NCAA Tournament expanding to 68 teams

[rak21]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5125307

I think they're going to have a play in game in every region for the #16 seed which I think means that it's basically going back down to a 64 team tournament. This shouldn't effect office pools very much because nobody picks 16's to beat 1's anyway. If they have to expand it at all (which I'm against) this seems like a pretty harmless way to do it. I'm not as outraged by this as I would have been if they would have gone to 96.

[Cole]

So 60 teams for sure in the actual tourney. Then the last 8 play each other to play the #1 seeds. Would it be worst of the worst? 61 play 68. 62 play 67. 63 play 66. 64 play 65.

[rak21]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/bracket?id=5071629

Here's an example of what the field in a 96 team tournament would look like. Do we really need 13 Big East teams and 12 ACC teams in the tournament? Iowa State, Texas Tech, North Carolina, UConn and Illinois would all have made the field in this proposal. This is a gross overreaction to the fact that teams like North Carolina and UConn had down years. That's the only reason this is happening. As I write this it makes me sicker and sicker. 

The Cats as a #2 seed would have recieved a bye and played the winner of #15 Boston College vs. #18 UAB.

[cyclist]

While there were many years in which KSU did not make the tourney, there were only a couple of years where I thought the 'Cats deserved to be in the field of 64/65.  Making the NCAA tournament should be an achievement and therefore I agree with catsfan that expanding is not good. 

I might say 68 is ok, but here again, does this 'creep' towards 96 ?

[rak21]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5374116

The decision is in. The final four at-large teams and final four automatic qualifiers will play for the last four spots in the field. They're calling it the "First Four". These games will be played on "TruTV" (channel 64 in Manhattan).

So far the reaction I've heard is positive. Only two additional conference tournament winners are going to get in AND we're actually going to be able to tell who the "Last Four In" are.