This is not a 68-team year
And some of the people in charge want to super-charge the NCAA Tournament into a mega-event?
Eventually, the NCAA Tournament is going to expand. I use this platform to square myself before God on all manner of truths I hold near and dear, and loathe though I am to relinquish this one, an expanded tournament is going to happen regardless of how I feel about it. Too many people stand to make too much money for it to keep leaving perfectly undeserving large-conference teams out of the field for too much longer, and so the golden goose will be led to slaughter for the burnishment of a few resumes at the expense of everyone else.
It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s nothing a few pints of Guinness and some corn chips can’t cure. Here’s a freebie, from me to you: the things you love can be the things you love while the people that control them seek to strip them for parts and auction them to the highest bidder. The everyday strain of life will someday kill you anyway with little to no effort on your part, and getting mad because the NCAA Tournament expanded to 131 teams or whatever random number (because it will be random, make no mistake) it blows up to will never be as satisfying as just enjoying the basketball for as long as is practical.
And frankly: good luck, future Selection Committees. Because this year, you probably don’t have 60 Tournament-worthy teams. I shudder to think what sort of what-aboutisms will be required to double the field on an undeniably crud year.
Because this is actually just that, in terms of a quality field—a crud year. Don’t misconstrue: that doesn’t make it a bad basketball year; far from it, in fact. We’ve been treated to multiple weekends of massive upsets and outright farce and I couldn’t be more delighted by all of it. Y’all thought last year was nuts because UConn won, even though they were justifiably among the favorites as ranked by the computers? Just wait; outside of a very small contingent of favorites, it’s wide open (and two of those favorites are toting recent losses, one of which was highly embarrassing wasn’t it Purdue). This means either
A. This is going to be the sort of wild March that ends with, like, Iowa State and Florida vying for the title or
B. Chalk all the way to Phoenix.
But it also means a third thing, one that I don’t think will be talked about a lot because it’s sort of an embarrassment for the NCAA, especially an NCAA that fancies itself with so much talent it simply must pack its marquee event with as many teams as it can hold: a lack of actual tournament teams.
Like, a significant dearth.