NCAA expansion talk is messing with perfection

One of the seven or eight worst ideas I've heard lately in sports is now being talked about.

The NCAA is behind it.

The NCAA is behind a lot of stuff like this.

There is the beginning of a discussion to expand the NCAA men's basketball tournament from 64 teams (65 with the play-in game) to 96.

They're going to fix perfection if it kills them.

That's what the tournament is, by the way, as close to perfection as you can get in sports, with the possible exception of the TV networks and the schools and the coaches and the NCAA getting all the money and the players not getting any.

But it's still pretty perfect.

For a quarter century, since the field was set at 64, the NCAA Tournament has been the perfect structure.

Now they want to mess with it.

There's no good reason to do it, save for the money or all those major-conference teams who want to dance with 17-13 records.

Granted, a 96-team field would be somewhat of a boon this season to a program like South Florida. If the Bulls somehow won 19 games or so, that and being from the mighty Big East certainly would turn the trick in a 96-team field.

It's not worth it.

Here's my problem with it.

The regular season in college basketball means next to nothing as it is.

Why make it worse?

Also, the beauty of the tournament is the Cinderella quality to it, that elephant-mouse matchup in the first round.

No, a 16 seed has never beat a 1, and damn few 15s beat 2s, but the possibility is out there, isn't?

Make the field 96 teams and, yes, it only adds one more game for some teams, but would probably mean byes for top seeds, perhaps even seeding teams 1 through 32, then having 33 though 96 play an extra round of games.

In other words, when the top seeds finally got around to playing, it wouldn't be anything like it is now.

You'd probably get them playing mid- to lower-level powers in power conferences, not the Cinderellas.

I think of Princeton beating UCLA.

You might just lose that.

The biggest reason not to expand the field is because the field is already expanded. Hundreds of teams have a shot in the dance, nearly every one.

They're called conference basketball tournaments, and if you win, you're in. So there.

A few years ago, Georgia had an awful record but won the SEC Tournament and made the Madness.

Every team has a shot.

To some, it seems a little unfair to expect a lower-rung conference team to win as many as four games in four days to take the conference tournament and make the NCAA field.

Well, tough.

Win more games in the regular season and maybe you're not in that pickle.

The regular season has to mean something, even if it's just a little something.

So the vehicle to expand the field is already in place.

The field IS expanded as it is.

I just don't want to see this perfect set-up ruined because power conferences want all their bad teams in the bunch.

Yes, a few smaller conferences will land more spots, and that's never bad, and maybe they can pull off an upset and maybe, well ...

Oh, what the hell, let them all in.

Let them all play.

But who needs football playoffs?