SEC commissioner Greg Sankey says March Madness expansion something to 'dig into'

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey made headlines in August 2022 when he told Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde he wanted to take a "fresh look" at March Madness, including the possibility of expanding the field of 68 teams invited.

Sankey was cautious in his statements to Sports Illustrated, making sure to state that he was "not ready to make headlines there yet." There was a strong reaction from fans regardless.

"I learned something that day: Never say you don't want to make headlines and then say anything after it," Sankey joked Thursday at SEC spring meetings. "It'll just make headlines. But it made headlines about tournament expansion. I never suggested a number."

Sankey also brought up Tuesday the NCAA’s Division I Transformation Committee recommending an expanded postseason for many sports in January 2023. The committee recommended that Division I sports that have more than 200 programs partipcating should attempt to have a postseason that includes 25% of the teams competing.

There are over 350 programs competing in Division I men's basketball.

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Sankey also received negative backlash from fans stemming from an interview he did with ESPN's Pete Thamel in March. Sankey discussed how he felt automatic qualifiers from smaller conferences could be hurting the competitiveness of the tournament by keeping larger-conference programs out.

In his interview with ESPN, Sankey used recent runs by UCLA to the Final Four in 2021 and Syracuse to the Sweet 16 in 2018 to demonstrate the potential of power-conference teams on the edge of the NCAA Tournament bubble; both runs by the Bruins and Orange started in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio.

"We’ve allowed Division I to grow," Sankey added Tuesday. "We have conferences solving their membership problem by inviting non-Division I members in, but we haven’t modified the bracket size. I think common sense says you have to dig into that. Now, there are competitive issues, there are calendar issues, there are economic issues.

"But I do think that March can be kept together. That doesn’t mean it stays exactly the same. But just the articles written after my comment and the reaction show you how unique that experience is for our culture. I mean that then respectfully and I mean that now respectfully. But we also have to recognize the differences that do exist within the group that pursues that brass ring of tournament access.”

Sankey added: “What is it that creates the bind in Division I? I think it does come down to March. Now, that’s an opinion. It’s not analytics-driven. Can it stay together? Yes, but I think there are pressures there that have to be recognized and that’s what I was attempting to communicate."

Richard Silva is a sports reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.