NCAAB analyst roasts governing committee amid March Madness expansion talks: "Never underestimate the NCAA's capacity to do something stupid"

The continued talks by the NCAA to expand the men's basketball bracket of March Madness did not go down well with ESPN analyst Jay Bilas. Appearing on College GameDay, he was scathing in his review of the idea.

“Never underestimate the NCAA’s capacity to do something stupid. And if they did this, it would be profoundly stupid,” Bilas said.

“When anyone says more teams need access to the tournament — every team has the same access to the tournament now. All you have to do is win your conference’s automatic bid, which is against your peers with a group of teams that you have chosen to be among, and every team is in the tournament already. All you have to do is win your conference tournament. You’re already in the tournament.”

Bilas theorized that once expansion happened, it would continue until the tournament became unrecognizable.

“What are we gonna do now? We’re going to 96 and we’re going to print the bracket out first on legal paper then on a roll of toilet paper and just roll it out,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Bilas argued against the argument that the expansion of March Madness would increase access for teams countrywide.

“The one thing everybody’s forgetting is that this is not an access tournament, it’s a national championship event. You should have to do something hard to get in. And if you think it’s too hard, then Division II is wide open,” Bilas said.

Jay Bilas had a theory about why the matter has become so important to the NCAA.

“I just don’t understand this. Why would you mess with this? They always say ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Well, why doesn’t that apply to this? Like, we went to the First Four, you wanna add on to that? If it’s just about money, say so. But this business about access is nonsense. Everybody has access now,” Bilas said.

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March Madness expansion discussed

Last year in July, the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee revealed that discussions had taken place to expand March Madness during a three-day meeting.

NCAA senior vice president of basketball, Dan Gavitt, explained the decision.

"The committee must be good stewards for the Division I Men's Basketball Championship," said Dan Gavitt. "They are committed to doing their due diligence looking at a few different models to make an informed decision that's in the best interests of the championship, and that may very well include deciding against expansion.

"The committee and staff will continue studying options and gathering feedback from various constituents," Gavitt added. "Whether the tournament expands or not remains to be seen."

The last time that March Madness expanded was in 2011, when it moved from 65 to 68 teams.