80-team NCAA Tournament

[Buxcies]

At this point, I'm all for going to an 80 team tournament. I am fully aware that most years, 11 if not all of the 12 extra teams will come from the Power 5(6), but if every other year an additional mid major gets in that is better for the Valley.

Right now we're a 1 bid league with every 4 years we get in a second team. Maybe that shrinks to every 3 years with an 80 team tournament instead of 68 teams.

[BCPanther]

We have a legitimate chance to have 5 teams in the top 75 next year as long as we hang on to coaches. (Indiana State, Drake, Bradley, UNI, Belmont)

It's a year where we need to live up to it and make some hay with metrics in Nov/Dec.

[ColonialBulldog]

I feel like the initial reports of expanding to 80-96 teams were bait to make 72 teams seem pretty tame. While the big winner is the middling power conference teams, I'd like to think that at least one of the four extra spots will go to a deserving Valley team and cement us as a multi-bid league (at a minimum a 1.5 bid league on average). Now the question is where are those four extra teams slotted?

Are they going to make all 16 seeds play-in games for the bottom eight AQs? That would likely result in the Valley auto-bid shifting from an 11-12 seed down to a 12-13 seed. I don't like that.

Are they going to make the four extra teams play as 11/12 seeds in the first four (eight)? That would probably guarantee that any Valley at-large is playing in the first four. I guess that's not so bad because it is sort of happening already.

If they add one AQ game and one At-Large play-in game, I doubt we notice much difference at all.