might shake out, using this year’s seeding as an example…imagine what might have happened if Siena never got the chance to play Duke?

Pete Thamel indicated that this expansion will result in modest profits for the NCAA, but the big conferences will see more money from units earned and really that’s what matters. According to Thamel, there will be an additional First Four site joining Dayton.

The mechanics of the expansion in the men’s tournament would include eight additional at-large bids. What’s known now as the First Four — eight teams playing four games in Dayton, Ohio — would expand to 12 games played by 24 teams at two sites, one of which was expected to remain in Dayton.

If you’re looking at logistics, you could certainly go to Hinkle Fieldhouse for the 2nd location, or maybe use The Pit or the Palestra depending on where the 1st round games will be held.

Hopefully expansion on the women’s side will keep the Orange from having to make another trip to Storrs, but we’ll see how the NCAA tweaks the current set-up.

It’s exciting to get more tournament action, but disappointing that it comes at the expense of the non-power schools. You might not like it now, but just think of the feeling when 13 seed Syracuse is in the Elite Eight with a chance to reach the Final Four..