Had it been a few years ago, Maryland head coach Gary Williams said he could have rested easy on Selection Sunday.

But it was 2008, and his team’s 18-14 record, 8-8 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, no longer warranted an NCAA bid.

Not necessarily impressive numbers, especially considering the Terrapins lost in the first round of the ACC tournament, all but dooming their NCAA hopes. Even so, Williams maintained such a resume would have been enough for a Tournament berth in the past.

‘It used to be if you go 8-8 in the ACC you’re in,’ Williams said. ‘But that doesn’t necessarily hold true anymore.’

Maryland settled for an NIT berth and eventual matchup with Syracuse, another team with a .500 conference record after going 9-9 in the Big East. The Orange ended Maryland’s season, 88-72, last Thursday.

Williams and SU head coach Jim Boeheim are at the center of a movement among several NCAA coaches to increase the size of the current 65-team Tournament field. They argue the rise in the number of Division I teams has increased the number of teams worthy of NCAA Tournament consideration. The growth has played a role in relegating power conference schools like Syracuse and Maryland to the NIT.

Since 1985 – the last time the tournament was expanded, from 53 to 64 teams – the number of Division I basketball programs has increased from 282 to 334.

‘Each time it was expanded, it was expanded because there weren’t enough spots for the number of teams in the Tournament,’ Williams said. ‘And now I think we’ve reached another point as we go along here in college basketball where there are many more teams good enough to play in the NCAA Tournament. And to hold teams out just because there aren’t enough spots isn’t a good enough reason.’

Williams isn’t alone. Some coaches and analysts, such as former Texas Tech headman and coaching legend Bob Knight, have suggested doubling the size of the NCAA Tournament to 128 teams to solve the problem.

Boeheim has gained plenty of support among his colleagues with a more moderate plan to add up to seven teams, allowing for four opening round games before the field is set at 64 for the weekend.

Selection committee chair Tom O’Connor has heard all the arguments for and against expanding the Tournament. But he said there has been no formal presentation or formal discussion on the matter.

‘It’s really that there’s a number of people that have an opinion on that, and they’ve expressed their opinion, which is fine,’ O’Connor said. ‘We’ve talked about it with the committee, and at this time both the committee and the board of directors of the NCAA feel that the Tournament field is exactly where it should be.’

O’Connor said expansion is something the committee will discuss in the future, like any other matter, but the current focus is on the 2008 Tournament.

‘We’re not even thinking about that right now,’ O’Connor said. ‘We have a meeting in May, and then in the summer meeting we talk about some strategic planning. So for right now it’s not an agenda I have sitting on the top of the list.’

Mississippi State head coach Rick Stansbury, whose team did make the field of 65 this year as an eight seed, supports expansion because he said the percentage of teams involved in postseason play is too low. With 334 teams in Division I vying for 65 spots in the NCAA tournament, 32 NIT bids and 16 spots in the new College Basketball Invitational tournament, only 34 percent of programs have the chance to play a postseason game.

Meanwhile, in Division I football, 120 teams compete for the chance to play in 32 bowl games, meaning 64 teams (53.3 percent) experience postseason play.

‘That’s a huge difference,’ Stansbury said. ‘I think we ought to keep up with the changes of time and give more teams opportunities. I think it’s definitely something that needs to be done. I think it’s something in the future the game of basketball needs and a lot of coaches probably deserve.’

March Madness expert Jerry Palm runs the Web site collegerpi.com and has been tracking the Tournament for 15 years. He, like O’Connor, said the tournament is at the right size. (Well, almost. He would like to see the field reduced back to 64.)

Palm scoffs at the suggestion that the college football postseason provides more opportunities than the NCAA Tournament.

‘The bowl championship series gets two teams out of 120,’ Palm said. ‘The basketball playoff is a much better percentage than that. The other teams in the bowl games are not playing for a championship of any kind.

‘Do we really need half of the basketball teams playing postseason basketball too? … This isn’t high school, where every team gets to play.’

Palm said every team that failed to make the Tournament this year deserved to be left out of the field. He even thinks teams like South Alabama, Kentucky and Oregon had weak resumes and only made the Tournament because of a weak set of bubble teams.

As the field was narrowed down to 16 teams, Palm noticed that of the high seeds still alive in the Tournament (Villanova, Davidson and Western Kentucky), only Villanova earned an at-large bid. By adding more at large teams to the field, Palm said Villanova would still most likely be the only high-seeded team left in the Sweet 16.

‘It dilutes the Tournament by putting more bad teams in, putting more unworthy teams in,’ Palm said. ‘The teams at the bottom of the bracket, the nines, the 10s, the 11s the 12s, those teams are not going to win the NCAA Tournament. We don’t need 64 more of those or even four more of those.’

But Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried doesn’t see a problem with adding teams to the Tournament because it provides more opportunities for teams and fans to benefit from the spectacle of March Madness.

Gottfried said there are enough good teams that aren’t making the Tournament every year, so diluting the field is not a concern.

‘I think it only makes it better,’ Gottfried said. ‘If you give us seven more teams a year, you give 80-100 more student-athletes a chance to experience the Tournament. What’s the downside to that? I don’t see any.’

Palm wasn’t surprised at all that Division I coaches would support an initiative to expand the Tournament. He said the effort is not intended as much to improve the Tournament or college basketball as much as it is to serve the interests of the coaches.

‘Coaches have bonuses in their contract for making the Tournament,’ Palm said. ‘So of course they want more teams in. Well, not all coaches have those bonuses, but it always makes them look better when their team is in the NCAA Tournament.’

His suggestion to those teams and coaches that are on the bubble every year is to stop complaining about the system and start winning more games.

‘Get better players and play better in the regular season, that’s my advice,’ Palm said. ‘Take it out of the committee’s hands.’

bntahmos@syr.edu

Published on March 26, 2008 at 12:00 pm