NCAA Tournament Expansion, College vs. NBA, and College Gameplay Observations
With Selection Sunday rapidly approaching, we are getting closer to the best day on the sporting calendar — the opening Thursday of the NCAA tournament! As the conference tournaments are being played this week, I wanted to talk about my thoughts on potential expansion of the NCAA tournament, what makes college basketball such a compelling product compared to the NBA, and some general college basketball gameplay observations.
Thoughts on NCAA Tournament Expansion
The NCAA is currently considering increasing the number of teams that compete in the NCAA tournament in future iterations. I do not believe the NCAA Tournament format should be changed or expanded beyond the current 68-team field. With the current 68-team field, and most importantly the 64 teams that play in the first round, I believe this tournament set-up creates the perfect competitive balance and opportunities for upsets due to how the skill levels of teams are matched up in the first-round games for the 64 teams.
If the field were to expand beyond 68 teams, I believe there would be fewer upsets, because the skill gap between teams would widen in the first round. This widening of the skill gap between teams in the first round would disrupt the current competitive balance of the first-round matchups, which would lead to fewer upsets in the first round, and consequently further down the line of the tournament.
For example, if the tournament field were to expand from 68 to 96 teams, then a 1-seed would go from playing a 16-seed in the first round to a 24-seed in the first round. In the expanded tournament model, the 24-seeds would probably still be the automatic qualifiers from the lower tier conferences and would still result in the same skill gap between the teams, but where I think the expanded field would have the largest negative impact on the tournament would be on first round games such as a 5-seed playing a 12-seed in the current model. In the expanded tournament model, a 5-seed would instead play a 20-seed. Instead of the historical 35% upset rate that 12-seeds have over 5-seeds since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, a 20-seed would have a much lower than 35% chance of upsetting a 5-seed, due to the 20-seed being a less skilled team than the 12-seed in the current tournament model. In the expanded tournament model, a 20-seed would most likely be one of the middling teams from a power conference that received one of the expanded at-large bids into the tournament field. Widening the skill gap between teams in the first round would take away some excitement from the tournament. With the wider skill gaps in the first round of the expanded tournament, this would lead to fewer upsets in the first round, which could also have a follow-on effect of fewer upsets throughout the tournament, as well.
The Appeal of College Basketball Compared to the NBA
· In college basketball, there is a heightened importance of every possession, especially late in games. The brand of basketball in college looks more rugged, physical, and less refined than in the NBA. During certain stretches of college games, a made field goal can seem like a successful achievement and can significantly swing momentum. In the NBA, players seem to score so easily, that a made field goal doesn’t always register much excitement. In the NBA, it feels almost like a given that a team will score on any offensive possession, and that in a close game it feels like whoever has the ball last will win.
· In college basketball, you can see teams with vastly different playing styles succeed. Teams can experience success in college basketball while playing a slow-tempo defensive style of basketball (Houston, Virginia teams of the past), or through deploying a fast-paced style of play driven by a highly efficient offense (Kentucky and Alabama). In the NBA, I feel that teams’ playing styles do not differ as widely as they do in college basketball.
· In the spirit on conference tournament week, I view it as a positive for college basketball that there are 362 Division 1 college basketball teams, compared to only 30 NBA teams. With 362 different teams, there are more opportunities for surprise teams and Cinderella stories to emerge each season, and the large team pool allows for more variation of matchups in non-conference play and in the NCAA tournament. With only 30 teams in the NBA, there are 435 different game matchups that could occur between 2 teams. But in college basketball, with 362 teams, there are 65,541 different game matchups that could occur! In the NBA, all 30 of the teams are well known to fans, but very few fans knew about Fairleigh Dickenson or University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) until they pulled off historic upsets as 16-seeds during March Madness.
· The atmosphere and rivalries in college basketball are unparalleled in the NBA. The NBA does not have a regular season game that can match the intensity of the Duke vs. North Carolina rivalry games that occur every year in regular season ACC play.
General College Basketball Game Observations
· I think that 1-and-1 foul shots are a great rule in college basketball when a team is in the bonus (when a team’s opponent reaches 7 team fouls, they earn 1 foul shot, and if they make the first shot they earn a second shot. If they miss the first shot, the ball is in play). The 1-and-1 adds interest by creating high pressure moments in the game by allowing a wider range of variable outcomes compared to a team being awarded 2 foul shots each time they are fouled (like they are in the NBA, and like they are in college once their opponent reaches 10 team fouls). The 1-and-1 allows teams that are losing late in games to have more of a chance to come back, since each foul does not always result in 2 foul shots. The 1-and-1 can create significant momentum swings, as a team missing the front end of a 1-and-1 swings momentum right back to the team that just committed a foul, since they go from potentially giving up 2 points to getting the ball back quickly without having given up any points. I believe that the 1-and-1 keeps games closer down the stretch and creates entertaining high-pressure trips to the foul line that can result in fast changes of possession.
· Given how difficult it can be for teams to score at times in the college game, early in each half I’d like to see teams try to drive into the lane and get the ball inside the paint more to attempt to draw more fouls to get into the bonus earlier. By doing this, teams can put the referees in position to make difficult calls, potentially get their opponent and their key players in foul trouble, and give their team a chance for another way to score from the foul line if they end up going cold from the field at some point. Given that college players foul out once they reach 5 personal fouls (rather than 6 fouls in the NBA), coaches tend to sit players on the bench for longer periods of time once they reach 3 personal fouls. Attacking a team’s star player to attempt to get him into foul trouble should be a key component of teams’ strategies.
· Given the importance of every possession in college basketball, driven by the shorter game time (40 minutes in college basketball compared to 48 minutes in the NBA), and longer shot clock (30 seconds in college basketball compared to 24 seconds in the NBA), offensive rebounds and second chance points create huge momentum swings in the college game, especially in the NCAA tournament.
