The NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament is thinking about expanding from 65 teams to 96, which I happen to think is a terrible idea. The Wall Street Journal wrote a snarky article, Hey NCAA, No Need to Stop at 96 Possibly Expanding the Tournament by Nearly 50% Is a Cop-Out; Let’s Let Everyone in,where they sarcastically suggest inviting “every one of the current 347 NCAA Division I schools. That’s right: The Magnificent Three Hundred and Forty Seven. Catchy, right? It just rolls off the tongue…One school will be crowned
the champion, but everyone will be considered a ‘winner.’ The idea is to replicate the drama, energy and positivity of a third-grade gingerbread-house-making contest.”
Meanwhile, the NFL has changed the rules regarding ties in the playoffs, which seems reasonably fair.
So what rule changes in sports would you like to see? How about:
Electronically-called balls and strikes in baseball?
Going back to the 6.0 scale in figure skating?
Actually calling traveling in NBA games?
(I’d say no, no and yes.)
ROG
No matter what rules changes, I hope March Madness remains as much of a thrill ride as ever. The Road to the Final Four ain't smooth, but the journey sure is picturesque… Even though this year's Elite Right are all top 5 seeds (plus the Vols, of course), Syracuse, Kansas, 'Nova and Ohio State bit the dust along the way…
I saw Colin Cowherd on SportsCenter talking about the idea of expanding the men's b'ball tourney. He made a very good point against it. It wouldn't allow anymore good teams into the tourney. Sure, there area few teams that get left behind because some surprise team with a record barely over .500 win their conference tourney. But ultimately, it wouldn't get you anymore teams like Syracuse and Villanova, so it's a bad idea. Honestly, I think 64/65 is too many. However, it's a good number so nobody gets a bye, and I don't like bye's in sports tourney's.
I would like to see the NHL to switch to automatic icing like every other league and level in the world. There haven't been a lot of injuries as of late, but a few NHL players have some bad injuries sustained or worse (careers ended) while trying to get icing or negate it.
As for baseball, part of the wonder of the game is the differences between umpires. Sure, it might be better if they were all consistent, but they been doing it this way for over 100 years, why change now?