As the NCAA gets set to expand its basketball tournaments to 76 teams, Jay Williams believes it’s sending a bad message to the country’s youth.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported the news Tuesday night, noting the NCAA is expected to move the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to 76 teams in time for the 2026-27 season. According to Thamel, expansion is less about potential revenue, and more about the power conferences ensuring their teams get bids to the tournament. And that’s what seems to bother Williams the most.
“This is about the royal family having more seats at the table. And the royal family are the power conferences here,” Williams said Wednesday morning on ESPN’s Get Up. “What I hate about this is we have conversations a lot about 82 games in the regular-season for the NBA. To me, this devalues the regular-season for college basketball. It means fewer games that actually matter.”
“The last chokehold for college basketball is the NCAA tournament for the NCAA, so they’re gonna try to drive as much revenue as possible,” Williams continued. “The NCAA is trying to make the power conferences happy in order to maintain the NCAA tournament because inevitably, the power conferences are going to break away from the NCAA tournament, that is going to happen. You can book it.”
Even if expansion isn’t about the revenue the NCAA can make off several additional play-in games at the beginning of the tournament, it is about needing to appease the power conferences as their ultimate revenue driver. If the power conferences want more bids, the NCAA will grant their wish. But not only does Williams believe appeasing the power conferences devalues the regular-season, he believes it devalues the lessons that sports should be teaching our youth.
“Everybody doesn’t get a damn trophy,” Williams ranted. “We talk about it when it comes to youth sports all the time…We’re saying everybody gets in. What the hell is the point of having a tournament if more teams continue to get in? We’re not teaching the valuable lessons. We’re saying things that we want to teach the youth on one hand, but yet we’re doing something else on the other.”
It might be a valiant point by Williams. But it’s one the NCAA doesn’t care about. The NCAA cares about making sure the tournament remains its lifeblood. And if expanding the tournament helps them do that by keeping the power conferences happy, the NCAA is not going to be concerned about what type of messaging it might be sending youth sports.
About Brandon Contes
Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com