It's called "March Madness" for a reason. In the playoff to end all playoffs, a total of 64 single-elimination games create all the chaos and excitement that a college basketball junkie could want.
But at what point does one cross the line between tempered craziness and outright pandemonium?
That's just what the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) has tried to explore this month, proposing a radical plan to increase the size of the tournament's field to as many as 128 teams, as well as a more moderate one calling for the addition of fewer than eight teams.
And although both proposals were rejected last Thursday at the men's basketball committee meeting in Orlando -- as the NABC expected -- the ideas certainly raised interesting questions that could have a major impact on Penn's chances of reaching the NCAA's biggest tournament years down the road if these plans become more viable.
Ivy League executive director Jeff Orleans noted that though the NCAA is "a long way away from plans for expansion," he is willing to consider a larger tournament if conferences that traditionally get only a single automatic bid, like the Ivy League, were to receive more bids.
"You don't want to cheapen the tournament," he said. "But I'd be more open to expansion if we did a better job of combining league representation and the best overall teams."
The NABC wanted the NCAA to expand the tournament largely because of the overall increase in the number of Division I basketball teams since 1985, when the tourney field grew from 48 to 64. Implied (though never stated) in this proposition was the fact that programs are more likely to retain coaches who can boast of postseason appearances.
But smaller universities, or mid-majors, that receive far fewer bids than major programs have been much more competitive of late, pointing to a new level of parity in college basketball. Most recently, George Mason of the Colonial Athletic Conference reached this year's Final Four as a No. 11 seed, taking out Michigan State, defending champion North Carolina, and top-seeded Connecticut.
In Penn's case, if the Ivy League were to get more than one bid to the tournament, then there would be slightly less pressure to win the conference. Currently, the Ivy League champion earns an automatic bid, but the other teams are never truly considered serious at-large candidates. As a result, the conference would not likely be opened up to additional bids.
Those who are opposed to the idea of a 128-team field, such as St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli, feel that such a major increase in schools would detract from the prestige of earning a bid and lower the overall quality of the tournament's competition.
"For a team to make it [to the tournament] at all is an amazing achievement," Martelli said. "Any team that makes it in the current format will be strong; it doesn't matter whether or not they're a mid-major."
Martelli added, however, that he would be in favor of expanding the field to 68 teams, allowing for more play-in games to give smaller programs the positive experience of postseason competition, even if those teams have no legitimate chance of advancing to the round of 32.
St. Joseph's, which went undefeated in the 2004 regular season, failed to reach this year's NCAA Tournament.
And since the number of Division I teams is only expected to increase in the coming years, the proportion of teams like the Hawks who squeak into the Big Dance will only fall.
The remaining question is whether allowing more programs the positive publicity of making the Tournament is worth the price it would have to pay.
