for most casual consumers of sports content, the NCAAT is the only college basketball content they watch all year. They're not going to think about it in terms of "watering down" (or, let's be honest, further watering down) the regular season and de-valuing the conference tournaments.

CFP's for the casual observer as well. Football regular season is a bit different because there are fewer games, but the casual observer already migrates to the high profile games. No differently than college basketball. BTW, the per game ratings of college basketball are certainly lower, but when you add up all of the games viewership, the numbers are strong.

or decline a NIT bid because this might be the NCAA's way of slowing phasing out the NIT.

That sounds like a lot of teams, but it's basically a 6 game run through a tournament to win the national title, which is just one more game than what the format requires now. ** Edited by Baltimore_Hokie at 4/29/2026, 11:56:51 AM

knee cap any potential tournaments that are willing to pay participating schools NIL money to players. Eventually a big name school will want to decline the NCAAT invitation so it could compete in a NIL tournament, but won't be able to because of the NCAA's rule about not being able to decline an invitation.

the first place. People seem to think the NCAA is this big bad organization that created all the rules without any involvement from the schools. When it actuality the schools ARE the NCAA and the NCAA IS the schools. It is easier for people to "blame" the NCAA instead of the school representatives on the various NCAA committees. The NCAA is a constant and the NCAA committee representatives change whenever a committee member's term is up. Even if the schools decided to create a brand new organization, I can guarantee you that the structure and even the rules will probably be no different than what we see now. If people really thought about it, then they would realize that the NCAA operates the same way as the NFL, MLB, NHL, or NBA in that the owners (or schools in the NCAA's case) decide what rules the league is going to operate under. The league commissioner's job (or NCAA's President's job) is to try to enforce those rules to the best of their ability and be the fall guy whenever people are looking to "blame" the league for something.

during the season. Those mini tournaments will generate decent viewership's, and based on the NCAA's control of the tournament, money talks. If the NIT or another tournament offered mega dollars - more than a two unit payout of March Madness, there could be real competition.

with its tournament. If a team is selected to play in the NCAAT, then the team can't decline the invitation. This rule came about when Marquette in the 1970s, with Al McGuire as its coach, declined the NCAAT bid and accepted the NIT bid because it didn't like where it was seeded in the NCAAT.

...at least before league play begins. Maybe limit it to ~16 teams? Speaking of BB tournaments, it would be nice to have a "Richmond Times" type tournament again. Feature VA teams from four different conferences every year. There are enough VA schools to make this happen: VT, UVA, VCU, ODU, RU, GMU, UR, W&M, LU, VMI, HI, NSU, JMU, VSU, etc.

been a tournament in 2025, but Utah State won the 2024 tournament. The Aggies beat North Texas 61-57. I believe the games are split between MSG and Barclays Center, but it may have been moved to ESPN's campus at Disney World at some point. The tournament is played over Thanksgiving Week with the championship game played on Thanksgiving Day which could explain why you never heard of it or have forgotten it.