Wetzel: Please don’t expand NCAA basketball tournaments

The most convincing argument against expanding the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments from 68 teams is pretty simple.

Almost no one is asking for it.

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There is no groundswell from fans. There are no massive ratings for the current First Four (i.e., play-in) games that suggest consumer demand. There have been no teams legitimately cheated out of a bid — they had 30 regular-season games to make their case. There is no obvious competitive reason for it.

Outside of a few coaches and athletic directors, most of whom stand to earn healthy bonus money in having their teams reach March Madness, there isn’t anyone speaking out in favor of this.

And yet, as ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported this week, possible expansion to 76 schools remains on the table with a “decision … to come in the next few weeks.” To echo so many who treasure college basketball in general, and the tournament in particular … please don’t.

If anything, 68 is four too many, requiring clunky play-in games on Tuesday and Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, before the main event begins Thursday.

Look, innocent people won’t die if there is more basketball each March. So, yes, there are more pressing issues in the world. Still, why mess with sporting perfection? Just to placate a few more middling teams and pick up a few more bucks from television?

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

For decades, the NCAA has possessed something special — and nearly impossible to attain. It owns two full days on the sports calendar — the first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament.

These are pseudo national holidays, complete with people skipping work and school while tuning in at the office or during well-timed lunches. It produces a groundswell of activity and excitement that draws in casual fans who eagerly fill brackets with teams, including many they’ve never watched.

That engagement is what makes March mad and has turned this uniquely American event into an iconic slice of Americana that has survived even as general interest in the sport has waned.

It should be protected at all costs.

The decision to expand from the perfect 64 to 65 teams in 2001 and then 68 in 2011 were the original sins here. It began as a response to the Western Athletic Conference splitting in two, creating the Mountain West, and meant starting the tournament before Thursday. You could compare it to opening gifts on Christmas Eve, but not nearly as enjoyable.

Fortunately for the NCAA, America has mostly ignored the doubleheader games on Tuesday and Wednesday (two of them featuring 16 seeds playing each other). Thursday has maintained its magic.

Yet by expanding by eight more teams, Tuesday and Wednesday would now feature six games each, likely stretching across the day. The potential impact on fan interest or confusion over a watered-down week is perilous.

This spell can be broken. The formula can fall apart.

For what purpose? There isn’t a good one.

Division I college basketball has grown through the years, with 355 teams eligible for the tournament last year. At just 19.1%, that makes it challenging to get a bid.

Yet, the numbers deceive. Growth has come almost exclusively because small, one-bid leagues have added members from Division II and III. While the champions of those leagues get an automatic bid, it has zero effect on whether a quality team capable of a run earns one of the 37 at-large bids.

In 2025, the so-called Power 5 leagues (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC) secured 33 of those 37 at-large selections. The Mountain West (3) and West Coast (1) earned the others. No good team is being squeezed here. The Northeast Conference could expand to 30 teams and still be a one-bid operation.

As for a chance to “play into” the tournament, it’s already available.

Every conference has a tournament of its own, with the winner receiving an automatic bid to the Big Dance. Virtually every conference allows all of its teams to participate. That means a team such as the Citadel — which went 5-25 on the season and 0-18 in the Southern Conference last year — had a chance to win four league tournament games and get in (and then even win six or seven more and be crowned national champs).

If you consider the conference tournaments a play-in round of its own — which it is — the NCAA tournament is already over 300 teams strong. Almost everyone already has a second chance.

To offer eight more teams a third chance defies logic when the tournament’s rhythm is so ingrained in the American sports consciousness.

This is about money, although not so much money in terms of additional television revenue as most would expect. First Four games generally average only 2 million to 3 million viewers — with no other tournament competition — and are relegated to TruTV. It’s not like fans are begging for more. Crowding the window with multiple games isn’t likely to create a windfall.

No, this is about performance bonuses for eight more coaches and eight more athletic directors.

If you are one of those people, then maybe this makes some short-term sense. If you step back though, there is little to nothing to be gained and so much to be lost.

Sixty-eight is more than enough.