NCAA Tournament expansion debate: Hoops scribes Seth Davis, Mike DeCourcy have it out

New York Times

23-07-2025

The NCAA Tournament expansion debate is one-sided when it comes to fans and media. However, one prominent voice in particular supports the idea of increasing the number of teams from 68.
The website X is largely useless when it comes to adding value to one's life, though when Seth Davis of Hoops HQ and CBS makes the case for expansion and gets into it with Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News and Big Ten Network, it's fun again for a few fleeting moments. This has happened so often in the past few months, we thought it would be even more fun to get these two — representing nearly 80 years of combined college hoops coverage — together on a video call to argue out loud.
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Like coaches The Athletic polled, this is an even split. And this went well beyond the allotted 30 minutes.
Note: Conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Seth Davis Mike will agree with the fact that the tournament does not start on Thursday. The tournament starts on Tuesday. There are two games Tuesday night, two games Wednesday night, and people don't really care about them. And so my feeling is, if you had six games on Tuesday, you had six games on Wednesday, and then 16 on Thursday and Friday, I think that juices it up.
Mike is shaking his head — more people are gonna watch, more people are gonna bet. Yes, they are, Mike. Those two days will be better. You can't get around that. And I don't think Mike's going to argue, 'Wow, the First Four is awesome.'
And then the other thing is, just the fact that in this sport, they've added four teams (to the tournament) in 40 years, and that is not reflective of the growth of college basketball. I'm not talking about the number of teams in Division I, Mike, though that's one barometer. I'm talking the overall growth of college basketball has not grown by 6 percent in 40 years.
Mike DeCourcy: I don't understand that point. The membership argument is specious. You're getting all these schools that really aren't Division I schools in any other sport, that want to get their shot at the NCAA Tournament pay day. And the athletic directors are like, 'If I can get my team into D-I, I can get this next job and I can climb.' Same thing for university presidents. And so that's why you've seen Division I grow from probably around 280 or so when I started (in 1987), and now we're at 363, I think. That's why it's grown. But you haven't added any Dukes. You haven't added any Carolinas. That's not what's happened.
So from that standpoint, we don't need more teams to accommodate more championship contenders. So I don't understand what that means, that college basketball has grown. In terms of interest, certainly it's grown. But the reason it has grown is because the tournament works as well as it does, and it works because of 64.
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Davis: No, no. You can't make the argument that it works because of 64. There's no factual, data-based argument. And by the way, Mike, there's not 64 teams, there's 68.
DeCourcy: Let me finish my point, OK? The only reason 68 happened is because in 2010, it was, 'We go to 96 or we don't get enough money.' And then Turner comes in and says, 'We'll give you enough money,' and they settled on 68. It was a compromise. As a compromise, it was great, because it protected the integrity of 64. And why does 64 work? It works because of a sheet of paper. It works because it all fits on one sheet of paper.
Davis: There's no way to make a bracket that's 76 teams on one sheet of paper, right?
DeCourcy: No! First of all, you can't fill it out in time …
Davis: That's the dumbest argument of all.
DeCourcy: It's not a dumb argument!
Davis: Dumbest argument of all.
DeCourcy: 'Oh, I have to get my bracket done by Tuesday at noon so we can have 12 more games that no one will watch.' We have less than 2 million, on average, who watch the First Four games. And so what you'll have is 12 games where less than 2 million people will watch. And in the meantime, you have destroyed…
Davis: The idea that you can't fill out a bracket by Tuesday at noon is a joke. An absolute joke.
DeCourcy: I have to fill one out by Sunday night at 8 o'clock. But that's not the same as somebody who works in an office and doesn't pay that much attention to the sport.
Davis: The idea that researching the bracket is going to improve your picks is totally farcical. If you tell people, 'You've got to have your bracket in by noon on Tuesday,' they'll get their bracket in by noon on Tuesday.
Joe Rexrode: I will jump in real fast, Seth, and ask you, beyond the bracket, this is also an annual life ritual too, right? Where people take the days off, some get snip-snapped, whatever, but on Thursday and Friday, you can deal with that.
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Davis: You're still going to have Thursday and Friday.
Rexrode: Right, but you're asking people to devote all of Tuesday and Wednesday, too. Is that not asking too much?
Davis: No, no! They can watch or not watch. If they don't want to watch, they don't have to watch. I kind of liken it to, we just had the British Open. How many were watching the British Open on Thursday or Friday? A lot more people were watching Saturday and then a lot more Sunday. … I'm not saying the ratings are going to be gangbusters, and in fact, they won't be that huge because otherwise they would have done it already.
Mike recognizes that. Mike needs to answer, though, to the facts. He's not wrong about the growth of Division I, but that's only one barometer of the growth. The performance of the lower-seeded teams in the tournament, including those in the First Four, people would say originally, when we went to 68, 'Those teams don't belong in the tournament.' Guess what? Two of them have already made the Final Four (VCU in 2011, UCLA in 2021). So if we went to 76, what do you think the over/under would be of how many years it will take for one of the added slots to result in the Final Four? It wouldn't be that long.
DeCourcy: All you're doing, by doing what you're suggesting, is you are diluting the tournament first of all. But more important — and this is the part I'm more passionate about because I've been in the thick of this now for six years during my work as the bracket analyst for Fox Sports. So I know as well as anybody outside that (selection committee) room what is on the other side of that line. I have to study it over the course of the last six weeks, in particular, so I know, my job is to (figure out) teams that are going to be on the right side of the line and the wrong side of the line.
And first of all, what's on the right side of the line, at the very end of the line, is not impressive. But what's on the wrong side of the line is really hideous. I mean there's no way you make a championship better by putting more lesser teams in it. This last year, we had two teams make the field that had one Quad 1 win each. Two teams. We're to that point now. And now we need to add teams that have zero Quad 1 wins? How does that make the tournament better? That for me is the most important part of the argument.
Davis: Well, first of all, in terms of the quality of teams getting in and the bubble teams, you used words like 'impressive, hideous, lesser.' Those are subjective words.
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DeCourcy: It is a subjective process at the end there, Seth.
Davis: What I'm saying is, everyone, including myself, argued against North Carolina being in the field. And then they beat San Diego State by a million points.
DeCourcy: I never said they didn't win a game. I said they didn't earn a bid.
Davis: Yeah, but again, we're talking about subjective criteria, right? The idea that over 40 years, the field has only grown by four spots is not commensurate with the quality of college basketball being played across the board. Now I know it's a little bit of an exception, but these teams that just got into Division I, do you know who just got into Division I and played their first season of Division I last year? UC-San Diego. They ended up as a 12 seed and almost knocked off Michigan in the first game.
So all of these metrics, the performance of the lower-seeded teams, to me, justifies fixing the one thing that is most wrong with this tournament. And that is Tuesday and Wednesday. You cannot argue that having more games on Tuesday and Wednesday won't add more interest to those days. You just can't.
DeCourcy: It will not.
Davis: You cover college basketball for the Sporting News, right? So if there are six games on Tuesday and Wednesday, will you cover it?
DeCourcy: Will there be articles on our site about them? Yes. There are articles on our site about the current four games that exist. And not that many people read them.
Davis: If you're Joe Rexrode, if you're The Athletic, you're covering those games?
Rexrode: Yeah, we'll have something.
Davis: So someone is going to click on the story.
DeCourcy: Someone. Not millions.
Davis: I'm not saying, no one is saying millions. But I'm saying … it will make Tuesday and Wednesday better. And by the way, the NCAA Tournament is the greatest gambling sporting event that we have, because of the bracket pool. People love to bet the games. … This has been proven in other sports. It's been going on in college football right now. When you add slots to the postseason, it adds interest to the regular season. Because you have more teams that are able to get into the playoffs. Go back to Major League Baseball. It used to be four teams in the playoffs, am I right about that?
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Rexrode: Yes, and I'd love to go back.
Davis: When they started to add more teams, the wild card, more divisions, Bob Costas' head exploded, saying, 'You're diluting the regular season.' But they added interest in the regular season. Same with college football.
DeCourcy: Don't use college football. They didn't have a postseason. So they went from nothing to having a postseason.
Davis: Yeah, but there were a lot of people saying they shouldn't have a playoff because it would diminish the regular season. That was a huge argument.
DeCourcy: It was a counterintuitive argument. We don't have time for that. Make your baseball argument.
Davis: When you expand a playoff, you expand interest in the regular season because now if you're a fan of a team with a chance to get in, you're going to pay attention.
DeCourcy: Baseball's regular season is not as popular as it used to be.
Davis: That's not because of playoff expansion.
DeCourcy: But you can't use that as an example if there's nothing there to verify. If there's no data to back you up, you can't use it.
Davis: You gonna tell me that college football didn't get better with a playoff?
DeCourcy: College football definitely got better with a playoff. It had none. Now it has one. We have one in the NCAA Tournament that is beloved, and that leads me to my next point. Have you ever done a Twitter poll or anything like that to gauge the popularity of (expansion)?
Davis: I'm well aware of where public sentiment is on this.
DeCourcy: Well, I mean, so why would you mess with a product that 90 percent of your public embraces? When (Rob) Dauster (of Field of 68) did his, it was 94 percent against. When I did mine, it was 91 percent against. If you can find a Twitter poll that says — and that's why I wish you had, because you are one of the few advocating for this — if you can find a poll that says 90 percent in favor of it, I'll shut up.
Please answer: Do you want NCAA Tournament expansion?
— Rob Dauster (@RobDauster) July 9, 2025
Davis: I know exactly where public sentiment is, and that's a very valid argument against. I think there's something to be said, given what I think is the incredible growth of the game over the last 40 years. … I think there's a case to be made that more schools, more players, more coaches, more families should have access to the tournament.
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DeCourcy: Every team has access to the tournament, Seth.
Davis: OK, let's go back to 48 then. That would really add value.
DeCourcy: There's nothing wrong with 64.
Davis: You're saying there's nothing wrong with 64, you disagree with Dave Gavitt, who in 1985 made a very, very strong argument against going to 64.
DeCourcy: And he lost, and then he embraced it.
Davis: Right, and you're going to embrace going to 76. Mike's gonna go, 'Seth, you were right again, I shouldn't have doubted you.' How about in 1975 when they went from only conference champs to at-large bids? John Wooden and a lot of people were against it for all of the reasons you're saying right now.
DeCourcy: No. None of the reasons I'm saying right now.
Davis: It's parroting exactly what you're saying.
DeCourcy: At that point in time — here's where I have the advantage over Seth, Joe — I was there. I was a basketball-loving teenager in 1975. Seth was not.
Davis: I did a little bit of research about that time (referencing his books 'Wooden: A Coach's Life' and 'When March Went Mad' on the 1979 Michigan State-Indiana State title game). There was a lot of opposition, people saying exactly what you're saying.
DeCourcy: But those games weren't even on TV. At that point, if you tried to watch the Sweet 16 on TV, you basically had to be living in that market.
Davis: You're saying adding more teams made it a better product, and they had to get it on TV and make more money.
DeCourcy: No, ESPN came along and they needed more games on TV because they were a 24-hour sports station, so they started to put it on TV and people started to watch. And it changed everything. … When John Wooden was talking, the tournament wasn't popular. The championship game was pretty popular. The tournament wasn't.
Davis: Expanding the tournament made it more popular. Say it, Mike. Say the words. Say the words. Expanding the tournament made it more popular.
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DeCourcy: And you reached a perfect chemistry at 64 in 1985.
Davis: Perfect as determined by, 40 years ago it was perfect.
DeCourcy: It still is. It still is because the public continues to embrace it.
Davis: It's not at 64.
Rexrode: Right, but everyone complains about this little extra part we have to start with.
DeCourcy: When I ask about this, I get more people saying we should go back to 64 than anyone saying we should expand.
Davis: And I should be 6-foot-8 and be able to dunk, OK? So everyone who says, 'We need to go back to 64,' should leave the chat. Stop talking about 64 being perfect. If you're going to tell me that 64 is the perfect number, then what you're saying is the tournament is not perfect. It's not at 64. It's 68. We have Tuesday and Wednesday that nobody cares about, and this is a way to juice that up.
DeCourcy: It doesn't juice it up. It dilutes it. It doesn't add more 100 percent orange juice; it just throws another cup of water into an already diluted cocktail.
Rexrode: On that point, Mike, do you believe that if this happens, we go to 72 or 76, that there will be a detrimental long-term effect to the popularity of the tournament?
DeCourcy: I absolutely 100 percent believe that. Not just the popularity of the tournament, but the popularity of the sport on the whole. I think what you'll see in the regular season, the interest in the regular season will be diminished because — and I know this is rhetoric — everyone who can bounce a ball three times without bouncing it off their foot will get in the tournament.
I think it would diminish the interest of the tournament in terms of the people saying, 'That's just too many teams, too much complication on the bracket, we can't get it on the one sheet anymore, the heck with it, I'm out.' I have very little doubt about that. How many millions of people that means, I don't know. But over time I think it would trickle off and you'd just have the hardcores.
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Davis: I think people are very resistant to change. And I think that's really, to me, the lesson in this. Mike keeps saying, '64 is perfect, 64 is perfect.' I think people will get used to the idea of a few more teams in there. I think it will add interest in the regular season because more teams, more fan bases would have a chance to have their team in the field. I think you would have a great chance to have at least one or two more mid-major teams get at-large bids, which is why there's almost unanimous consent within mid-major commissioners, and I've talked to many of them. They all want this.
Clearly, most of (the bids) would go to the power conferences, we know that. … No one is making a better or more cogent, fact-based argument against this than Mike DeCourcy. It's the same argument made by really smart people for many decades across many sports. And I believe history shows that most of the time, they've been wrong.
Rexrode: Closing arguments?
DeCourcy: When you come down to it, there is no clear reason to expand. You have an incredibly popular product that is artistically successful and economically successful. You've got something that the target audience, your fans, are embracing and have embraced for decades. There's been no public demand for a larger tournament. There's no economic demand for a larger tournament. The networks are saying, 'We don't want to pay for it.'
And it's only being pursued because conference commissioners are looking out for what's best for them. Not about what's best for the health of the sport. Not even really about what's best for their partners in (TV). All of that adds up to a poor idea that hopefully, by the time we get to a decision, will have been sent back to the closet it belongs in.
Davis: First of all, Mike is very right about the economics of this. Which is why all those people out there saying they're only doing it for the money need to leave the chat and join all the people who are saying we need to go back to 64. This is about access to the tournament.
I do agree with Mike, there is no mass call for this, there is certainly no uprising. I would hope Mike would agree with me and separate himself from some of his colleagues who say, 'If they did make this move, it would be the end of times.' Ruinous. You will not ruin March Madness. It will marginally change it. It will make Tuesday and Wednesday a little bit better. It will give more players, coaches, teams, fan bases and families a chance to enjoy and participate in the greatest sporting event, in my opinion, in the world. I think it will make things marginally better.
Rexrode: Mike wins, not just because he's right but because he used the word 'specious.'