Agree or disagree with massive NCAA tournament?

It's been a crazy time in the sports world ever since the NCAA elected to cancel both the men's and women's NCAA tournaments, officially ending 'March Madness' before it could really even begin.

With that being said, there were no conference championships at the Power 5 level for men's basketball — And with it no Final Four or national champion. Who knows who would've emerged from the 68-team field to win it all, but the only thing guaranteed would've been the drama that would've ensued.

Because everything was canceled last season, the coaches of the ACC released statement on Wednesday advocating for the NCAA oversight committee to include all eligible teams in Division I.

No reason to devalue the product @theACC. There would be no conference tournaments if everyone was in the field. You would also be devaluing television contracts for the regular season with ESPN, CBS, Fox, BTN, Pac-12, SEC Network, ACC Network and more. Earn postseason. Merit!
— Andy Katz (@TheAndyKatz) September 9, 2020

Out of the 357 Division I programs throughout the nation, NCAA spokeswoman Meghan Durham said 346 of them are eligible to play in next year’s tournament.

“This is not a regular season,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said in a statement. “It is clearly an irregular season that will require something different. Our sport needs to be agile and creative. Most importantly, an all-inclusive postseason tournament will allow a unique and unprecedented opportunity for every team and every student-athlete to compete for a national championship.”

Essentially, the opening rounds would be taking the place of conference-championship tournaments and early-round bracketing based on geography. By the second week, the tourney would look pretty much like normal: 64 to 68 teams.

That means that there would be no Pac-12 tournament, no ACC tournament, no conference tournaments of any kind. Rather, you would probably get Utah, BYU, Utah State, Colorado, Colorado State, UNLV and other teams that are nearby geographically competing in tournaments.

I'm skeptical but just talked to an ACC source who really thinks there's a good chance the NCAA go for a 353-team NCAA Tournament. The league is unanimously behind it from commissioner on down.
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) September 9, 2020

“This is a time to think differently,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said, adding: “After all these players have been through, what better way to reward them than the opportunity to compete in an unprecedented version of the most exciting event in sports.”

According to Virginia coach Tony Bennett, the ACC coaches are “united in strongly pursuing this" in order to make up for last season's cancellation. The coaches believe that creating a tournament of this magnitude would provide all of the incentives needed for coaches and programs to have the safest conditions possible upon returning to play.

While this is nothing more than a pipe dream at this point, Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde took a look at the proposal and broke it down.

Column: A 346-team NCAA Tournament is impractical and improbable. And I love it. Here's why https://t.co/pUxwtqksZt
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) September 9, 2020

"First things first: This has to be bracketizable. The millions of casual fans who gravitate to March Madness to pick winners via a tree diagram cannot be discounted. Every office, every school, every bar and every barber shop needs a bracket that fits on a computer screen and/or a sheet of printer paper.

They can mess with every other aspect of the tournament—go back to peach baskets, whatever—but do not mess with the bracket. That’s nonnegotiable.

Beyond that? Let’s see what they come up with. A lot of people hate the concept. I kind of love it.

At the very least, the sentiment behind it is laudable:

Nobody got to play in the 2020 tournament. This time around, let’s give everyone a chance to experience the joy of March that went missing last spring. And no, this isn’t a Participation Trophy Syndrome situation: It’s been a hellish year for college athletes; why not look for ways to make their experience better?

Players thinking of opting out have some incentive to see the season through.

As Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski put it: “This is not a regular season. It is clearly an irregular season that will require something different. Our sport needs to be agile and creative." This year is going to be a tub of live bait, so why try to use the normal tournament selection rules when they may not apply? If nonconference games disappear and scheduling is dictated by health protocol more than competitiveness, how is a selection committee supposed to decide who is in and who is out?

As noted above, this figures to be a wreck of a season from November(ish) through February. So college basketball should put all its eggs in the March basket and try to make sure the signature event is a success. And by all its eggs, they mean all the teams. Everything is a dress rehearsal for the big show.

College basketball leaders are trying to both think ahead and think collaboratively, two things strikingly absent from the Great Dithering Summer of College Football. For all the conference and campus athletic leaders who talked about having “18–20 models” for how to run a season, that eventually became a hollow boast as we reached August. Hope is not a strategy. And every power conference for itself is not responsible stewardship of the sport. NCAA vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt has been networking with schools nationwide to come up with season plans that work for the greater good, and creativity has been embraced. They’re giving it the old college try in hoops.

And finally: Where, exactly, is the harm? Since when is there such a thing as too much tournament basketball? Don’t talk to me about cheapening the regular season—have you see TV ratings for those games in recent years? This isn’t an abandonment of the customary Big Dance. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime response to (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime set of circumstances."

I'd love to hear the explanation that adding another week to the NCAA tourney requiring hundreds of teams traveling to locations around the country during a pandemic is in the interests of player safety. My mind and ears are open!
— Seth Davis (@SethDavisHoops) September 9, 2020

While the sentiment is correct and it's an extremely intriguing concept, logistically it makes no sense. It'll be interesting to see if the NCAA immediately puts a stop to this idea or lets it marinate and pick up steam.

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