Columnist Dean Juipe: Let all 318 teams into tournament

Dean Juipe

Friday, Feb. 25, 2000 | 10:52 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@vegas.com or 259-4084.

It's idealistic to even think such thoughts, yet the NCAA could do itself and everyone interested in college basketball a favor and eliminate its 64-team postseason men's tournament.

Heresy, you say? Eliminate one of the greatest spectacles in all of sport?

Well, not quite.

It would take a little reorganizing, but the real solution to college basketball's endless diatribes on which teams should or should not be awarded spots in the 64-team tournament field is to replace it with an open tournament in which all 318 Division I teams take part in a single-elimination series of showdowns.

Everyone's in, just as they used to do it in Indiana high school basketball and just as they're reconsidering in that same state.

Going to a 318-team tournament may seem too unwieldy or impractical, yet, in truth, there are nothing but pluses to it.

For starters, it would be across-the-board fair in that no built-in prejudices or preconceived notions would affect the selection process. And the suspense that would be derived from a series of increasingly important, do-or-die games would make the tournament a one-of-a-kind event that would routinely crown the most deserving team as champion.

Instead of each college team scheduling some 27 regular-season games, as UNLV is doing this season, a handful of meaningless games would be lopped off in order to clear time for a few rounds of postseason play. In the Rebels' case, that means boring games with the likes of Mississippi Valley State, Fairfield, Austin Peay, High Point and Florida Atlantic would never have been played.

A realistic ceiling of 22 regular-season games would become the norm. And, again localizing the issue, a coach like the Rebels' Bill Bayno could stack his nonconference schedule with as many tough opponents as possible instead of all these pushovers he uses to build his team's record and supposed confidence.

So, if nothing else, the regular season would be far more interesting and that, in turn, would lead to greater revenues through increased ticket sales. Instead of burdening your fans with a clunker like Tuesday's empty-arena snoozefest with Florida Atlantic, UNLV could arrange games with respectable programs without worrying about the long-term consequences of a given loss.

Teams' RPI stature would still be used for seeding purposes in a 318-team tournament, yet it wouldn't help determine who's in and who's out as it does now in a 64-team format.

While 318 isn't the most divisible number in the book and would require the use of a bye in a couple of places, that total could and would periodically change as programs move up to Division I or drop back to a lesser level of competition. (As it is, 64 isn't all that ironclad a number, given how many times the tournament field has been increased over the years and the fact the NCAA is considering "play-in" games next season. "Play-in" games would match teams on the bubble of the 64-team field, with the winners advancing into the formal tournament.)

The present system is lousy and subject to a clandestine selection process.

But a tournament where every team participates would increase revenues and broaden the event's appeal.

It's almost a no-brainer.