It is NCAA Tournament time. Teams are going dancing. That having been said, millions of people, including myself, are going to be filling out brackets this year. A question I have often heard is, should the tournament be expanded to more than 68 teams? I have heard this question on podcasts, and I have also heard this question in the media. My answer is no! It should not.

My reason for that is this: Expanding the NCAA Tournament would simply take away some of the prestige of the whole tournament, and especially to those who are able to make the Big Dance. It would make for an even more complicated selection process than it already is. Danny Sprinkle said it best on the Dan Patrick Show: Keep it the way it is. Jon Rothstein said it even better on Twitter: Do not expand the NCAA Tournament under any circumstances. Do not look at expanding the NCAA Tournament under any circumstances. Sure, there were a few teams that were more than deserving that were left out, but it was the conference tournament champion teams that wouldn’t have got in otherwise, that contributed heavily to that.

For example, Montana State won the Big Sky conference tournament with a .500 record, and the Big Sky tournament is a one bid league. The Mountain West sent a record six teams into the dance, but I am not sure New Mexico gets in in if they do not at least make it to the championship game of the Mountain West tournament. I am surprised that Colorado State got in, as they were the seventh seed in the Mountain West conference standings, and lost in the tournament semifinals to New Mexico. As a matter of fact, both Colorado State and Boise State were deemed two of the last four teams in the NCAA Tournament, in spite of CSU being a lower MW tournament seed than its rival UNLV. But at the end of the day, only 68 of the 300+ Division I basketball teams are going to be dancing, and the committee will always have some tough choices to make.

Even so, absolutely do not expand the NCAA Tournament. 32 conference champions that go as automatic bids by way of winning their conference tournaments and 36 at-large teams is enough. That, to me, is enough at large teams as it is, and especially with 36 at large teams. And the selection committee usually gets it right. At any rate, here is to yet another great NCAA Tournament, where one of the 68 teams will stand alone as champions of the college basketball world.