NCAA Basketball: What if March Madness worked like the FIFA World Cup?

By Dakota Cox | Jul 10, 2018

PITTSBURGH, PA - MARCH 15: A general view of the court with March Madness signage is seen prior to the start of the game between the OklahomaSooners and the Rhode Island Rams in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at PPG PAINTS Arena on March 15, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /

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MILAN, ITALY – NOVEMBER 13: Jorginho of Italy in action during the FIFA 2018 World Cup Qualifier Play-Off: Second Leg between Italy and Sweden at San Siro Stadium on November 13, 2017 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images) /

Regular Season/Qualifying

In FIFA, there are specific criteria a team must complete in order to qualify for the World Cup. To keep things fair, college basketball would not have to do this. The only change to the regular season would be perhaps shortening it by a few weeks in order to enable more time for the tournament itself.

This wouldn’t be a necessity, but I would suggest cutting the pool of teams to 32. You can still have a few storylines, and every game would be competitive. This would also probably include eliminating the automatic bid a team gets for winning its conference. The same committee that determines the best at-large teams would simply just pick the 32 best teams in basketball. Whether you seed them like normal or draw the seeds randomly like the World Cup does, you would leave the committee room with a bracket for the 32 teams.

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