65 teams and only one winner. March is one month that makes college basketball fans and addicted gamblers salivate. 2010’s March Madness basketball tournament is almost upon us and fans are getting hyped up, Vegas is preparing, and CBS is making room in their bank accounts. It isn’t as if this never happens. Every year March Madness rakes in millions, if not billions, for ad companies, CBS, and the NCAA. Imagine for a second, though, if that 65-team extravaganza was expanded to 96 teams. Would it be Basketball Heaven? Or would it be just an experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong?

 

Many March Maniacs are satisfied with 65 teams in the postseason, but some just have an insatiable desire for more tournament action. But when the tournament that is already the largest of all major sports, collegiate and professional, may be expanding, trouble could follow.

 

With the current system, all conference tournament champions (with the exception of the Ivy League that doesn’t hold a conference tournament; the regular season champion is given the bid) are granted an automatic bid into the field of 65. That means 30 teams are automatically getting an entrance into the tournament with 35 at-large bids left. Those 35 spots are reserved for teams that had solid seasons, but didn’t win their conference tournament. What remains of the tournament gives spots to “bubble teams,” or teams that haven’t had the best of seasons, but still showed promise as a tournament team with big wins. Some bubble teams make it and the rest typically go to the National Invitational Tournament (NIT).

 

An additional 31 teams would totally throw off the selection process. Bubble teams would become shoo-ins and the teams around .500 (or—gasp!—under .500) would become the bubble teams. I think that 65-team bracket captures all of the great teams and most of the good teams. But a 96-team bracket would suck up all of the great teams, the good teams, and some of the average/below average teams. Most of the great teams would get byes in the first round, so we would be watching the below average teams duke it out just to get down to a 64-team field again, so the first round would be pointless. The truth is that the playoffs are meant for good teams and great teams, and those teams make it there for a reason. Along those same lines, bad teams are not in the tournament for a reason.

 

Trust me, I love March Madness as much, if not more, than my fellow college basketball fans. As a fan, I would appreciate the sacred bracket that is March Madness only be graced with the presence of the elite teams.