NASHVILLE, Tenn. — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey doesn’t view himself as commander of the Dying Star along with his finger on the massive purple button, able to annihilate the NCAA Match as we all know it. Regardless of current feedback by Sankey to ESPN that sounded some alarms round school basketball, he doesn’t envision a future during which the nationwide championship event consists of solely groups from energy conferences.
“No, I don’t. No, no. That’s an overread of the remark,” Sankey informed The Athletic on Saturday throughout his league’s semifinals. The remark in query, to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, got here after Sankey identified that UCLA made a run from the First 4 to the Last 4 in 2021 and Syracuse went from the play-in recreation in Dayton to the Candy 16 in 2018, demonstrating the potential of power-conference groups on the NCAA Match bubble.
“That simply tells you that the bandwidth inside the highest 50 is extremely aggressive,” Sankey informed Thamel. “We’re freely giving extremely aggressive alternatives for computerized qualifiers (from smaller leagues), and I believe that strain goes to rise as we now have extra aggressive basketball leagues on the high finish due to (convention) growth.”
Subsequent 12 months, the SEC and Large 12 will each be 16-team leagues. The Large Ten and ACC can have 18 every.
“I take the instance of Ole Miss baseball — final workforce in, gained a nationwide championship — and baseball is totally different; it’s really much less random than basketball, since you must win collection and it’s double-elimination,” Sankey stated Saturday. “It’s merely an statement that we go away some extremely aggressive groups out that may justify their participation. That’s a part of the assessment. That needs to be a part of the dialog. As a result of once more, we hold including groups — no person appears to wish to cope with the quantity of Division I groups growing (there are actually 362 D1 groups) — so we’re going to should proceed to adapt. I believe that’s wholesome dialog. I don’t make that call, however I definitely could make observations.”
Sankey does have a major voice on this course of, although. He runs one of many two strongest leagues in school athletics and he co-chaired the NCAA transformation committee that final January beneficial NCAA Match growth from its present 68 groups to a still-unspecified quantity.
If Sankey doesn’t wish to eradicate mid-major participation altogether, his curiosity in a bigger area definitely isn’t about wanting extra of them included. In truth, some within the sport worry that no matter play-in video games exist sooner or later will solely be these smaller faculties preventing amongst themselves for spots within the conventional 64-team format.
“We ship 11 seeds to Dayton as a result of that was an settlement to start out,” Sankey informed The Athletic. “However a few of these 11 seeds have confirmed that they go a great distance within the event. So we do have, I believe, a wholesome want for assessment. I perceive entry, I perceive the particular nature (of Cinderellas) and positively respect that, however proper now in school athletics, nothing is static.”
Requested if you will need to him to guard entry to the NCAA Match for these mid-major computerized qualifiers, the underdogs who’ve made it one of the vital broadly liked sporting occasions on the earth, Sankey stated: “I believe that’s a part of the assessment. I don’t make a prediction. I’ve by no means thought dialogue was unhealthy. I believe dialogue is wholesome. So we’ll see what concepts come out, each time they arrive out. I’m in no explicit hurry.”
And what would Sankey say to the many individuals who consider the NCAA Match is ideal simply as it’s and are pleading for its leaders to go away the factor alone?
“The primary time I made a remark, inside two minutes, folks stated, ‘That’s the worst concept,’” he stated. “Nicely, that’s really not an mental train. I hope there’s some effort to suppose by way of issues. It’s a must to give credit score to groups like Saint Peter’s a pair years in the past, Florida Atlantic’s run. There are nice tales and we definitely wish to respect these nice tales, however issues proceed to vary. There’s nothing mistaken with a assessment, and once more, I believe that’s the wholesome type of dialog that ought to happen. No time strain, no expectation amongst groups. Ought to we be taking a look at how we’ve allotted groups for 30 years? Are there different issues that needs to be thought-about? Certain. That doesn’t predict solely this or not that. I believe that’s all a part of the dialog.”
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(Photograph: Johnnie Izquierdo / Getty Photos)