Larger March Madness not necessary

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The NCAA college basketball tournament expanding to a 96-team field is “a done deal,” and could happen as soon as next season, SportsbyBrooks.com reported Monday, Feb. 1.

Two anonymous ESPN sources said the NCAA has plans to back out of the remaining years of its contract with CBS and allow other networks such as ESPN and FOX to enter a bidding war for television rights to an expanded Big Dance, according to the Web site.

This is a terrible idea.

March Madness is the greatest time of year for sports fans. While college football’s bowl season is fun, only one of those games truly matters. College basketball’s postseason tournament is full of meaningful games and is the perfect combination of size and timeliness.

Do we really need a 96-team field that would expand the tournament 31 games?

Should it really take one full month for college basketball’s postseason tournament? The regular season is four months, already. Do we really need four months to weed out the top 96 teams from the rest of the pack?

The current 65-team format is large enough. At 96 teams deep, making the tournament would be too easy a task. Letting that many teams into the tournament is a bad idea.

Teams already have the entire regular season to impress Selection Committee members.

Then winners of conference tournaments are automatically into the field.

Teams already have ample chances to make it into the Big Dance.

Expanding the tournament by 31 teams will only help the mediocre BCS conference schools that would have been bubble teams under the current set-up get into March Madness.

The NCAA tournament should be a privilege. Teams that don’t deserve to be there shouldn’t be allowed into an expanded field. We’re trying to crown a national champion here, we can’t be inviting just any old big-conference team with a fan following to March Madness.

At the proposed expanded field, the NCAA will lose a lot of its casual fans. Who wants to fill out a tournament bracket with nearly 100 teams to choose from?

One of the beauties of the tournament is how easy it is to fill out a bracket. No 96-team bracket is going to fit on a single sheet of paper as easily as the 65-team format currently does.

But the absolute worst thing about expanding the tournament to 96 teams is that it would make the regular season essentially meaningless.

When the top 96 teams are getting a shot to play for a national title, what motivation is there for major-conference teams to schedule any tough opponents outside their league?

And even in strong conferences such as the Big East, ACC and Big 12, teams that finish the season with mediocre records in conference play will likely make it into the tournament field due simply to the strength of their conferences.

Well, Cincinnati fans can at least take something away from a possible 96-team field: UC would actually stand a chance at getting into March Madness again.

But that’s the whole problem with going to a 96-team field. There’s no sense of accomplishment when you and 95 other teams are all in the NCAA tournament. The expanded field would praise mediocrity.

But we’re forgetting one thing in this discussion: money.

Money is the entire reason this expansion might happen. Money and more of it is why the NCAA wants out of its current deal with CBS.

The NCAA wants what the BCS had last year: a new TV deal with ESPN, who threw more money at its five college football bowl games than FOX could match.

For a sport played by amateur athletes, money sure has a lot to do with the way things work.

Money might end up driving the greatest college sporting event of the year into a laughable mockery of what it once was.

Do the right thing, NCAA. For once, don’t go after the promise of bigger bucks. Keep the glory of March Madness intact. The current format works, and it works well.

College basketball fans love the current system and college football fans are jealous of the current system.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and March Madness ain’t broke.

Think Sam’s wrong? Should the NCAA tournament expand from 65 to 96 teams? E-mail Sam at elliotsu@mail.uc.edu.