Purdue basketball’s leaders prefer ‘magic’ of current NCAA tournament over ‘watered-down’ expansion

WEST LAFAYETTE — Purdue basketball spent most of the past decade oblivious to the treachery of the NCAA tournament bubble.

The program’s nine consecutive NCAA appearances rank a distant third behind Michigan State (25) and Gonzaga (24) as the longest streaks in the country. The Boilermakers held a 5 seed or higher in the past eight tournaments.

(A pause for the important caveat that the COVID-19 pandemic which canceled the 2020 tournament and kept this streak alive. What happened to Purdue in the following four tournaments, though, only reinforced the achievement of both building a resume and defending it in every corner of the bracket.)

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Purdue coach Matt Painter and athletic director Mike Bobinski both called the NCAA Tournament “magical,” and are skeptical of whether expansion — especially adding a large number of teams — is necessary.

So if NCAA tournament expansion moves forward — and especially if it adds another entire round worth of teams and approaches triple-digit entrants — it will not have Purdue’s support.

Coach Matt Painter, who serves on the National Association of Basketball Coaches board of directors, believes expansion would only involve four to eight teams. Not that he sees the need to do so.

“My knee-jerk reaction is, don’t mess with something that’s been pretty special,” Painter said.

Athletic director Mike Bobinski once judged bubble resumes as chair of the NCAA tournament selection committee. He knows it’s a thankless, stressful job which by its nature crushes the hopes of teams who fought all season to face a subjective fate.

Yet Bobinski is “not a fan” of expansion. He knows, practically, the desires of media rights holders may ultimately win out. More games equals more inventory equals more ad revenue for rights holders and more money back to conferences and…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/purdue-basketballs-leaders-prefer-magic-083619026.html

Author : Indianapolis Star

Publish date : 2024-07-18 08:36:19

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