The Ann Arbor News reports today that the NCAA Championships/Competition
Cabinet has voted against recommending to the NCAA Management Council
that the hockey tournament be expanded to 16 teams. This move
effectively kills any hopes for expansion for the next couple of years.
Among the reasons given for the "no" vote were the already high (23
percent) percentage of teams making the tournament and the fact that the
"sponsorship trends" (i.e. the number of institutions sponsoring the
sport) are flat.
The article is on line at
http://mich.live.advance.net/wolverines/index.ssf?/sports/stories/puxnote06.frm
The chair of the cabinet is Jean Lenti Ponsetto, an athletic
administrator at DePaul University. She also hinted that the cabinet
was concerned about the effect on other sports if one sport were allowed
to have 31 percent of its institutions in the tournament.
I have compiled a list of teams in the NCAA tournament in Division I
team sports:
Baseball 64/277 23.1%
Hockey 12/ 52 23.1
M Lacrosse 12/ 52 23.1
W Volleyball 64/299 21.4
W Basketball 64/306 20.9
Softball 48/232 20.7
M Basketball 64/312 20.5
W Soccer 48/250 19.2
W Lacrosse 12/ 66 18.2
M Volleyball 4/ 22 18.2
M Soccer 32/191 16.8
M Water Polo 4/ 24 16.7
Field Hockey 12/ 73 16.4
Men's Soccer received approval yesterday to expand to 48 which would be
25.1% of the institutions. Hockey's request for 16 teams would have
brought its total percentage up to 30.8%.
Alton
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