Say it ain't so!!
Greg Shaheen, Senior Vice President of Basketball and Business Strategies for the NCAA, gave a 'state of the tournament' press conference today in Indianapolis. One of the hot button items was the notion of expanding the tournament field to 96 teams in the very near future...as in next year.
Here is a link to the transcript. It's rather lengthy...in fact, I'd skip to the Q & A portion and read from there...it gets pretty heated. If you don't have time to sift through it all, allow me to summarize:
1. It is very apparent that the NCAA wants for the expansion to happen. Shaheen outlined several models for how this could look, but spent a significant amount of time going over the 96-team model.
2. Shaheen could not, and did not answer questions relating to the amount of time student/athletes would miss classes due to the model change. He kept backtracking and stepping into holes in an effort to confuse and distract attention away from the question. He sounded foolish and the transcript illustrates it.
By the way, the NCAA has long pointed to the potential for an increase in missed classes as one of the reasons why a college football playoff wouldn't work. As usual, the NCAA has illustrated a hypocritical stance and is more focused on the dollars and cents versus the student / athlete.
This site uses Facebook comments to make it easier for you to contribute. If you see a comment you would like to flag for spam or abuse, click the "x" in the upper right of it. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use.