At last week’s spring meetings, the ACC voted to propose legislation that would expand the NCAA Tournament field to 72 teams. The objective is to essentially create two First Four events every year.
The First Four event first came about back in 2011 when the tournament expanded to 68 teams. Dayton, Ohio is the annual host site. This past season, Syracuse repped the ACC in the First Four, prior to the Orange making a surprise Sweet 16 run.
ACC commissioner John Swofford mentioned that the proposal had something to do with geography; according to Swofford, this would allow the NCAA to find another host site — to join Dayton.
But wait, there’s more
Also coming out of the annual spring meetings in Amelia Island: the league wants to propose several rule changes. The league would like to move the three-point line back, reset the shot clock to 20 seconds after an offensive rebound and widen the lane.
Some of these measures were experimented with during this year’s NIT. The league, however, punted on advocating for changing the men’s college game from two 20-minute halves to four 10-minute quarters.
According to the NCAA: The “playing rules process has a two-year cycle, and the next possible rules change date is May of 2019.”
In other words, we may see these experimental rules become a part of college basketball, but it wouldn’t be until the 2019-20 season, at the earliest.