Mike Krzyzewski on potential NCAA Tournament expansion: 'I would like to see more access'

During his career at Duke, Mike Krzyzewski coached in 36 NCAA Tournaments. Early on, he saw the tournament make a big change, moving up to 64 teams in 1985 to allow more teams to make the field.

But two years after Coach K stepped away from the court, the idea of changing the tournament is coming up again. Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported talk of expanding the March Madness from its current 68-team field is ramping up as major change sweeps the college sports landscape. Conference commissioners started conversations about exploring that possibility with NCAA president Charlie Baker, who mentioned the need for more “access.”

Krzyzewski agreed, and he compared the path to March Madness to that of college football’s bowl system.

Should we expand the NCAA Tournament or is it perfect the way it is?

Coach K isn't opposed to expanding the tournament and explains why to Chris Spatola.

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“Only 20% of the teams that play college basketball, Division I basketball, get postseason in the tournament,” Krzyzewski said on his SiriusXM show. “College football, two-thirds – two-thirds – of the teams in Division I, top Division I, go to bowl games. You can be 6-6. There are people who are, 20-5 who lose in their conference tournament and don’t make the NCAA Tournament, and it’s a bad year. You know what I mean?”

In college football, 80 slots are available for teams to play in bowl games – and 12 teams will soon play in a revamped College Football Playoff. But when it comes to the postseason in basketball, there are more tournaments for teams to play, such as the National Invitation Tournament and the College Basketball Invitational.

Still, the 68 bids in the NCAA Tournament out of 362 Division I programs are especially important from a revenue standpoint. That’s why Krzyzewski teams don’t typically get credit for successful seasons if they miss out on the big dance, and he pondered some ideas to create more bids.

“I would like to see more access,” Krzyzewski said. “That’s not what I’ve spent all my time on, but I’d like to see more credit being given to the teams that have done well and celebrate our sport. I think it’s a deep look into the tournament and what can be done. Is there’s something that – instead of the conference tournament, although they make a lot of money, that lends itself to the 64 or 68? Is there something in between the regular season and the tournament that we could add that would add to the game, but also to give recognition to the coaches and the teams that have had terrific seasons?

“‘We didn’t make the NCAA.’ ‘Shame on you.’ ‘Yeah, but we were 21-6.’ ‘Shame on you.’ Football does a lot better job of that. You go 6-6 or 7-5 or whatever it is, and God bless them. They use the bowls to keep interest in college football during December. Then, they have the Playoff. Is there something that we could do to do that with basketball? I don’t know.”