Well, it looks like we are on our way to expanding

[DontPushMe]

its fine the way it is, none of the bubble teams are ever going to actually win the tourney, cuse could of made the 16 though... if it were me id probly lessen the field and get rid of the play in game, because i think its stupid, or if you are going to have a play in game, do what the thread starter said and make there 4 play in games

[crambone]

They should reduce it down by 8 teams...that would be bettah.

[CyberBull]

The bigDance is perfectly flawed.

Don't mess with a good thing.

Do we want the sport to become like the NHL or NBA where everyone makes the playoffs and essentially renders the long 80 game plus regular season meaningless?

[ucfknights04]

I vote for 196 teams.

March 8th-11th

Playoff Weekend - Gametracker available for most games!

Seeds #17 through #48 compete on Friday and Saturday on a geographical basis at local community colleges. To try and reduce costs on the smallest of the division I schools - regular season results can be used in place of the tournament game if both teams met (and scored) in the last 3 seasons.

March 15th-18th

Play-In Weekend - ESPN Deutsch available for most games!

The 32 winners from weekend 1 compete against seeds #9-#16 at the school of the lower seed. Students at schools with...um..less established...athletic programs everywhere discover why that building where they hold graduation has a basketball net hanging from the ceiling and rush to buy tickets to their first hosted NCAA Game.

(Stop and imagine how confusing it would be to never go to a basketball game and then get to the Arena on the big graduation day and see the other conference schools names up on the wall. "Pssst...hey Jessica...we did graduate from UNC right? Because I see Florida State on that banner and that's not funny, my parents will kill me")

March 22nd-25th

NCAA Fifth and Sixth Rounds - Available on ESPN Duke (All Duke, all the time)

65-teams**

A few weeks late and a few small athletic departments shut down later, teams like Campbell and New Jersey Tech can finally hit the hardwood as coaches have tried to keep their kids away from watching "Sportarten-Center" on ESPN Deutsch to avoid the hype and hoopla of being a #16 seed (out of 48).

** = Despite having 192 slots open in "The U"'s NCAA tournament format, the powers that be (Alabama's Board of Trustees) have extended their influence to basketball and insisted that the MEAC champion be an honorary 65th-seed awarded to the #1 national seed. (Oh yeah, sorry UAB, the BOT said post-season play isn't in your interests anymore, so beating Memphis is as good as it gets). By the way, additional coercing from Urban Meyer helped make it all possible.

March 29th - April 1st

NCAA Seventh and Eighth Rounds (Sweet 16, Elite 8) - CBS

Will there be a Cinderella in the form of a 37 seed making it into April or will the 6'3 Big Man from Savannah State be the April Fool?

April 6th - April 7th

NCAA Final Four - CBS

As a result of the several weeks of bye-weeks, fans from many top programs realized that baseball was played at the intercollegiate level and miss their teams Final Four appearance. They do not miss seeing Joachim Noah pound on his chest after the first field goal of the game.

April 9th - 13th

NCAA Division-I National Championship Week

The NCAA, upon passing the BCS and the Roman Catholic Church in net worth, has realized that it can make more money by playing this many games and, well, one good turn deserves another so the National Championship is now a Best of 5 series. Many players from top schools have been declared ineligible having already been drafted by the NBA. Because of this, #43-seed Mercer may for once, not be, "Werser" as they win it all in front of 36 fans (43,000 fans according to ticket counters borrowed by the University of South Florida).

The NCAA deemed this a great success and went into the off-season with a new commerical "Out of the over 4 million Division 1 Student-Athletes, a lot of us go pro in something other than sports. In fact most become one of over 1700 waterboys and the rest went to The U"

Note: Due to Title 9 rules, all 191 Womens NCAA tourament games will be aired on ESPN or CBS. Basketball Arenas in Canada and Mexico were borrowed to accomodate the overlapping 382 games.

[E.T.]

People will always be hurt they didn't make it ... they just need to win more games  8-)

And the real reason why the will not increase the number of teams . . .

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Can't fit more teams on a 8.5" x 11" page for the office pool