Wear some golf shoes, otherwise we'll never get out of this place alive. Impossible to walk in this muck. No footing at all.

This had been in the fire for the last several weeks. The NCAA, all because CBS is not making enough money to warrant the money they are paying the NCAA for the rights to the tournament, is considering adding entrants into the field of 64 plus 1. Now, If done correctly, it would work. How do you do it correctly? You leave it the hell alone. It is the only playoff type system in all of sports that works. In it's current form, it is damn near perfection. The tournament has evolved over the years, and some use that as an arguement to expand the field again. Now, I would imagine if it were still 32 teams large, I would be pining for more to be let in...But, after years of a getting parity and over throwing the NIT, the NCAA has reached sports nirvana with the current set-up. CBS paid a bucket load of cash to keep ESPN away from the tournament, and they are not making a profit. The ends are not justifing the means...I do thank CBS though for keeping the Madness off ESPN, I would not be able to stomach too many Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps called games...Jay Bilas crossing over to CBS for the Tournament was hard enough... Jimmy Dykes calling a few games would not be all that bad though...I'm starting to drift...back on course...96 teams? Good lord, the greatest weekend in sports is the 1st and 2nd rounds of the NCAA Tournament. 96 would take away that magic. It's hard enough for the little guys to knock off the giants on top of the beanstalk as is, but if they had to go through 2 extra games to do so would be detreminal to their cause and to the plight of little guys everywhere. With a field so expanded, The pecking order of college basketball would run rough shot over the competition. The traditional powers would further distance themselves from the field, and the final four every year would probably feature the same 9 or 10 programs for periods of time.
The brackets would not be fun to fill out, or even look at anymore. Water cooler talk would be cut to a whisper due to the fact keeping up with all the games would be nearly impossible, and the tournament would feature byes galore for the top seeded teams, which they already get...it's called playing the 16th seed.
All this BCS talk and getting it right and wanting something that was more concrete and undisputable was all a ploy by the NCAA and Broadcasters. WHile we were in debate over the correct way to finally after 1000 years crown a single Football champion, they snuck this in while we were distracted with the other. We never saw it coming. Now, it may be coming at us too fast for us to stop it...
I cringe when I think of all the lackluster teams, and convoluted play in games that would transpire under the new format. I don't want to see VMI and Sandusky Tech battle it out to see who is going to be seeded at number 19. Jim Boeheim is all for the expansion. Dick Vitale, in a rare occurance actually takes the side that I am on. He is a staunch supporter of keeping it as is. Boeheim feels that not enough kids are getting to experience the thrill and the atmosphere and making their college experience more memorable by not getting the change to go dancing. Vitale says that is what makes it so special, you have to be good enough, or lucky enough to get there, not everybody should get to do everything...I think we have a severe problem in America with rewarding mediocriacy...WHat better way to firmly instill in out youth, hey dont worry about playing the game and winning, or even being better than somebody at something a striving for it, you trophy is going to be just as big...
But when you scratch the surface of this mess, you realize that expanding may jeopordize CBS' hold on the rights to televise all the games. It would seem that the contract would be voided as this is not the package that CBS aquired, it's a new set-up, therefore it owuld require to bidding to be re-opened to all broadcasters. I mean, think about it, if you don't subscribe to the CBS March Madness package on cable or satelite, you watch the games for your region or interest and they bounce back form game to game on the regional feed. Could you imagine how many times they would jump back and forth with this mess? you would get motion sickness and it owuld more than likely cause seizure activity... Hell, the only people who will be able to make sense of any of that mess would be alzheimer's patients and the republicans. But, it would finally give CBS leverage to make sure every cable company in america carried their CBS College Sports Network.
This set-up reaks of Disney. Think about it...ESPN has 4 broadcast channels to show the games on nationally, and they have that 360 garbage that nobody in this area can seem to get. It would be a good 2 weeks before they even have a game of interest, and the bottom feeders who get in will be relegated to internet viewing anyways...
And, if all this goes through, if they decide that what is best for the NCAA is to screw with the only thing that they can claim as being in good working order, just imagine at how competitive the NIT will be now...