More postseason tournaments???

If you are a college football fan, the bowl season is a special time of year where for a two week stretch, there's at least one game on each day if not more. In recent years it has become too much as this past bowl season 64 teams qualified and that's not even counting the handful of teams that qualified, but were not picked for bowl games. That's over half of the teams in Division I.

In D-I basketball there are over 300 teams eligible for postseason play, but only 65 are selected for the NCAA Tournament while another 30 or so are selected for the less prestigious (W)NIT. This makes going to the NCAA's a big deal for teams, especially players from mid-majors that get to experience what other big time programs like North Carolina, Duke and UCLA experience every game.

That will change this season as the NCAA has introduced the WNIC, a 32 team single-elimination event held March 24-30 in St. Petersburg, Fla. That expands the teams in post season tournaments to 144. A number that is closely closing in on half of all D-I basketball teams, much like football.

The full article can be seen here.

In football, the bowl games are done for money purposes. The BCS bowl teams have received anywhere from $15-17 million for playing in the game. In basketball, some smaller schools will lose money this March, but the experience is priceless.

"Teams chosen for the WNIC will be responsible for the costs of travel, food and hotels and be required to purchase 100 tickets at $10 each. Interested schools that have a chance to meet the tournament's 12-win minimum must complete a participation agreement by Feb. 15. The field will be announced March 17."

A 12-win team will have close to 20 losses, but will still have a chance to compete in a postseason tournament. I thought that the whole point of gaining a post season birth was to reward a team for having a good season, not winning 40 percent of their games.

It also sounds that the WNIC will not be a money making venture as the school will already be $1,000 in the red just based on purchasing tickets. The sound strategy might be to not accept a bit at all or if you do accept a bit, lose as quickly as possible to save money.

I don't think that SDSU will be affected by this since a strong weekend showing on the road and with five of their last seven game at home, the Jacks have a good chance to win the Summit League regular season and earn an automatice birth in the much more lucrative WNIT.