ACC Proposing 346-Team NCAA Tournament

The NCAA Tournament met its untimely demise at the hands of the coronavirus this past March, and ACC coaches want to compensate for that in part by making EVERY TEAM in Division-1 eligible for the 2021 Tourney. Jeff Goodman of Stadium first reported:




Goodman adds that there are would be 346 teams eligible for this tournament (there are 357 D-1 teams, but Oklahoma State is banned for infractions related to the FBI college hoops investigation, three teams are ineligible for academic reasons, and seven are "reclassifiers").

This would be a wild scene. Perhaps not coincidentally, it would provide extra television tonnage for CBS and Turner Sports, which were left without the games this past year. Their coffers and thus the NCAA's may not be fully recouped by this expanded tournament, but it would presumably soften the blow.

What this would mean for the regular season of college hoops, which already struggles to maintain casual interest before March, remains to be seen. But it would be an incredibly frenetic several weeks.





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Ryan Glasspiegel grew up in Connecticut, graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and lives in Chicago. Before OutKick, he wrote for Sports Illustrated and The Big Lead. He enjoys expensive bourbon and cheap beer.