Yes

I’ve been following March Madness since I could stay awake for the night games, all the way back during Duke men’s basketball’s 68-63 defeat of Wisconsin to end the 2014-15 season. In over a decade of my life since, I have never once heard someone complain about there being too much basketball.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I believe the 68-team tournament should be expanded. More teams and more conferences should be added to the event which, contrary to the name, doesn’t even start until midway through the month. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to widen the net.

In the last few years, it has become apparent that prestige and fame doesn’t guarantee you a win even outside of March, and certainly not during the Big Dance. 

The first No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed occurred first on the women’s side in 1998 when Harvard upset Stanford. It took until 2018 for the same to occur with the men, when University of Maryland Baltimore County defeated Virginia by a whopping 20 points. 

This result wouldn’t have been possible without the Retrievers winning their conference miraculously on a buzzer-beater against Vermont in the championship game. Small conferences like UMBC’s America East sometimes include two deserving schools but usually only the one qualifies for the tournament. 

At-large bids usually go to Power Four conference teams who may play better competition but have double-digit losses. 

A tournament consisting of 68 teams may sound like a lot, but with 31 NCAA Division I men’s basketball conferences fighting for bids, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for smaller conferences, and talented teams are left without an opportunity to prove themselves

While more upsets tend to happen on the men’s side, No.14-16 seeds have proven capable, whether they be St. Peter’s in 2022, or Princeton and Florida Atlantic in 2023. More small conference teams would add more to the madness, so to speak.

Should teams be disqualified or written off because of their Power Four status?

Of course not.

But should the field be expanded to include more room for bracket-breaking upsets?

Absolutely.

No

Since 1985, the 68-team single-elimination tournament coined “March Madness” has continued to excite fans and inspire the next generation of young basketball players.

 The current model of March Madness includes a series of four play-in games, where eight squads, usually at lower seeds, play against each other to earn a spot in the 64-team field, which many fans and casuals consider the official start to
tournament action. 

Historically, teams in the First Four, introduced in 2011 for men and in 2022 for women, had lost their respective conference championships after a strong season and just missed an automatic bid to the “Big Dance.” Hence, a main reason why the games were added to the tournament in the first place. 

These teams have added historical upsets and Cinderella stories to the famed tournament. For instance, on the men’s side, VCU crushed brackets in 2011 after defeating top-ranked Kansas and advancing all the way to the Final Four. A decade later, UCLA did the same before falling to Gonzaga in overtime. This year, Texas became the sixth First Four team to advance to the Sweet 16, joining the Rams and Bruins but also La Salle in 2013, Tennessee in 2014, and Syracuse in 2018. 

Without the First Four games, upsets like this would not happen. 

While many teams may feel their resumés deem them worthy of a First Four appearance, adding more teams to the NCAA Tournament would simply diminish the feeling of making March Madness and lessen the importance of
conference tournaments. 

If teams want to keep playing into the spring but don’t meet the qualifications, the National Invitational Tournament is an option, but teams have recently been eschewing the opportunity in favor of preparing for next season. Thus, March Madness appears to be the only postseason tournament that matters, but expanding it would make qualification feel like a participation trophy. 

Additionally, more teams would just add unnecessary time to a tournament that already bleeds into the month of April. Expanding the tournament, especially in its opening rounds, simply prolongs games that are meant to be fast-paced and exciting. 

Thus, the old cliché rings true: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”