Jay Bilas: NCAA Tournament expansion would be 'profoundly stupid'

Jay Bilas’ longstanding contempt for the NCAA showed itself on this Saturday’s edition of College GameDay when the ESPN broadcaster railed against the idea of expanding the NCAA Tournament.

Tournament expansion has become a hot topic this season in college hoops as various conference and NCAA leaders have hinted that discussions are taking place theorizing how to possibly expand the field from its current 68-team format. On that topic, Bilas merely had this to say:

“Never underestimate the NCAA’s capacity to do something stupid. And if they did this, it would be profoundly stupid.”

Bilas then launched into an explanation that every team who wants to compete in March Madness has the ability to do so. You just got to win your conference crown, he argues.

“When anyone says more teams need access to the tournament — every team has the same access to the tournament now. All you have to do is win your conference’s automatic bid, which is against your peers with a group of teams that you have chosen to be among, and every team is in the tournament already. All you have to do is win your conference tournament. You’re already in the tournament.”

Bilas then joked at what a paper bracket would be with nearly 100 teams on it.

“What are we gonna do now? We’re going to 96 and we’re going to print the bracket out first on legal paper then on a roll of toilet paper and just roll it out,” he chided. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Plus, Jay Bilas believes teams should have to accomplish something of note in order to get into the field. After all, there ought to be some exclusivity.

“The one thing everybody’s forgetting is that this is not an access tournament, it’s a national championship event. You should have to do something hard to get in. And if you think it’s too hard, then Division II is wide open.”

At the end of the day, Bilas is just dumbfounded why the powers that be have decided to screw around with the one postseason model in college sports that everyone seems to love in its current existence.

“I just don’t understand this. Why would you mess with this? They always say ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Well, why doesn’t that apply to this? Like, we went to the First Four, you wanna add on to that? If it’s just about money, say so. But this business about access is nonsense. Everybody has access now.”

Quite a fiery take on the tournament field size from Jay Bilas, who really is speaking for many college hoops fans on that issue.