By ADAM ZAGORIA
NEW YORK — Penn State coach Pat Chambers and his team sit firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble, but they won’t have to wait long on Selection Sunday to learn if they were given one of the 36 at-large bids the Selection Committee hands out.
That’s because Turner Sports and CBS Sports on Tuesday announced they will be tweaking the Selection Show, which this year will appear on TBS at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday.
Instead of announcing the 68-team field one region at a time, thereby drawing out the announcement for all of the at-large teams and their fans, this year they will announce all 68 teams and their seeds up front during a two-hour show before a live audience, followed by the announcement of the four regional brackets and the matchups.
“I guess that’s a good thing for guys that are on the bubble like us,” Chambers, who plans to watch Selection Sunday with his team in a film room at Penn State, said Tuesday by phone.
“With where we are, you’re just going to be fired up that you’re in and then you’ll worry about your opponent and where you’re going a little bit later in the show. But the fact that you’re in, I think there will be jubilation and everybody will be fired up. It’s a good thing.”
After losing to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, Penn State (21-13, 9-9 Big Ten) currently sits among the “Next Four Out,” according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi.
David Levy, President of Turner, said the 68-team field will come fast and furious this year,
“Ultimately, we’re going to come out with all 68 teams immediately, pretty much in the first 10 minutes, maybe five,” Levy said Tuesday at a CBS/Turner media brunch in Manhattan. “Those will all be seeded but they won’t be bracketed, which is unusual. Now you’re not going to know who you’re playing, or where you’re going.”
He added: “Instead of going bracket-by-bracket, we’re going to have them all out and then build the brackets. But I think there’s going to be some good conversation, like, ‘Do you think North Carolina can beat so-and-so?’ or ‘Is that really a 7 seed?'”
Levy said it was “still in discussion” exactly how CBS and Turner would release the list of 68 teams.
“But I will tell you, all 68 with their seeds will be announced very, very fast,” he said.
Levy pointed out that last year the teams in the final bracket didn’t learn their fates until close to the end of the 90-minute broadcast.
“Remember, last year in the first hour, 45 minutes, if you were in that last bracket you still didn’t know if you were in or not,” Levy said. “You’re going to know whether you’re in. So hopefully the press will realize, we’re actually giving more information faster.”
Levy said the altered format was not a reaction to the incident of two years ago, when the full NCAA Tournament bracket was leaked before the completion of CBS’ two-hour Selection Show. According to a Tweet at the time from business reporter Darren Rovell, it took CBS 1 hour, 17 minutes in 2016 to reveal the whole bracket, leading to thousands of angry fans.
“No, leaking the bracket was hopefully forever and ever and ever a one-time-only,” Levy said. “Sad that it happened but it had nothing to do with this, zero.”
Not everyone loves the idea.
On Twitter, fans expressed one version or another of, “We want things the way they used to be.”
One Twitter user, Andy Szybsity, Tweeted, “This seriously ruins the point of the entire show.”
But Levy compared the innovation to the changes in other sports.
“The NFL Draft use to be one day, then it went to four days,” he said. “Things change. We believe this is going to let teams know they’re in quicker, but not where they’re going.”
Jim Nantz, who once again will be part of the broadcast team for the Final Four and national championship game, said he liked the innovation.
“What you actually get out of this is you get a double-surprise,” Nantz said. “You get to experience the up and downs of, ‘Hey, we’re in or we’re out,’ and then once those 68 teams do find out they’re in, the at-larges find out they’re in, then you get to have another suspenseful moment of, ‘Where am I bracketed? Who is my opponent? Where am I going?
“So they’re able to take a one-shot moment of it all coming together to now doubling up and having a second special reveal so that’s kind of cool, I think.”
In a film room at Penn State, Chambers and his Nittany Lions can’t wait to find out if they made it.
“The suspense isn’t going to be there, so you don’t have to wait until the very end,” Chambers said. “So you’re going to know right away if you’re in or out.”
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