Maybe the March Madness Fairy Godmother is trying to tell SEC commissioner Greg Sankey something. That is, if he is willing to listen.
If not, we’ll say it: Let Cinderella do their thing, and leave the Big Dance invite list at 68 teams.
The SEC found out the long way in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. The conference is 1-5 with No. 4 Alabama and No.9 Texas A&M still set to play Friday night.
Of course, Sankey invited this conversation in an interview with ESPN’s Pete Thamel on March 15. The billboard material was so easy to spot.
“Nothing remains static,” Sankey told ESPN. “I think we have to think about the dynamics around Division I and the tournament.”
Well, karma is a Golden Grizzly from the Horizon League. Karma is a Bulldog from the Ivy League. Karma is a Buffalo from the Pac-12 – which is being forced to migrate to the Big 12 next season.
The March Madness Fairy Godmother waved her wand on all of those teams in the first round and offered a dose of perspective on the conference that lives by the mantra “It just means more.”
It is OK to want more of the same. Leave the NCAA Tournament alone.
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SEC struggles in NCAA Tournament
No. 9 Texas A&M plays No. 8 Nebraska, and No. 4 Alabama meets No. 13 Charleston on Friday night. They are the last shots to improve on what has been a dismal tournament performance to this point.
On Thursday night, Jack Ghoulke scored 32 points on 10 three-pointers to lead No. 14 Oakland to an 80-76 victory against No. 3 Kentucky.
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That was after No. 11 Oregon knocked off No. 6 South Carolina 87-73 and No. 9 Michigan State beat No. 8 Mississippi State 69-51. That is technically three tournament upsets given the seeding, even if you should know better with the Spartans and the first round with Tom Izzo.
On Friday, No. 10 Colorado – a play-in team from that about-to-be-defunct Pac-12 – beat No. 7 Florida 102-100 when K.J. Simpson’s jumper rattled in with two seconds remaining. A few minutes later, No. 13 Yale beat No. 4 Auburn 68-66. The Tigers had free throws and multiple shots to tie or win in the final seconds.
Now, the SEC’s best hope for a second-weekend team is No. 2 Tennessee, which is playing incoming SEC member No. 7 Texas in the second round Saturday in the “Rick Barnes Bowl.” Well, “bowl” would imply that some of those players might opt out of that game.
We forgot. It’s not the football postseason.
What did Greg Sankey say about NCAA tournament expansion?
To be clear, Sankey is one of the most forward-thinking commissioners in college athletics – and he has rarely misstepped through conversations about NIL, the transfer portal or conference expansion. He is the best in a lot of ways.
Of course, most of that is when the conversation revolves around football – which is on the way to expanding its postseason to 14 teams without seeing the 12-team model yet.
Sankey’s comments about expansion aren’t illogical. The SEC will have 18 teams, and that means more teams likely will fall on the tournament bubble in any given year.
“That just tells you that the bandwidth inside the top 50 is highly competitive,” Sankey told ESPN. “We are giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers (from smaller leagues), and I think that pressure is going to rise as we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of expansion.”
While that might be true, since when have the major conferences missed out on those First Four opportunities? Indiana State (27-6) did not make the tournament this year despite a NET ranking of No. 28. Texas A&M (20-14) had a NET ranking of No. 45.
Let’s go off recent history. The SEC was 9-8 in last year’s tournament, and three Sweet 16 teams failed to get in the Elite Eight. The conference combined for a 12-12 record with two Elite Eight teams in the two seasons before that, and Kentucky is the last team from the conference to win a national championship in 2012.
We need more SEC teams and less conference champions from smaller leagues like St. Peter’s and Fairleigh Dickinson?
Letting the SEC lead the discussion on the NCAA Tournament would be like having Florida State and Clemson – the last two football national champions outside the SEC and Big Ten – dictating the future of college football. How is that going over right now?
We don’t have anywhere near enough time to finish that thought.
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This event – one that has captured America’s imagination since Larry Bird led unbeaten Indiana State to meet Magic Johnson and Michigan State in the 1979 national championship game – has made the right tweaks at the right times. Villanova ushered in the 64-team era with an epic upset against Georgetown in 1985. The First Four games have been fun appetizers.
Don’t go past 68 teams. And don’t touch those automatic qualifiers.
You can’t take away Oakland and the Dan Aykroyd doppelganger who couldn’t miss behind the arc on Thursday.
You can’t take away Oregon – the No. 11 seed who pulled away from South Carolina in the second half.
You certainly can’t take away Yale – an Ivy League school who remains all that is right with the NCAA Tournament.
You can do whatever you want with that College Football Playoff – which remains on a mission to make itself more like the NFL version.
It’s the reverse in basketball. Doesn’t the NBA do an In-Season Tournament now? Use the Windhorst finger meme if you want. “Now, why is that?”
Because there isn’t anything quite like the NCAA Tournament, and it is perfect in its current form.
Listen to the March Madness Fairy Godmother. You might learn something.
