Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren believes expanding the NCAA basketball tournaments is among the “things we have to look at.” The comments, made in a sit-down interview Wednesday from the conference’s media days in Minneapolis, are the latest in a push from leading college sports administrators to discuss expanding the field from its current 68-team format in both men’s and women’s basketball.
In August, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde that he wants to “take a fresh look” at the tournament and cited examples of low seeds like UCLA, VCU and Syracuse that’ve made runs as a reason for an expanded postseason. Earlier Wednesday, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said he was “in favor of looking at it” and went as far to say he “really would like us to expand.” There has even been fear from administrators at mid- and low-major schools that the tournament could change to no longer include automatic bids for all conference champions.
Warren has an interesting perspective on automatic bids. The former college basketball player at Penn and Grand Canyon played in the NCAA tournament in 1982, thanks to Penn receiving an automatic bid by winning the Ivy League. And while he is just “starting to think about these issues,” he sounded sympathetic to maintaining a similar autobid structure.
