Hurley not a fan of proposed tourney growth
HOUSTON– An NCAA committee could soon reveal a recommendation on prospective growth of the NCAA tournament field, but UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley says he believes the competition is great with 68 teams.Hurley, who will attempt to lead the Huskies to their 5th nationwide title since 1999 in the national championship game versus San Diego State on Monday night, said the NCAA tournament is flawed however expansion is not the response.”For me, I think it’s great the method it is
,” Hurley stated at his pregame news conference at NRG Stadium on Sunday. “I seem like decreasing the value of the routine season, I think, potentially harms the routine season and what it means. I think the pressure to have to win games and being rewarded for winning big nonconference games and then looking after adequate business in the league … I think it’s a privilege to play in this tournament, not a right.”Editor’s Picks 1 Related However it’s not best. Hurley, who coached Rhode Island prior to accepting the UConn task in
2018, stated
the formula for selecting teams in some cases rewards groups with brand over deserving mid-major schools. “I do believe, though, that there are probably mid-major programs, a great deal of times, that are more deserving than like a 10th-place team in a power conference that has actually determined how to just game the numbers, so I’ll say that. I see that on Choice Sunday in some cases. And I cringe at that.”On Saturday, brand-new NCAA president Charlie Baker informed reporters at the Final 4 that a suggestion of possible growth
from the NCAA committee studying the issue might come as early as this summer.On ESPN Radio’s”Keyshawn, JWill & Max “on Friday, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo stated that” he would not go to 90 [
groups] but he favors more groups earning bids.Miami coach Jim Larranaga, who led the program to its very first Last Four this year, stated recently that he also would back expansion.
“I believe there is so much parity in college basketball, we need to broaden the NCAA competition to another round,”Larranaga told ESPN Radio last month.
“It needs to be 96 groups invited. You take a look at what Fairleigh Dickinson did, you take a look at what FAU has done … These are teams that maybe no one found out about entering into the tournament. Last year, it was Saint Peters.”The NCAA, we have 360 Department I groups and just 68 make the dance. The entire objective is to give the student-athlete a great experience. Well, there is no higher experience for a college basketball player than to contend in March Insanity and yet we just have 68 groups out of 363. That’s 18%. Let’s increase it. Let’s go to 96.” Hurley disagrees, however, with the coach he faced on Saturday in the Final Four. “I do not think expanding [the NCAA competition] is a great idea,”
he stated.”And we only got five teams [in the NCAA tournament] in the Big East, so it’s not like we got nine.”