The NCAA announced Thursday that it will expand its Tournament from 65 to 68 teams beginning next season. A new 14-year TV deal with CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV was also announced in which every Tournament game will be broadcast nationally. I admit I'm surprised that the Tournament is "only" expanding to 68 teams, I thought that it going to 96 was nothing but a formality. With only three new teams in the field, I feel that the Tournament will retain most of its magic and be very similar to the Tournament we know and love.
I agree with Gary Parrish of cbssports.com that it would be best for the Tournament to go back to the 64 team format, but this is still going to allow it to be pretty cool. Making the Tournament will still be a reward for having a good season, as it should be. My hope is that the four "play-in" games will be involving the last 8 at-large teams selected but I believe that the games will feature the 8 lowest seeded teams in the field. That's unfortunate because those eight teams will almost certainly be teams that won their conference tournaments and I think they shouldn't have to have a "play-in" game just to get to the First Round. But overall, I'm still pretty happy that the Tournament isn't grossly expanding to the point where it would water down the regular season. At least for now.
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