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Should we reduce the 64 team brackets?

WivitBear

Sports Fanatic
Sep 9, 2001
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Go back to 16 teams. With two conferences going pro and no seeds in the final four but the usual, why let the amateurs play against the pros. Since most colleges lose money with women's basketball, why keep trying to keep up?
 
IMO

Keep it 64.

If you win your league u deserve to be in the dance.

The change I would make is to move all the games to neutral sites like the boys. The fact that the top seeds all play at home for the 1st 2 rounds certainly adds to the lopsided wins.
 
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IMO

Keep it 64.

If you win your league u deserve to be in the dance.

The change I would make is to move all the games to neutral sites like the boys. The fact that the top seeds all play at home for the 1st 2 rounds certainly adds to the lopsided wins.
Todays game was a rout. do youn think there were more viewers than last year when the underdog made it to the finals. Gone are the days of Steph Currie or Loyolla of Chicago on the men's side. This year , 4 number ones ion the men's side and all number 1's and 2's on the women's side. It is a joke.
 
The thing with the women's game is that there has rarely been much depth competition-wise.

It's quite a bit deeper now; I remember when virtually all the 5-stars went to any of Tennessee, UConn, Stanford, some years U$C, leaving very, very few top players for any of the other schools. One could look at the rankings in November and lock in those top 3 schools, and whomever is the hot one of the others... And probably predict the Final 4 right then, 3 months ahead of when the brackets come out... And get at least three of the picks on the money.

There are lots more girls playing now, coaching and training at the high-school level is much better, but there are still not that many difference-makers... Yet. But they have a long way to go.

Eventually, we'll start seeing double-digit seeds play the top ones tough, just not yet.

No reason to shrink the bracket, let the game grow into it.

Now, the home-court thing... I could see that going away in a few years.
 
The home court rule is simply about attendance and money. They've tried to play at neutral sites, and it hasn't worked. Even the men struggle with the early round neutral sites.

NIL, as pointed out, will make the rich get richer, so this kind of imbalance is baked into the system. And the talent pool is a lot shallower on the women's side, so Cinderellas are stuck sweeping up the ashes.

It's the same on the men's side -- it's hard to see how St. Mary's can continue to compete in the new order, for example. The money just isn't there.
 
I wonder if the NCAA braintrust even thought of this...

The Big Dance is their money cow, and NIL money causing a rich-get-richer effect could end up hurting the tournament overall by making it even tougher for Cinderellas to have a real chance, a big part of fan interest.
 
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I wonder if the NCAA braintrust even thought of this...

The Big Dance is their money cow, and NIL money causing a rich-get-richer effect could end up hurting the tournament overall by making it even tougher for Cinderellas to have a real chance, a big part of fan interest.
The top 4 seeds played in the men's final 4. All 4 have decent fan bases and travel well. Both games were excellent. Cinderellas aren't as fun for the money. We want to see great games
 
There was a note in the post game press around Geno's preseason outlook for UConn, and how they had lost a closed pre-season scrimmage by a point. The team they lost to was Columbia! Now I imagine that if those teams played in the tourney, the Lions probably don't stay within 30, but Columbia certainly deserved to be in the tournament this year (they proved it by knocking off Washington). Teams like that make the early rounds interesting. I do wish there were less chalk in the women's game, but I'm afraid that with NIL $ and a wide open transfer portal, the clock is already striking midnight for Cinderellas.
 
The top 4 seeds played in the men's final 4. All 4 have decent fan bases and travel well. Both games were excellent. Cinderellas aren't as fun for the money. We want to see great games
Of course, but I'm talking about in a few years after NIL has fully taken hold and the top 10-12 teams in the men and the top 2 in the women get practically ALL the 5-star recruits. And I'm talking about the early rounds. We could see things go back the way they were 30 years ago, when top-4 seeds just manhandled the bottom 4, no Cinderella suspense at all.

And it'd be way worse in the women's bracket... I could see first-round scores like 90-25 again, like 30 years ago. That's not fun...

But yeah, the cream rising to the top in the Final 4 would be good... Especially when the way there is paved with creampuffs.
 
Todays game was a rout. do youn think there were more viewers than last year when the underdog made it to the finals. Gone are the days of Steph Currie or Loyolla of Chicago on the men's side. This year , 4 number ones ion the men's side and all number 1's and 2's on the women's side. It is a joke.
I believe that obscure never to be heard from again player from Davidson spelled his name "Curry".

Can't compare the depth of talent and likelihood of upsets between the men's and women's brackets. This year was simply an anomaly. In the past four years, the men have had an 8, a 9 and two 11 seeds make it to the Final Four while the woman have had no seed worse than a 3. Two different worlds.
 
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I believe that obscure never to be heard from again player from Davidson spelled his name "Curry".

Can't compare the depth of talent and likelihood of upsets between the men's and women's brackets. This year was simply an anomaly. In the past four years, the men have had an 8, a 9 and two 11 seeds make it to the Final Four while the woman have had no seed worse than a 3. Two different worlds.
Was thinking of Stephs wife in the kitchen with her restaurants. Why have a pool if no one will win.
 
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I think the women's tournmanet is in a good spot overall.

I like the home sites for the first two rounds. Think it brings some excitement to the gyms that wouldn't be there at neutral sites. And it helps grow those local fan bases that get to host.

Some of the draw of the tournament (both men and women) is the underdog getting in and getting a shot at playing the Goliaths. Changes to shrink the field which will never happen or expand the field which is coming on the mens side is a terrible decision.

I always say that people want the underdogs to win on the first weekend and the top seeds to win the rest of the way for the best games. It was chalk in both brackets and the men's side had three great games and the women's side had three blowouts. That isn't becuase of something wrong with the tournament. It just shakes out that way sometimes.
 
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One thing also to consider for the organizers would go something like: "General fan interest in the women's game has improved a whole lot in the last five years, but can we be sure it will last? Is this new-found interest due to a few stars, like Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark, possibly making this interest spike temporary, or are new stars going to keep popping up that are exciting enough to keep eyes on the game?

What if we plan to do the brackets just the way we do with the men, but fan interest dwindles?"

I think the new stars will keep showing up, but do they think that? Sarah Strong is incredible, and McKenna Woliczko and Kaleena Smith are coming up the ranks, among many as the girls' game continues to improve... But will they move the needle with the fans?

If they do, maybe they already have this "just like the guys" idea already, but there is definitely some lead time. They can't just decide to re-organize, and then have it happen right away. One thing, is that venues would have to become convinced that first-weekend games with women's teams from far away is profitable.

Maybe this happens in a few years... But there is a LOT of money and probably even more pressure riding on the for the NCAA and the TV networks.
 
Venues are convinced that first- and second-round games involving far-away teams are not profitable. It's been tried and failed miserably.

I think the Cinderallas are more fun in the men's bracket. On the women's side, I don't think casual fans are as familiar with the perennial powers and aren't overexposed to the top teams.
 
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Maybe they can come up with a hybrid plan, if they are sure the women's game is still rising up...

Maybe some 5 years from now, if the game is still consistently grabbing eyeballs, go to what the men's used to do, set it up regionally, Northeast, South, Midwest, West, and do their best to have teams play the first weekend in their geographical region, but not at home.
 
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