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Tournament Expansion

K

kcphotovideo

New member
With all the talk of expanding the mens basketball tournament to 96 teams. What are everyones thoughts on expanding the hockey to say 20 teams. Making a play in game in all 4 regions 4 v 5 winner versus the 1 seed. Depending on when that region would start it would either be thursday-saturday or friday-sunday? Just wondering thoughts.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

kcphotovideo said:
With all the talk of expanding the mens basketball tournament to 96 teams. What are everyones thoughts on expanding the hockey to say 20 teams. Making a play in game in all 4 regions 4 v 5 winner versus the 1 seed. Depending on when that region would start it would either be thursday-saturday or friday-sunday? Just wondering thoughts.
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It has been discussed here many times, including many times the last few weeks.

The NCAA guideline is for 25% of the Div-I teams to get into the tournament. At 16 teams, hockey is over that threshold. It is more likely hockey goes back to 12 teams then go up to 20 teams. Basketball is under the threshold, hence the discussion (misguided IMO) to go up to 96 teams.

20 is too many, it dilutes the talent. Who wants to see a possibly .500 get an at large bid?
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

I think its fine with 16.... not to mention they have enough problems with attendance for the games they already have, let alone if they started having mid week games.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

Brian Gentry said:
It has been discussed here many times, including many times the last few weeks.

The NCAA guideline is for 25% of the Div-I teams to get into the tournament. At 16 teams, hockey is over that threshold. It is more likely hockey goes back to 12 teams then go up to 20 teams. Basketball is under the threshold, hence the discussion (misguided IMO) to go up to 96 teams.

20 is too many, it dilutes the talent. Who wants to see a possibly .500 get an at large bid?
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There is no hard-and-fast guideline, just a "recommendation" and general "preference."

That said, it makes no sense to expand the tournament for a sport that has dropped some seven programs over the last 10 years. If anything, you will see the tournament contract to 12 teams before you ever see it expand.

And if Division I ever has the guts to revoke the play-up, there will be no more Division I ice hockey.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

I agree that Div 1 hockey NCAA post-season should be cut back to 12 teams, in two regionals, with top four teams (two per regional) getting byes, like the olden days. But, all five conference tourney winners still get an autoseed to keep things interesting.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

Brian Gentry said:
20 is too many, it dilutes the talent. Who wants to see a possibly .500 get an at large bid?
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I agree but Wisconsin got in a few years ago as an at large with an UNDER .500 record. So it can happen even in the 16 team tournament. (Yes I know they made a rule saying you have to be over .500 now to make it as an at large)
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

No tournament expansion (or reduction) until there are more teams playing D-1 hockey.

College hockey growth is moving along at a good pace. The main event is a sell out no matter who's playing (and if Detroit does well - it'll also be no matter where its held). Give the 4 regionals some time and the attendence will follow. In particular they need to work out where those are held (Ft. Wayne?). However, things are looking good with one exception. With little or no openings in existing conferences, I do wonder how easy it'll be for a new program to get up and running.

Really, really against cutting the tournament back. Every year some team is going to make it that maybe shouldn't have, but that's not a major problem. I like the no first round byes so every team has to win 4 games for the title. Also with a 12 team tournament if there's a couple of upsets in conference championships (think ECAC and Atlantic Hockey) a really good team on the cusp of the top 10 gets royally screwed. I don't think the sport benefits from that happening.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

16 is fine for now. We are already at 27.5% of the teams getting in.

For reference basketball is at 18.4% for D1 right now. Expansion to 96 would put them at 27.6%.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

Rover said:
No tournament expansion (or reduction) until there are more teams playing D-1 hockey.

College hockey growth is moving along at a good pace. The main event is a sell out no matter who's playing (and if Detroit does well - it'll also be no matter where its held). Give the 4 regionals some time and the attendence will follow. In particular they need to work out where those are held (Ft. Wayne?). However, things are looking good with one exception. With little or no openings in existing conferences, I do wonder how easy it'll be for a new program to get up and running.

Really, really against cutting the tournament back. Every year some team is going to make it that maybe shouldn't have, but that's not a major problem. I like the no first round byes so every team has to win 4 games for the title. Also with a 12 team tournament if there's a couple of upsets in conference championships (think ECAC and Atlantic Hockey) a really good team on the cusp of the top 10 gets royally screwed. I don't think the sport benefits from that happening.
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Fort Wayne has a nice enough arena, very modern. But they did seem to be a bit understaffed in some places. Another thing with Fort Wayne is that it was a Saturday Sunday regional, with the championship game starting at 8pm. If the game had been earlier, say at 4pm, there would have been a lot more fans there because there was a lot of people who couldn't get Monday off. I would have ventured to say that Miami seemed to keep most of the crowd that they had Saturday with them, mostly because they had a pretty good idea in advance that they were going to be in there in Fort Wayne. Michigan, well, they just got in by the skin of their teeth. Michigan fans had less time to be able to get off of work or for some, school.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

ericredaxe said:
I think its fine with 16.... not to mention they have enough problems with attendance for the games they already have, let alone if they started having mid week games.
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Also, I think having to secure a venue for an extra day would probably lead to another increase in ticket prices, which could also hurt attendance.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

Count me as really against cutting back to 12. Esp. with the AHA autobid. How many times have we seen a team seeded from 10-14 get to the Frozen Four? No need to leave them out of the tournament.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

JF_Gophers said:
For reference basketball is at 18.4% for D1 right now. Expansion to 96 would put them at 27.6%.
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For the NCAA Tournament, yes. Any time bouncyball likes to compare itself to the bowl system, kindly remind them of the 32-team NIT, the 16-team CBI and the 16-team Collegeinsider.com tournament.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

I'm for keeping the tourney as is with 16 teams although I would favor the idea of doing to regionals, east v. west style.

Keep the east teams playing in the east and the west teams playing in the west, top four duke it out.
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

MikeAnderson said:
There is no hard-and-fast guideline, just a "recommendation" and general "preference."

That said, it makes no sense to expand the tournament for a sport that has dropped some seven programs over the last 10 years. If anything, you will see the tournament contract to 12 teams before you ever see it expand.

And if Division I ever has the guts to revoke the play-up, there will be no more Division I ice hockey.
Click to expand...

What's "the play-up"?
 
Re: Tournament Expansion

dxmnkd316 said:
Alright, everyone in the pool. It's going to get really crowded.
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Re: Tournament Expansion

RedFreak said:
What's "the play-up"?
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The NCAA currently allows (though it may or may not currently be under a moratorium; certainly the NCAA would review on a case by case basis if the application was compelling enough) Division II and Division III schools to play one men's and one women's team in Division I in certain sports (notably not football or basketball, the two "money" sports). Ice hockey is one of those (as is lacrosse, though there are fewer playups since there is a viable Division II).

The NCAA can, however, change these rules so that you may only play Division I competition in any sport if you are a full member of Division I. So this means the following teams would either need to upgrade their programs to Division I, or play Division II or III hockey: St. Cloud, Mankato, Bemidji, Colorado College, Alaska-Anchorage, Michigan Tech, Minnesota-Duluth, Alaska, Nebraska-Omaha, Northern Michigan, Lake Superior, Ferris State, Merrimack, Mass-Lowell, Clarkson, Union, RPI, St. Lawrence, Mercyhurst, AIC, Bentley, RIT and Alabama-Huntsville.

In other words, if such legislation were passed tomorrow, more than 1/3 of the current D-I membership would be gone. The WCHA would be down to 4 teams, and probably have to merge with the 7 team CCHA just to stay viable. The Eastern leagues would be OK.

D-II would be a mess; although there's enough teams for a good sized Western conference, there'd be no anchors like Michigan or Minnesota to gravitate around, and then there's the problem of the Alaskas. Mercyhurst would probably get stuck with the Western group, as the Northeast Ten would probably close ranks around its full membership. And it's still practically unviable by the numbers. There's only like 22 teams that would be there.

In D-III, the ECAC West would at least get its autobid back. But Colorado College would be more of an island than it already is (where it at least currently has 2 friends out west, and UNO is a long but doable bus ride). They'd be my #1 choice to apply for a full upgrade.

So, yeah, a cluster-*******.
 
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