3 hours Ago
To subscribe, click here. Sign up for our daily basketball newsletter here Welcome to “Good Morning, Illini Nation,” your daily dose of college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Scott Richey. He’ll offer up insights every morning on Brad Underwood’s team and college basketball at large: Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti was available both Wednesday and Thursday last week at Big Ten media days.
On Thursday, Petitti fielded questions about conference expansion (no current talks on more in the Big Ten), the conference's relationship with the SEC (perhaps that "alliance" will last) and the possibility of NCAA tournament expansion. "Something like that I really rely on what our coaches think, to be honest," Petitti said about the latter. "In terms of the first place to go to have conversations about expansion should be our coaches.
Get their take on the way they think it would work. "The detail of how the seeding will work I just need to hear more about. How that would work depending on how many teams they add.
What the seeding looks like. What the first two days look like. It’s just not as simple as saying add more teams.
There’s an impact in actually how you structure those first couple days and what types of changes they may be considering or not. I think that’s relevant, and it impacts how you feel about the idea to expand." While the Big Ten and SEC are trying to gobble up as many College Football Playoff berths as possible, Petitti said the same wouldn't necessarily be true should the NCAA tournament expand.
"The field is so big," Petitti said. "I think that’s a different concept than what we’ve talked about publicly in football given the size of the field. We haven’t had specific conversations about if we expand what does that mean for additional AQs.
It’s more about figuring out who else is going to get in. That will help on the Big Ten side to get those teams on the bubble in if it expands. Then, from there, I want to see how it’s seeded.
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