LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- They're going to expand the NCAA Tournament. Just watch. Add four more teams, maybe eight. Make room for the bubble dwellers. Give mediocrity a fighting chance. Let in some 17–15 teams that spent the season losing on Tuesdays and padding their résumés with Quad 3 wins.
Do I sound disgusted? I am. You probably are too. This is what happens when you give the folks in charge too much time and too many meetings. Add a few TV executives, and suddenly they think more basketball means better basketball.
That's like saying more gas station sushi means a better buffet.
Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford
I look at March Madness like a cathedral — a chapel of buzzer-beaters and bracket-busters. There was beauty in its symmetry: 64 teams, six rounds. It was art. Worthy of hanging in the Speed Museum or copying at Kinko's. The bracket was a thing of perfection — like the periodic table.
But start messing with the elements, and you can screw up the chemistry. They added four teams once because somebody owed Dayton a favor. Now they want more. We'll be lucky if the bracket still fits on a regular sheet of paper.
These people are standing over a masterpiece with a roller and a bucket of beige paint. The power conferences want to graffiti the Sistine Chapel because Florida State's third assistant coach needs a postseason bonus.
They'll tell us it's about opportunity. And fairness.
It's not. This is about Greg Sankey wanting another mulligan for whichever SEC team forgot how to rebound for three straight weeks in January.
If access were the goal, they'd have put Bellarmine in the field. No, this is about what it's always about — money. TV windows and contract extensions. It sure isn't about basketball. It's about inventory — which is just a fancy word for junk you couldn't sell at full price.
This isn't expansion. It's inflation. Of ego. Of greed. Of delusion. They argue Division I has ballooned since 1985. So has the price of eggs and the number of Kardashians. Doesn't mean we need more of either on Selection Sunday.
So here we go. They're going to invite more kids who flunked Algebra to compete in the math bowl. You know what happens when you let everyone into the bar? You ruin the vibe. The bouncer just stands there, waiting for the inevitable dust-up with a guy in Crocs who thinks "KenPom" is a Pokémon character.
Does the NCAA Tournament really need more seats at its 68-team table?
Who's asking for this? Not fans. Not anybody. Rob Dauster did a poll at Field of 68. The results were 94-6 against expansion. But I'm sure some heavy precincts haven't reported yet.
Why push through a change that nobody outside the room is asking for? What is this, politics?
So just for posterity, one final plea: Leave it alone. Please.
The NCAA Tournament doesn't need a tune-up. It needs a restraining order. It was built on scarcity. On finality. On the idea that, for one month, David could slay Goliath.
This expansion? It doesn't help the little guys. It helps the ninth-place team in the Big Ten. David not only will have to beat Goliath but his brother.
If only those teams had a chance to play into the tournament ...
Oh yeah — they do. There are three dozen conference tournaments built for exactly that.
I have to stop.
Having spat into the wind, I'll shut up. Will I watch the extra games? What kind of question is that? Of course I'll watch. That's why they're doing this. Can they play them in Louisville? How much are tickets?
I have a sickness. You have it too.
But that doesn't make it right.
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