Who Actually Wants A Bigger NCAA Tournament?

Ever since the people who run college football crushed the NCAA and replaced it with an unworkable new economy based entirely on fraud-coated banditry, the old mall cops in Indianapolis have not really known what to do with themselves. There's still plenty of money in big-time college sports, but a vacuum where their old authority used to be. The basketball tournament is that failed state's principal cash cow, and it still delivers, but the horse has otherwise departed the barn for life on a crowded interstate, which will ultimately be bad for the horse. And so, with nothing better to do while they watch the old structure slowly collapse under the weight of a shifting foundation and dry rot, the NCAA's powers-that-were mostly seem to be concerning themselves with putting a series of painted concrete hats on the cash cow that remains—you know, to make it "better."

And so they are expanding the tournaments, both men's and women's, to 76 teams; the decision has not yet been voted on, but is reported to be a virtual lock. It's what nobody asked for, and the eight new at-large teams in the field will be worse than the teams that currently make it. It's tough to find much appeal in it, but also that doesn't matter. These days, the best way to get something you didn't know you didn't want is simply to wait awhile, until it shows up in batteries-not-included type somewhere on your property tax bill.

The logistics of the jumbo tournament are simple enough. Instead of having four play-in games, they'll have 12: half in Dayton and half in Something-Something Flats, Utah. The NCAA will tell you that those aren't actual tournament games, because they too believe in the basic sanctity of the 64-team bracket that has nourished them for 40 years. And because these aren't tournament games per se, they will be treated by the general public with the same essential disdain currently afforded the play-in games, which is mostly to say that they won't include them in their office pools. If there is a greater example of nothing of worth being performed nowhere in particular, it is the annual NFL schedule release, but that's still a couple of weeks away.