We’ve added eight teams to each of the men’s and women’s basketball NCAA Tournaments. Now what?
What does it mean for mid-majors? How many of those additional bids will be earned by our beloved mid-majors?
According to last week’s poll, 75% of fans believe only one or two of them will come from the mid-major ranks in each tournament. The remaining 25% said none of the eight spots will go to mid-majors. (Tears.)
OK, so let’s take a look at what this might look like.
It’s never too early for some Bracketology.
Let’s start with ESPN’s by Joe Lunardi. He has two bids apiece for the Atlantic 10 and MAC, which are the same four teams that represented the conferences this year: Saint Louis, VCU, Akron, and Miami. The Rams are the only one of those four he has going to an opening-round game, which is similar to the breakdown last year, when the RedHawks went to Dayton.
However, Lunardi does have Utah State and Dayton among his “First Four Out” and “Next Four Out.” So, he doesn’t feel too high on the additional spots being overtaken by mid-majors.
CBS’ Bracketology was even more unforgiving to mid-majors. They predict all eight of the extra spots will belong to teams from the power conferences. Similar to Lunardi, CBS has two mid-majors on the wrong side of the bubble: New Mexico and San Diego State in the “First Four Out.”
David Cobb and Jacob Fetner noted that the expanded tournament would benefit the likes of Wichita State (American), Saint Mary’s (WCC) and Grand Canyon (Mountain West) should they not win their conferences.
Sadly, this tournament expansion will not bring us an additional eight mid-majors, but we could see some extremely worthy teams get to hang NCAA Tournament banners in the coming years, and that is a good thing. At the very least, the expanded field will provide a little extra cushion for undefeated Miami (OH).
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