It happens every year

Someone somewhere is complaining about the way the tournament is at present and wants the format changed: get rid of automatic bids, expand the field, etc. This happens every single year after someone’s favorite team is smote by the Selection Committee, and it’s just as dumb now as it was years before.

There is only one change I would propose making to the NCAA Tournament: dump the play-in game. It’s pointless and it deprives a conference champion the right to play a 1-seed. Dropping from 65 teams to 64 and ripping a bid away from one uncomfortable bubble school will not be the end of the world.

Getting rid of automatic bids is ridiculous; otherwise, why have basketball conferences at all? If winning the conference means nothing, and you’re all just playing for a top-64 record, why bother with them? The teams that are victorious in their conferences should be rewarded much like a team that wins their division in baseball or any other sport: you get a spot in the playoffs. I’ve even heard some people advocating reducing the number of automatic bids but keeping some, which is even more stupid (and unfair) than eliminating them all. Who wants to be the one to tell the Southern Conference, the MEAC, the SWAC, or the Big Sky that they can’t have an automatic bid to the tournament because someone doesn’t think they’re good enough to warrant one?

Expanding the field to 96 (play-in games attached to every first-round game) or 128 (a whole new round) would turn what I think is a perfect championship into a complete farce. My problem with leagues like the NBA and NHL is that the playoffs are too big (over half of each league get to compete). It would not be quite that ridiculous in NCAA basketball, but there should be incentive to be near the top and make the tournament. This is not a second grade gym class where everyone gets to play and everyone’s a winner. That number of teams is simply too many. Furthermore, the quality of the tournament would decline. Look at the teams who didn’t make it this year: a few had a case to get in, and even a couple that got in were iffy. Well guess what: outside of the dozen or so legitimate bubble teams, you’d have to fill up another 20 to 50 some odd spots depending on the size of the field. Mediocre teams from major conferences would soak up a bunch of them. A couple dozen teams that have no business competing for a national championship will garner at-large bids when you’ve got that many spaces to fill. Some people may want to see Georgetown and Notre Dame in there just because they like them, but I don’t because they were average teams that stunk it up in crunch time. Your team should have to strive to be one of those best, not simply be average and hope to slide in.

We have this debate every year, and it is tiresome. The NCAA shouldn’t change a thing (other than that play-in game).