NCAA Basketball: The potential disaster impact of losing autobids in NCAA Tournament

The NCAA Basketball tournament is the one event that separates that sport from the rest of the College Sports. It is a fantastic event and one where 68 teams truly have the ability, provided they win enough games, to win the National Championship.

One month ago Jeff Goodman, from Stadium and the “Field of 68”, tweeted that the co-chair of the NCAA tournament committee, Greg Sankey told him that they were having preliminary talks about getting rid of the conference’s automatic bids, essentially ending it for the little guy. Not many batted an eye at it because it didn’t seem like a plausible scenario because why would the NCAA knowingly sabotage the biggest event in NCAA Basketball?

It may now be time to start thinking about this a little more as the President of one of the small schools Florida Gulf Coast University is openly talking about it and starting to prepare for the day when it is going to come. Martin was quoted as saying “March Madness will become much more controlled by a handful of schools.”  That is exactly how College Football got in trouble and what makes their playoff so undesirable to the casual fan.

I won’t speak for every fan out there because I am sure there are a handful of outspoken fans who are going to think this is good for the game and will make the basketball better. The vast majority of the fans, including the die-hards, are going to think the same way and that is this decision would be terrible for basketball, would kill the little guys, and would make the tournament extremely repetitive and boring.

It also makes room for more undeserving teams to make the field. There are a lot of reasons why this is terrible for this great game. I will give you the top reasons why eliminating the auto bids is a bad idea.