Filling out a March Madness bracket grants fans a rare opportunity to write down what we want to happen in sports. You can vanquish your rival in the first round and imagine your team cutting down the nets. Of course, reality hardly conforms to those wishes, and our options in filling out our picks are constrained by what the NCAA Selection Committee decides for us.
As we reckon with the tournament expanding to 76 teams, we’re facing a similar dynamic: the powers that be have chosen for us, and we’re left to decide how best to make the most of the new format.
To be clear, I’m opposed to expansion, particularly the tacit motivation to include more mediocre power conference teams. However, after modeling the impact of the 76-team field, I’ll share a few lessons that make expansion easier to stomach:
- Expansion could lead to more upsets and more “ideal” tournaments
- There’s not much bubble drop-off
