Express Word Summer topics: NCAA Tournament expansion, complementary roster dynamics and more

The Weekly Word is GoldandBlack.com’s weekly opinion column, written by Brian Neubert. In today’s edition of Express, we discuss the complexities of college sports these days and more.

ON NCAA TOURNAMENT EXPANSION

There are many anti-NCAA Tournament Expansion arguments that can be made, most of them being obvious and in some cases, lazy.

• Nobody wants this! Probably true to a certain extent, but is there credible data to support the claim?
• The logistics would be a mess. Probably true.
• Where would the extra money (for everyone, not just the power leagues who want more bids) that would seem to be the whole point come from?

Look, this is happening, one way or another, it’s happening. More always finds a way with these people.

But I want to make a few points I have not seen articulated.

• Instead of rewarding mediocrity, how about protecting excellence? The best teams should have advantages. Two years ago when Purdue lost to Connecticut in the title game, the country got the best two teams playing for the whole enchilada, but the NCAA Tournament needed the Boilermakers to punt N.C. State in the national semifinal to validate the whole event, because had that fluky Wolfpack team played for the title, it would have been a farce and taken some luster of an all-time great UConn team’s second title, if you ask me.

Every new rando you let into this event is just one more invasive species standing in the way of the best teams giving the sport the best matchups and ultimately a champion who earned it over months, not weeks. Any expanded system would never make anyone win eight games to win it all, but winning six is hard enough and every potential disruptor you let in is a threat to the competitive integrity of an event that, as is, is more randomized than any of its kind. Three-pointers and untimely rolled ankles decide outcomes. I’m not saying this is all that big a deal, but do we need to bend over backwards to get Northwestern or Mississippi State in every year instead of hoping that the best teams give us the best Final Fours?

An expanded tournament would essentially write in ink about 25 teams into the field every year, Purdue certainly among them. That then becomes more like making par than accomplishing something. You never want to turn making the NCAA Tournament into the equivalent of playing in the Little Caesar’s Bowl.

• Is there ever going to be a working definition of “enough” applied here? At some point, you have enough money and at some point there are enough teams in these championship events. There has to come a point in time when the more-more-more mindset has to change, before these bubbles burst, right? Diluting the product is bad business, and the powers-that-be here aren’t all that far from stepping on their products enough to devalue them. It’s OK if demand outpaces supply.

• Are these TV monies going to keep increasing? No one mentions this, but these are tumultuous times in media and entertainment as traditional cable goes by the wayside and advertising dynamics change. Live sports are king, yes, but right now these media partners are probably overpaying as is because of it. Are we sure the numbers are going to keep going up? It’s a big assumption.

COMPLEMENTARY ROSTER CONSTRUCTION

Weird, random topic, I know, but I just wanted to present another way to look at team-building in this strange new transfer- and resource-allocation-driven world.

Many years ago, Purdue football began producing elite pass-rushing defensive ends year after year, becoming a significant source of pride around the program that endures today, albeit perhaps dimly.

It really started with Rosevelt Colvin, but to take it a step further, it started with Matt Light, as he and fellow future NFL offensive tackle Brandon Gorin were grueling sparring partners in practice for Colvin and in ’98, fellow eventual long-time pro Chike Okeafor.

The offensive linemen helped make the defensive linemen great and once you have a great player, you have a template with which to recruit more of them.

You know what really unlocked A.J. Hammons as one of the pre-eminent figures in Purdue’s lineage of great big men? Isaac Haas, who pushed Hammons in a way he’d never before been challenged.

To the present, you can’t tell me that CJ Cox and Gicarri Harris weren’t great for Braden Smith and certainly vice versa, probably more so vice versa, because neither freshman guard saw an adversary as good as Smith all season, Kam Jones perhaps excluded.

Now, to the present, Oscar Cluff is going to mean the world to Daniel Jacobsen. Watch.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK

• This is an issue that I think is going to come more and more into the national conversation: Should overseas professionals be allowed to play college basketball? It is a worthy discussion that is relevant to Purdue and certainly the Big Ten right now.

In Purdue’s case, at least Omer Mayer can be called a kid. He’s 18 years old. What Illinois is doing, and a model others will follow, I’m sure, is just importing professional teams every year. Creighton and Kentucky brought in adults, like dudes who have played pro ball overseas for years.

I get it: Amateurism is a punchline now, but if a baseball player signed a contract with the Pirates out of high school, would he still be allowed to come back and play in college as a 20-year-old freshman after a year or two playing in Fargo? Nope.

Why not?

At some point, a G-Leaguer who never went to college and thus never had eligibility to renounce may realize the money is better in college basketball now. What are you going to tell them?

Lastly, there’s no need to be provincial or protectionist about this, but do we want American college basketball to become an extension of the overseas game?

It’s an interesting thought exercise, at least.

• Now that this new order of college sports are in place, I am thinking about starting a thinkpiece of sorts on the new ethics of college basketball.

I don’t what all that will entail but I know that talking recruits into impulse buys by giving them a whiff on money ain’t it. Tampering with other peoples’ players who are not actively soliciting such contact, that ain’t it.