Is adding more teams to March Madness a good idea? “I don’t think there’s anything broken"

Six.

That’s the number of times Purdue athletic director Mike Bobinski has been in the room as a member of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, the one that selects, seeds, and puts together March Madness. He served as the committee’s chair during the 2012-13 season.

As discussions escalate about expanding beyond the current field of 68 teams, Bobinski’s background and knowledge are important factors to consider when deciding whether this is a good idea.

“I’m not wildly enthusiastic about it at this point. I would need to see a legitimate plan and the rationale for it before I’m thinking it’s a great idea,” Bobinski said Thursday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse where the Boilermakers prepared for Friday’s first-round matchup against Grambling State.

Bobinski made it clear he likes “the tournament the way it is” and that “someone would have to convince me it’s a great idea at this point” because there’s a rhythm to the three-week event, starting with the First Four in Dayton, moving through the first and second rounds, the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, and ending with the Final Four.

And it’s the same with Purdue coach Matt Painter.

“I don’t think there’s anything broken,” Painter said. “There’s always going to be a line, even if you add teams. There’s always going to be a line whether it’s three, four, or five people. I think this was the hardest year, no question for them to select. There’s always a team or two that could’ve gone either way.”

Since Bobinski has been part of the process of selecting at-large teams, filling out the bracket has become a challenge, and not because of the number of elite teams vying for a spot.

It’s the opposite.  

“I know when you get to the very end of picking at-large teams today, it’s who has the least objectionable résumé because you’re evaluating teams, for whatever reason, that have fallen to that point,” Bobinski said. “You’re not talking about teams that have had stellar years that we’re going to want to add more of.”

The idea of expanding the field doesn’t stem from adding more mid-major programs that enjoyed outstanding seasons and maybe were knocked out of their conference tournament. The push is to provide more opportunities for middle-of-the-road teams from the Power 6 conferences to generate more revenue for those leagues in this era of expansion and NIL money.

“I’m not an all-comers guy,” Bobinski said. “I just think there’s an objective at the beginning of the year and you have to earn it. You shouldn’t just get in by default.”

Indiana State had a season worthy of reaching the NCAA tournament, but it lost in the Missouri Valley Conference championship game and didn’t make the at-large cut. Painter believed the Sycamores accomplished enough to earn a spot, but scheduling dynamics probably hurt them.

Virginia, which had an abysmal offense throughout the season, snuck into the field as one of the last teams and proceeded to lose to Colorado State on Tuesday in the First Four.

“I do feel bad for Indiana State,” Painter said. “They deserve to be in the tournament. I don’t think it’s fair – and I scheduled at that level and it’s very difficult to get people to come to your place and play teams that are consistently going to be in the NCAA tournament.”

Bobinski doesn’t want the regular season to lose its value because conference championships are important at programs like Purdue.

“The regular season matters to me a lot, it matters to us at Purdue a lot and it matters to the game a lot,” he said. “You don’t want to have it where we can kind of muddle our way through the regular season and still get to the tournament because it’s a wider net. I’m not for it.”

Painter and Bobinski aren’t opposed to having the conversation, but the tournament has a tight window because of television obligations after the Final Four, and moving away from that timeline might force causal fans to lose interest.

“I just don’t think they’ll do that at the end of the day,” Painter said. “it’s just a special sporting event; why mess with it? Why risk watering it down a little bit.”

Contributing: Brian Neubert/GoldandBlack.com