College basketball insider shares target number for NCAA Tournament expansion

One of the biggest points of debate ahead of the college basketball season has been the possible expansion of the NCAA Tournament in the near future.

Earlier this week, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey revealed his stance on the issue, stating that he would like to see more “access points” for the tournament. In his words, Sankey added that it would be “healthy” and bring in more fans and interest to the event.

However, it looks like he has his fair-share of opposition, as Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports revealed the target number for possible expansion, along with the fact that many wouldn’t like to see it come to fruition.

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“Sources: The Division 1 Transformation Committee has had dialogue to expand the NCAA Tournament in all sports to include 25% of the programs who are eligible. This would mean the Men’s Basketball NCAA Tournament would expand by approximately 20 teams,” tweeted Rothstein. “Many have opposed this.”

While the SEC Commissioner believes the competition level has grown to such a point where 68 teams simply isn’t enough, it’s evidently a polarizing issue. Expanding to nearly 90 teams would be a huge jump, and could oversaturate the event.

Regardless, Sankey used SEC Tournament runner-up Texas A&M missing last season’s dance as an example in his argument, as well as the Ole Miss baseball squad and Missouri women’s basketball team.

“It’s informed by the fact that I think [Texas] A&M was playing as well as anyone in men’s basketball last March and didn’t have access,” stated Sankey on SEC Now. “Then you look at baseball, where Ole Miss is recognized as the last team in, and then is of such competitive quality that it wins a national championship. It opens your mind to say, are we leaving some of these teams in a bandwidth of maybe the top 50 out, from a net standpoint? That should be looked at differently.

” … I think it’s time. I’ll go to the women’s side, Missouri defeated South Carolina, who goes on and wins a national championship. That was in January. They didn’t access the NCAA Tournament. So I think there’s ways for us to think about creating access points that could bring more people in to the game, which I always think can be healthy, if it’s done the right way.”

While many teams who are left out of the NCAA Tournament have a case to be included in the event, it then poses the question of if you expand, are you devaluing the regular season, which has become so paramount to college athletics.

Nevertheless, it’s easy to see why the issue has strong supporters on both sides, and will continue until a final answer is given on the matter.