96 is the Wrong Number
Written by Chriso, Wednesday February 17 2010
Warning: this blog does not contain a solution.
But it does identify a problem. It is February, and soon it will be March. We know what that means. March Madness. 64 teams in an exciting one and done tournament that gets college fans and casual fans excited. But wait, it is no longer 64 teams. A few years ago, the powers that be added a play-in game. So now, the 65th team plays the 64th team for the opportunity to be the sacrificial lamb to the top seed.
Now a number one seed has never lost in the opening round, which means the 61st, 62nd, 63rd, 64th, and 65th seeds are zero for all time in the tournament. And now there is a movement to add teams to what has worked for so long.
The magic number being discussed is 96. To me, that just does not make sense. One reason is it means the top 8 seeds will get a bye. The 8 vs. 9 games are often the best in the first round. With 96 teams, the 9 seeds would have already played an extra game against a 24 seed, with the opportunity for upset or injury or both. It seems 8 and 9 should either both get a bye, or both play an extra game. While we are at it, the same could be said for the 7 seeds and the 10 seeds.
If the top 10 seeds all got a bye, it would mean there would be 88 teams. If the 8th seed also had to play an extra game, there would be 100 teams. Consider 100 teams in the dance, the kind of number that makes sense. The kind of number that you would never change. Kind of like 64. Classic March Madness. But 96 seems to just be madness.
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I remember the days of 48 teams with the top 4 teams in each region receiving a bye. That was a great test for the top teams as it was rare that you had these lopsided match ups. But yes, 96 teams is far too much.