SEC's Greg Sankey Talks Potential NCAA Tournament Changes: 'Nothing Is Static'

More noise on the potential of changes coming to the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament emerged from Nashville on Saturday with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey saying that "nothing is static" in college sports right now.

"We send 11 seeds to Dayton because that was an agreement to start," Sankey told Kyle Tucker of The Athletic in Nashville, where the SEC men's basketball tournament is currently being held.

"But some of those 11 seeds have proven that they go a long way in the tournament. So we do have, I think, a healthy need for review. I understand access, I understand the special nature (of Cinderellas) and certainly respect that, but right now in college athletics, nothing is static."

ESPN's Pete Thamel reported Friday on the potential of the tournament moving from 68 to no more than 80 teams, in addition into "fears" about the competition's future with there being a more clear power imbalance within Division I than ever before.

"According to ESPN sources, there are ongoing discussions about expanding the men's NCAA basketball tournament from the current 68-team format to one featuring no more than 80 teams. There are also fears about what could happen to the all-comers tournament if the power leagues break away from the rest of college athletics, as football decisions continue to define the direction of major college sports."

Sankey has been on the record previously as being favor of the tournament expanding.

Sankey made it clear that he doesn't envision a future in which the NCAA tournament becomes a power conference-only affair, calling that "an overread" of his previous remarks.

Those remarks were made to Thamel about the strength of some power-conference teams who snuck into the tournament in years past, such as a pair of 11-seeds in the 2018 Syracuse team and the 2021 UCLA squad, both of whom made the Final Four.

"That just tells you that the bandwidth inside the top 50 is highly competitive," Sankey told Thamel. "We are giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers (from smaller leagues), and I think that pressure is going to rise as we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of (conference) expansion."

Of course, NCAA tournament history is littered with smaller conference teams who have made great March Madness runs. Florida Atlantic, of note, was a buzzer-beater away from making the national championship last year. And the season before, Saint Peter's rolled to the Elite Eight as a No. 8 seed. Those stories, of course, help make the NCAA tournament one of the greatest spectacles in sport.

When asked by Tucker what he would say to people who believe the tournament is great as is and doesn't need more meddling, Sankey had this to say:

"The first time I made a comment, within two minutes, people said, 'That's the worst idea,'" Sankey remarked.

"Well, that's actually not an intellectual exercise. I hope there's some effort to think through things. You have to give credit to teams like Saint Peter's a couple years ago, Florida Atlantic's run. There are great stories and we certainly want to respect those great stories, but things continue to change. There's nothing wrong with a review, and again, I think that's the healthy kind of conversation that should take place. No time pressure, no expectation among teams. Should we be looking at how we've allocated teams for 30 years? Are there other things that should be considered? Sure. That doesn't predict only this or not that. I think that's all part of the conversation."

For now, the NCAA tournament remains unchanged from the format that's been in place since 2011, with the addition of the First Four to make a 68-team field. This year's Big Dance begins Tuesday.