ACC proposes every D1 team make NCAA tournament
Dan Wetzel, Pete Thamel, and SI’s Pat Forde react to the news out of the ACC where their collection of basketball coaches are pushing for an all-inclusive March Madness in 2021. Could they actually pull this off?
Video Transcript
[SPECTATORS CHEERING]
DAN WETZEL: Let me just say I don't know what the 2020-21 college basketball season is going to look like, but this is obviously, in general, a redundant deal. Virtually every conference-- there's a few that don't, but virtually every conference allows every team in their conference into the-- their conference tournament. That then results in a-- if you win your conference tournament, you win the automatic bid and in. So, essentially, everyone's already in the NCAA basketball tournament. It's just called something different.
Now there's a few leagues that cut it. Look, if you suck so bad that you can't even make your conference tournament in college basketball--
[LAUGHTER]
That said, you know, it's like, let's get freaky, man. It's pandemic time.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm not going to complain if there's more basketball on.
PETE THAMEL: Glens Falls bracket.
[LAUGHTER]
DAN WETZEL: Hell yeah.
PETE THAMEL: I had a NCAA-- former NCAA executive tell me, he's like, it's-- it's fitting this comes from the ACC, because they've long believed that every ACC team should get in the NCAA tournament.
[LAUGHTER]
PAT FORDE: Sure. Oh, yeah.
DAN WETZEL: I'm-- I'm in favor of this only because it gets rid of bracketology.
[LAUGHTER]
PETE THAMEL: Jerry Palm is like towel-sweating right now. He's like Gary Williams on the sideline.
DAN WETZEL: Joe Lunardi, no! I don't have to listen to that crap for two months. Who's in? Who's out? First four out. You're all in. You're unemployed.
[LAUGHTER]
PAT FORDE: I like the idea.
PETE THAMEL: You like it?
PAT FORDE: Yeah, yeah.
PETE THAMEL: Oh, it's so incredibly stupid.
PAT FORDE: No, I don't think it's going to happen, but I've got no problem with it for a couple of reasons. OK. Everybody's been through absolute hell. Nobody got to play in the NCAA tournament last year. A lot of players who didn't get to play in the NCAA tournament last year, now-- maybe their team wasn't going to be as good this time around. Now they're going to get their chance. The conference tournaments, I think, were already going to be messy to begin with. Let-- let-- let me predicate this by saying, first of all, we've got to make a lot of progress from a disease standpoint to even have-- to even have this discussion, OK? Like, if we're sitting in the same position in February or March, then-- then come on. It wouldn't even make any sense.
But if we get there, it would be fun, different, inclusive, and I think it would probably help some players not opt out and maybe stick in there. Hey, you know, we're going to play in the NCAA tournament. So I'm fine with it. You know what? I mean, it's crazy. It's harebrained. I don't-- I think there's a lot going against it, but I like the idea. I'm fine with it
PETE THAMEL: I like the idea, just the notion of being creative, and I love basketball. So the more basketball, clearly, clearly, the better. I don't love the idea right now at a time of contraction, at a time where Roy Williams looks out his office window to an empty campus and says, you know what, let's expand that dadgum NCAA tournament. What a good idea. Like, Will Wade has a better chance of being voted the head of the NABC ethics committee than college presidents amid a pandemic or the NCAA board of governors amid a pandemic, which is filled with college presidents, saying, you know what, let's green-light that five-times-bigger NCAA tournament when we couldn't even have fall championships, when our doctors have been doom and gloom about everything.
So again, love the spirit of it. It is a great Final Four bar conversation. Right?
DAN WETZEL: [LAUGHS]
PETE THAMEL: Like this is exactly what this is, like a bunch of drunks going, I know what we'll do. We'll make the tournament all-inclusive. And here's the bottom line-- everybody needs money. Schools need money. Conferences need money. The NCAA needs money. There really wouldn't be that much more money in this.
