Rece Davis pushes back on possible expansion of NCAA Tournament: 'Plenty big enough'

Rece Davis is mostly indifferent but would lean towards not being for an expansion of the NCAA Tournament.

Davis gave that take on the ‘College GameDay Podcast’ on Wednesday with Pete Thamel. He was, again, mostly disinterested in the debate while at least being a bit partial to keeping the bracket at 68 teams rather than adding four to eight berths and making it 72 or 76.

“Uh, I mean, I don’t know. I think it’s plenty big enough,” Davis said. “I’m not, you know – I’m not diametrically, you know, opposed to it but I also don’t have, you know, just absolute advocacy for, you know, for tournament expansion.”

On one hand, Davis gets why the powers that be would want another set of teams to make it in the field. It’ll allow more teams and leagues into the event while only adding that much more interest into it with that many programs involved in March Madness.

“I mean, I understand why you do it,” Davis said. “You’ve got to have the access for the smaller conferences.”

“You get the Maryland Baltimore County pulling the upsets and everybody remembers and that’s all great…As, you know, the talent is spread out a little bit, you do get the Florida Atlantics and the San Diego States, you know, who were able to make the Final Four and all of those, you know, all of those are good, good stories because – like, even NC State last year that, you know, made the Final Four. Still a, you know, high-major team that just caught fire at the right time, you know, and sort of hit their rhythm at the exact right time. Got a nice, you know, got some nice, night time banking hours in the ACC Tournament to stay alive and just took off from there. So, you know, you still have that.”

However, on the other hand, shifting the bubble only makes things more chaotic within the tournament. That was a pro with how the bracket usually goes but it can become too much once you ask that of the true contenders who are trying to win a national title.

“I feel like, I feel like there’s enough, I think there’s enough access and enough mediocre teams in the field already…It’s, it’s big enough. It’s big enough now, I think,” Davis said. “There are enough – you’ve thrown enough, you’ve thrown enough landmines in the way of the good teams because everybody loves the first-round upsets and you don’t love it so much when it gets to the second round or you get two first-round upsets in the same bracket and you wind up with something a little bit less than what you might want later on.”

There are arguments on both sides, despite the overall approval of what is currently the NCAA Tournament. Davis just isn’t going to make one that’s too in favor of one or the other with how he felt about the reporting that came out last weekend about the bracket.

“I’m not against it but, you know, adding more mediocrity into what is a tremendous event, you know, one of the most dramatic and compelling events on the sports calendar every year, um, doesn’t, doesn’t crank me up, you know, but I’m not against it,” Davis said. “It’s more games. It’ll be fun. We’ll all watch, you know. So I’m not just absolutely saying this is a travesty but I don’t, you know – I’m not jumping up and down and saying we need to have it happen either.”