Invite more teams to tourney? Big 12 coaches are on board

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim has plenty of support from Big 12 coaches for expanding the NCAA tournament.

Boeheim, a longtime proponent of including more teams in the field, was flabbergasted Sunday when the Orange were snubbed by the selection committee. That brought another round of calls from coaches on Monday to expand the tournament to at least 68 teams, if not more.

"If the field is designed to get the best 64 teams in -- if that was the design -- then from that standpoint you'd think it needs to be modified," said Kansas coach Bill Self, figuring a handful of automatic bids go each year to teams that otherwise would not make the cut.

Expanding the tournament has become a hot-button conversation piece that regularly bridges the gap between Selection Sunday and the start of the NCAA tournament. It's the rallying cry of every fan whose team was passed over and every coach whose job security is measured by postseason appearances.

The last major tournament expansion came in 1985, which increased the field from 53 to 64 teams. The NCAA added a play-in game in 2001, when the number of automatic bids increased from 30 to 31.

Meanwhile, the spots on the dance floor have become harder to earn.

Since 1985, the number of Division I programs has ballooned from 282 to 336. The swell has been most pronounced since 1993, when a reduction in the number of scholarships a program can award from 15 to 13 spread talent among more teams and created more parity than ever.

During the Big 12 coaches' weekly conference call this week, Self said the number of mid-majors that reached the NCAA tournament last season, led by George Mason's improbable run to the Final Four and round of 16 berths by Bradley and Wichita State, demonstrated how level the playing field has become.

But those berths came at the expense of heavyweight conferences such as the ACC and Big 12, which had the same number of tournament participants as the Missouri Valley.

"There's just so many good teams these days, and so many good players," said Texas A&M coach Billy Gillispie, whose team sat on the bubble and sweated out an at-large bid last season. "I don't know the perfect number, but I definitely think we should expand."

Expanding the field would need more than the approval of coaches and administrators, though.

CBS signed an 11-year, $6 billion contract with the NCAA in 1999 that granted the network exclusive broadcast rights except for the play-in game. That deal extended a seven-year, $1.725 billion contract and locks up the tournament through 2013.

Last June, the NCAA men's basketball committee rejected a proposal by several coaches to nearly double the size of the field to 128, calling the expansion unnecessary. It also voted down an offer to increase the number of opening-round games in Dayton, Ohio.

"From the time we started that play-in game, I never quite understood why we wouldn't have four of them, one for each site," said Texas coach Rick Barnes.

By adding three more lines to the bracket, Syracuse or Kansas State might still be playing.