00:00The NCAA tournament is one of the few true jewels
00:03in the American sports calendar, right?
00:05Like NFL playoffs, the Masters, the NCAA tournament.
00:10Like those, honestly, as much as I enjoy the NBA playoffs,
00:13Stanley Cup playoffs, baseball, like I enjoy all of it.
00:17The college football playoffs become very cool.
00:18But like, to me, those might be the big three.
00:22NFL playoffs, the Masters, NCAA tournament.
00:24Yes.
00:26And for, honestly, for my lifetime, I believe, it was 64 teams.
00:32Maybe, like, I know that the Maryland NC State ACC championship game
00:36in the 70s forced them to go.
00:39You had to win your tournament, and it left Maryland out.
00:43Right, even though they were the best or second-best team in the country.
00:46Right.
00:46It's been 64 for a long time.
00:49Yes.
00:49They made the move to 68.
00:52Yep.
00:53Within the last decade?
00:54Ten years ago.
00:55Okay.
00:56Give or take.
00:56And I hated that.
00:57So did I.
00:59But I've come to watch the play-in and not be mad about it
01:01because, you know, sometimes you get some good games.
01:04And that's what they're counting on here.
01:06They're making a super play-in bracket that is going to front
01:11the actual tournament tournament on that, you know,
01:15second Thursday or third Thursday in March, second or third, whatever it is.
01:19Right.
01:20So they're just going to bloat the pre-tournament tournament.
01:25And I think it's going to be largely ignored.
01:27For the record, you said, is this official?
01:29They've not had a press conference to announce yet.
01:32It simply sources confirm that the NCAA is set to move to 76 teams.
01:37So it's a fait accompli.
01:39It's not actually announced just yet.
01:42But it's going to happen.
01:43It's been rumored to happen for a while now.
01:45And it's just complete junk.
01:47It is AI slop.
01:49It is the new Coke of what was once a great thing, the NCAA tournament.
01:53And even though it'll be easy enough to ignore a sub-500 Baylor or Auburn that gets in as a
02:02power four team
02:04that doesn't deserve to be in, it's still junky.
02:07It sucks.
02:08Nobody asked for it.
02:09That's the biggest thing.
02:10Nobody asked for it.
02:11Well, the NCAA wants the money.
02:12They do want the money, and they're going to make some money.
02:16Some.
02:16My thought is kind of twofold.
02:21One byproduct of the expansion to 68 teams, and I have long railed against this until I've heard some of
02:31the 16-seed coaches talk about it,
02:34is I thought it was so unfair that you go to 68 and four of the 16s play each other.
02:44And I feel like those kids should get a chance to go to the tournament and play that one seed,
02:48right?
02:48But what the coaches will tell you of the 16 seeds, they love getting the national exposure.
02:55That's bigger for their brand to be the only game on in the country than to go get boat raced
03:01by UConn.
03:01So in other words, beating another 16 on a Tuesday night is still better for them than losing by 33
03:09to Kentucky.
03:10Because, one, you're on television.
03:12You're in every bar across the country.
03:13Everybody's hearing of a...
03:16Doesn't hurt.
03:17That's one.
03:18Two, the winner of that game gets a winner's check from the NCAA tournament.
03:25Money, money.
03:26Say that's 300K.
03:28Is it that much?
03:29I don't know what it is.
03:31It seems like a big share for that low of a game, but you might be right.
03:34But you're winning a game.
03:35No, I know.
03:36Think about the 6-11, the 6-team that loses.
03:40They don't get a dollar.
03:41Yeah.
03:42So, like, you're only cutting one check now to 34 teams.
03:47Right.
03:47And then teams get more and more, obviously.
03:49But you're leaning into one of the main complaints about this for many people, that this is yet
03:54another move towards the orange slices and participation trophy era of big-time sports.
04:00That we don't want it to be, oh, Johnny, you did good.
04:03Have your orange slice and here's a ribbon.
04:05It should be like, hey, we don't need more than 64.
04:09We know who can actually maybe possibly win the whole thing.
04:13We know 16 seeds are not going to go to the final four, but you have to balance the bracket
04:17to reward the top seeds with a nice, easy warm-up game in essence.
04:22Although, as we know, sometimes you lose that game.
04:25I think there needs to be a dose of reality on this conversation.
04:28You know who is absolutely pushing for this?
04:33College basketball coaches.
04:35Oh, the coaches love it.
04:36Because they want more ways to tell their athletic directors and alumni, hey, we made the tournament.
04:43I know.
04:44Don't fire me.
04:45We made the tournament.
04:45I mean, I always joke about the NFL being the ultimate self-preservation league.
04:50All sports.
04:51Yeah.
04:51Like, when you have a job in sports, you never want to go back to selling insurance or working at
05:01the accounting firm.
05:02Fixing HVACs.
05:02You want to work there no matter how long it takes.
05:04Like Rude does every day.
05:05Right.
05:07So, the coaches have been pushing for this forever.
05:10Gary Williams used to come on with me and Andy and say, no, I'm for it.
05:14I'm for it.
05:15And it hurt me because I felt like Gary was such an old-school guy that to have that stance
05:19was, to me,
05:20so crazy and so heretic.
05:23And I'm like, really?
05:24And he's like, yeah.
05:25But Gary understood how these glorified gym teachers who become ADs are just not, you know, fit for the task.
05:33And so, he had very dim views of ADs.
05:36And he looked at it, like you said, as a self-preservation thing.
05:39If you made the tournament, you could argue, don't fire me.
05:42But I got a spoiler alert for all the coaches that think that.
05:45They're going to fire you anyway.
05:47Well.
05:48They're going to fire you anyway because if you're a big-time program that spent $25 million on your roster
05:54and, like, your Kentucky,
05:56they're not going to be happy that you were in the play-in pre-tournament of 76.
05:59Unless you go on and on.
06:00Well, but if you just.
06:02NC State went to the Final Four a couple years ago.
06:04I know.
06:05With the big fat guy, he was awesome.
06:07Texas got hot.
06:08Didn't Texas get to an 8-8 out of the play-in?
06:10VCU played all the way from the play-in game into the Final Four.
06:13It can happen.
06:14I'm just saying that.
06:15Just saying I was in the tournament, if you don't do anything in the 76, is not going to save
06:20you.
06:20I'm going to keep my comment holstered on why Gary thought ADs were fools.
06:25But I'll just say Gary was correct.
06:27At least as it pertains to a team that, a college in College Park.
06:32Oh, yes.
06:33I know it directly.
06:34Sure.
06:34But the other thought here, and we've seen this in the college football playoff, and
06:41I don't know where these conference championship games go in college football because, I mean,
06:51there are teams that.
06:52They're probably going to get eliminated.
06:53Well, I mean, there are teams now that.
06:55I believe Sankey has already said, let's get rid of these.
06:57Did Georgia get screwed?
06:59Yes.
06:59Right?
06:59Two years ago, Georgia got utterly hosed.
07:02That's going to continue to happen, and they'll continue to expand the college football playoff.
07:07That'll get to 16 before we know it.
07:09It's probably going to bust out of it, it seems, but at least it's holding for another
07:12year or two, maybe.
07:14Adding what seems like another weekend to the tournament, did they just push deeper into
07:20April?
07:21No.
07:22It's fronting.
07:23It's a fronting thing.
07:24What happens to conference championships?
07:25The Big Ten Conference Championship is at like three in the afternoon on Selection
07:31Sunday.
07:32CBS goes from that right into the bracket review.
07:36They're going to play more games concurrently Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in front of.
07:42They're going to smash them all together.
07:44Again, their line of argument is, well, we're at 68.
07:49It's only 10 more teams.
07:50It's only four more games.
07:51It's only this.
07:52We can slide them in here.
07:53We'll play them at the same time.
07:54Student-athletes, Dave.
07:55And the audacity of the NCAA to still try to pretend that they are the advocate of the
08:03student-athletes.
08:04The NCAA is still fighting their fight of nonsense.
08:07The reality is college football left the NCAA cartel.
08:12College football runs their own operation.
08:14They run their own tournament.
08:15And the only cash cow the NCAA still has is the tournament.
08:19This thing will be at 100.
08:20I know.
08:21Before my daughters get out of high school.
08:23I know.
08:24Sankey, by the way, did say seven days ago, speaking to a small group of reporters following
08:29conclusion of two days of meetings at the Ritz-Carlton and Las Colinas, he said that...
08:32That's a nice hotel, dude.
08:34You think these guys are going to stay at the Motel 6?
08:37No chance.
08:37That's where the skins usually stay.
08:39He says a 16-team format is the, quote, right next step.
08:42And he said it's the conference championships that are likely to go.
08:46That's in football.
08:48Which is telling, because the conference championships were largely a creation for television to get
08:55a big old fat paycheck.
08:56And now they must be making so much more from the playoff that they're willing to disband
09:01that paycheck for another one.
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