65 Is One Too Many

As I was driving in this morning I was listening to Mike & Mike interview Jay Bilas and asked him his opinion about changing the NCAA tournament to 96 teams. Normally I wouldn't be the one to quote Jay Bilas, but this time I think he got it right. He said, "This is the national championship, not little league where everyone gets three innings and a trophy. "

I would go one step further and say that we don't even need the play-in game. The whole notion that the 65th best team in the country might be just as good as the 64th best team and how unfair it is to leave #65 out, etc. is really a load of crap.

If you want to be "fair" about it, take away some of the automatic bids from the smaller conferences that do nothing more than offer up a sacrificial Lamb in the first round. Unlike football, the NCAA has this one right where it needs to be as far as the number of teams. Adding more teams will do nothing to change the eventual outcome.

If it's a money thing, the NCAA needs to concentrate on making the most out of what is inside these four walls, so to speak. Hell, they could take a look at the bowl system to see that there are lots of ways to generate more money by sponsors and naming rights.

One of the arguments against a college football playoff is that it would be unfair to the "student athletes". So yeah, you go ahead and add a couple more weeks to the NCAA tourney, because it's only unfair to the students if you can't see a way to make more money off them.