Former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is not a fan of expanding the NCAA Tournament and reiterated the position he’s held during a podcast appearance on Monday.
“There are less teams capable right now than ever before and there’s many have nots and it’s not their fault,” Krzyzewski said on “The Field of 68.” “I don’t think you mess with something that’s gold. It’s gold. I think the thing you should mess with is getting a leadership group and having them study and see what happens with that group.
“Not just one person. Actually, they should run it like the NBA, a staff and all that. … Run it like a business. I wouldn’t mess with gold right now and the NCAA Tournament is certainly that.”
As of now, the NCAA has put any talks about expanding the field on hold, but NCAA president Charlie Baker told CBS Sports in January that he was in favor of expansion.
Expansion of the tournament field has been mixed, depending on who you ask among some of college basketball’s best-known coaches.
Legendary Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim has advocated for more teams to be included in the tournament in the past, while UConn coach Dan Hurley has been against it.
Baker told CBS Sports that the number of automatic-qualifier teams would remain at the current number of 32 if the NCAA does expand next year or somewhere down the line.
The at-large spots are where additional teams could be a possibility.
“That leaves 36 spots,” Baker told the outlet. “That means you’re going to leave a bunch of the top 50 teams out of the tournament, right? … I mean, couple years ago I was kind of bummed when Seton Hall and Indiana State didn’t get in the tournament, because they both had quality wins and quality schedules. … The more you do to create opportunities for the so-called bubble teams each year to get into the tournament, first of all, it puts some other really good teams that probably might belong there.
“But it also protects the AQs (automatic qualifiers), right? Because I don’t want to end up in a situation where people say we need to do something about the AQs because we’re keeping too many good teams out of the tournament.”
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