Monday, February 01, 2010

Beware the Unintended Consequence

College coaches who think that expanding the NCAA Tournament field to 96 teams will improve their job security should think again.

Lenox Rawlings wrote in Sunday’s Journal about the movement afoot to expand the tournament beyond its 65-team format. Dino Gaudio of Wake Forest, citing the parity in today’s game, is one of many coaches in favor. Lenox discussed the possibility with Wake’s AD Ron Wellman, who is a member of the basketball committee. Ron acknowledged the interest in expansion, but characterized it as something less than a stampede in that direction. He also said he has yet to formulate a position, though he was warmer to the idea a while back than he is now. Personally, I’ve never been warm to the idea because, increased parity aside, it would reward way too many mediocre teams and render the regular season all but meaningless.

But if an underlying reason for supporting expansion is to get more coaches off the bubble and into the tournament, and thus save more jobs, then maybe those who feel that way haven’t considered an unintended consequence that could produce the opposite effect. If say, nine or 10 coaches make the field from the ACC, how much security could there be for the two or three who don’t? Failure to make the tournament would be a stigma, hard to explain away to an angry constituency.

ACC coaches survive not making the NCAA Tournament these days. Otherwise Seth Greenberg (one trip in six years), Oliver Purnell (no trips his first four years), Leonard Hamilton (no trips his first six years), Paul Hewitt (one trip in the last four years), Frank Haith (one trip in five years) and Sidney Lowe (no trips in three years) would all be long gone.

Obviously all would have been invited more often to a 96-team tournament, but Greenberg, Purnell, Hamilton, Hewitt, Haith and Lowe have all had seasons when they weren’t invited to the NIT either, and thus couldn’t claim a spot in the top 96 in the nation. Wake sat home two straight seasons, in Skip Prosser’s last season and Dino’s first.

In 2007, Prosser’s last season, 10 ACC teams played in either the NCAA Tournament (7) or NIT (3). Wake and Miami were the only two to stay home. If the NCAA Tournament had invited 96 teams that season, and Wake had been one of only two ACC teams not invited, would a coach off that staff been elevated to the head job? Given the circumstances of Prosser’s death in July, probably so. But it would have been that much more for Wellman, who was charged in finding a replacement, to consider before promoting Gaudio.

And to those who think they could never be left out of a 96-team tournament, think again. Think about a player leaving for the NBA unexpectedly. Think about a serious injury to a star player. Think about a season where practically every regular-season champion in every conference loses the conference tournament, filling the field with fodder. Think about a rebuilding season where the team never gets rebuilt. And think about the committee adopting a more democratic agenda that champions the teams from the lesser conferences at the expense of those from the Big East, the Big 12, the SEC, the Big Ten and, yes, the ACC.

Miss a season, any season, at your own peril. Miss two in a row, and you’d better head for the hills because you’ve got a posse on your trail.