If it ain't broke...

Now that the Super Bowl is over, it's time to shift our focus.
March Madness and the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship tournament are right around the corner. Many think that the 65-team, three-week tournament is the greatest event in all of sports.
But it's in danger of being ruined.
There has been a lot of talk about expanding the tournament field from 65 teams to either 96 or 128 teams. On the scale of bad ideas, this one is right up there alongside the 'Let's hire Chan Gailey' move. The tournament is perfect exactly the way it is. Why change it?
For those unfamiliar with March Madness, here's how the 65-team field is decided:
At the end of the regular season, every conference (except for the Ivy League) holds a championship tournament. The winner of each conference tournament receives an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The Ivy League simply sends its regular season champion. There are 31 conferences in Division I, so 31 teams receive one of these automatic bids.
That's the easy part.
The 34 remaining spots in the tournament are assigned by a selection committee, which carefully reviews the credentials of each team in the nation and decides whether the team is worthy of an invitation to 'The Big Dance.' Most of the decisions are easy to make, but every year, there is controversy surrounding the teams 'on the bubble,' or in other words, the teams that barely make it in and those that just miss being included.
Sure, maybe St. Mary's should have gotten in instead of Wisconsin last year. But was St. Mary's going to beat North Carolina, who made winning the championship look easy? Not likely.
Though teams on the outside looking in may have legitimate complaints, they also have to deal with the fact that a few more regular season wins would have taken away the committee's ability to snub them.
A main argument for expanding the field is that schools that normally don't make it into the tournament would get to experience the opportunity of a lifetime, one that many student-athletes miss out on.
Isn't it an opportunity of a lifetime precisely because it's difficult to get in? Expanding the field lessens the sense of accomplishment, waters down the competition, and renders the regular season meaningless.
If making it into the current field is like getting a table at The Chophouse on a Saturday night without a reservation, then changing it into an expanded field would be like reserving a table at Applebee's for Tuesday at noon.
The real motive behind the potential expansion is money, just like it always is with the NCAA. More teams means more games, and more games mean more revenue from television deals and sponsors.
The same organization that won't allow its athletes to make a penny off of their talent can't seem to stop trying to exploit the athletes to make more money for itself.
The NCAA's greed has already ruined college football's championship system. It would be very sad if it ruined college basketball's as well.

E-mail: luke.hammill@ubspectrum.com