The obvious first step is to eliminate teams that could not finish .500 from at-large consideration. The regular season is the grandest sorting tool. Any team that could not win even half of the games against their own self-selected peers should not be considered to compete for a national championship. Unfortunately we know that the thumbs on the scale pushing for tournament expansion are the same thumbs that created bloated mega-conferences where 11th-place teams with a 7-11 record are begging for an at-large bid.
Another problem is the feedback loop between the selection committee at bracket predictions. Every season it seems that the committee makes one absolutely baffling decision, usually to the benefit of a power conference team. This new decision is now factored in, either with intent or subconsciously, into the work of every bracket predictor the next season. This enshittification of tournament selection, along with the enigma of the NET Rankings, has only further benefitted the haves at the expense of the have-nots.
This bias also does no good when pundits project these lowered expectations onto what an expanded field would look like, as if they've already given up on the selection committee doing a good job. They want you to know you will get more games like Texas-NC State, instead match-ups that produced much more excitement in the first-round of the NIT on the same nights as the First Four.
Five of those first round games had a higher excitement score than the Texas-NC State game, and only one of them featured a a power conference team. The Miami-SMU game didn't even crack the top ten of games those two nights, mostly in part to how uncompetitive the power conference representative was.
Expansion is happening for the wrong reasons, which will only mean it will dilute the product (and the whining around the bubble leading up to it). If it was happening for the right reasons it would undoubtedly improve the overall product.
Expansion does raise new questions in how teams build schedule. With the bubble growing deeper will more teams take more risk or hunker down and be more conservative with their schedule building? This new wrinkle will take some contemplation, but much of the scheduling efforts will be pushed down the priority list until rosters are locked in.
Once coaches have some certainty regarding the players they will have at their disposal they will then know what expectations the schedule will have to support. Aside from guarantee games locked in early things have not yet really taken off in scheduling.
Blue Devils Prime
The biggest news has been the announcement of Duke's multi-year agreement with Prime Video. It's a savvy move that will directly increase their revenue and directly fund their players via selling their NIL. This is a new streaming avenue for the sport which we should all keep its eyes on for expansion. How long until Prime Video is sponsoring its own exempt event?
The not so fun part of Duke's Prime Video deal is that to skirt around ACC's media rights all of these exciting match-ups, against Connecticut, Michigan and Gonzaga, will be confined to soulless and corporate neutral courts instead of the thumping Cameron Indoor Stadium.
24-Hour Hoops Marathon
Some fun news is that Jeff Goodman and Rob Dauster announced that Field of 68 is not only bringing back their Opening Day Marathon event but have intentions to span the full 24-Hours of opening day.
The event will tip-of in Rock Hill at midnight with even more match-ups nearly locked in. The event lived on ESPN from 2008 through 2016, and was must watch-event for sickos. Nothing beat falling asleep to Gonzaga handling their business in a buy game and waking up to a MAAC student section in pajama pants that was drinking through the night.
Hopefully the event can gain more traction this year, a television partner would be massive. Some of the names I've heard attached are consistent mid-major winners. Hopefully a power conference team will take the leap and bring more eyes to these events.
MTE Updates
Battle 4 Atlantis
The Battle 4 Atlantis is departing from an 8-Team bracket into two 4-team brackets this season, with following teams reported to participate by Jon Rothstein and Rocco Miller:
- Marquette
- Memphis
- Penn State
- Texas A&M
- Virginia
- Wake Forest
- Xavier
Charleston Classic
The Charleston Classic will remain split into two 4-team brackets, Rocco Miller has reported the following participants:
- Dayton
- Minnesota
- Oklahoma State
- Utah
- Virginia Tech
Acrisure Series
A long list of teams have been reported by Jon Rothstein to be participants in the massive Acrisure Series event in Palm Springs, CA.
- Arizona State
- Cal Baptist
- Colorado
- Fordham
- Grand Canyon
- Loyola Marymount
- Nevada
- Oregon State
- Saint Louis
- San Diego
- San Francisco
- Santa Clara
- Seattle
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Stanford
- Tulsa
- UC Irvine
- UC San Diego
- USC
- Utah State
- Washington State
Dallas Tournament
The former home of the Conference USA tournament in Frisco, TX will host an 8-team, 3-Round tournament this fall, with Rocco Miller and Nevada Sports Net reporting the following teams' participation:
- Colorado State
- Florida Atlantic
- George Washington
- Loyola-Chicago
- Nevada
- San Francisco
- Tulsa
- Utah State
Live Oak Bank Holiday Classic
UNC Wilmington will play MTE host once more, inviting Princeton, St. Thomas and Liberty to North Carolina's Port City for the Live Oak Bank Holiday Classic (Miller).
Match-ups for the Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City have been reported by Rocco Miller, double-header set for December 18th:
- Iowa State vs Missouri State
- Drake vs Wichita State
Players Era Thingy
The Players Era Thingy has a new format reported by Jeff Borzello and a gaudy 24-team line-up, split into an 8-team and 16-team event.
8-Team Event
- Auburn
- Florida
- Houston
- Kansas
- Notre Dame
- Rutgers
- UNLV
- West Virginia
16-Team Event
- Alabama
- Baylor
- Creighton
- Gonzaga
- Iowa State
- Kansas State
- Louisville
- Maryland
- Miami-FL
- Michigan
- Oregon
- San Diego State
- St. John's
- TCU
- Tennessee
- Texas Tech
Schedule Beat
Please make sure to follow Alex Rosinski, who has been a FOIA warrior the last couple of offseasons, already unearthing several match-ups for next season.
Some of the best match-ups to be released so far include the following:
- November 2nd:
- Florida vs Miami-FL; Tampa, FL (Rothstein)
- Florida A&M vs Florida State; Tampa, FL (Long)
- Ohio State vs BYU; Salt Lake City, UT (Miller)
- November 6th:
- Michigan vs Connecticut; Boston, MA (Rothstein)
- November 7th:
- November 8th:
- Nevada vs Saint Mary's; Lake Tahoe, CA (Rothstein)
- November 11th:
- Marquette at Michigan (Release)
- November 13th:
- Ohio State at Connecticut (Jardy)
- November 15th:
- High Point at Saint Louis (Norlander)
- Boise State vs Nebraska; Sioux Falls, SD (Release)
- Creigotn vs Iowa; Des Moines (From the Hawkeye)
- Missouri vs Marquette; Chicago, IL (Rothstein)
- November 17th:
- Illinois at Duke (Release)
- November 18th:
- Wichita State at Loyola-Chicago (Rosinski)
- November 19th:
- VCU at Santa Clara (Rothstein)
- November 20th:
- Saint Louis at Saint Mary's (Rothstein)
- November 25th:
- Connecticut vs Duke; Las Vegas, NV (Rothstein)
- November 29th:
- Memphis vs Dayton; Chicago, IL (Munz)
- South Florida vs Saint Louis; Chicago, IL (Mid-Town Madness)
- Utah State at New Mexico (Release)
- December 5th:
- Arizona at St. John's (Rothstein)
- SMU at DePaul (Rothstein)
- UNLV at San Diego State (Rosinski)
- Colorado State at Colorado (Miller)
- December 9th:
- Utah State at BYU (Release)
- December 11th
- Kansas at Connecticut (Rosinski)
- December 12th:
- Ohio State at Notre Dame (Rosinski)
- December 18th:
- High Point at LSU (Miller)
- December 19th:
- BYU vs San Diego State; Palm Springs, CA (Rothstein)
- Gonzaga vs Michigan State; Palm Springs, CA (Rothstein)
- NC State vs Ole Miss; Tupelo, NC (Rosinski)
- West Virginia vs Wake Forest; Greensboro, NC (Release)
- December 20th
- Virginia vs Connecticut; New York, NY (Rothstein)
- December 21st:
- Michigan vs Duke; New York, NY (Release)
- February 20th:
- Gonzaga vs Duke
- Date TBD
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