Marching To Madness

If the NCAA Tournament is not enough to keep you on your march-to-madness there is more help. In the form of more post season tournaments which can open the door to more office bracket pools (for the purpose of bragging rights...of course).

Most of us focus on the "The Big Dance" (NCAA Tournament) and pay passing attention to the NIT Tournament, but dig a little deeper and you will hit two more tournaments (CBI Tournament, CIT Tournament).

The CBI (College Basketball Invitational) is back for a third year and the newest kid on the block, the CIT (College Insider Tournament), is set to play out it's second event.

Of the four tournaments I like the format of the CBI best when it comes to crowning a champion...play a best of three title series. Any team can play well for one game but spread it over (potentially) three games and the chances of the better team wining increase.
Tulsa won the inaugural championship and Oregon State won last year.

Looking into my crystal ball the picture of a larger NCAA Tournament is beginning to develop. Like it or not the talk of expanding the field of 65 will happen. How many more teams will be handed dancing shoes? Your guess is as good as mine. I have heard anywhere from six more teams to 63. Do we really need 128 teams in the NCAA Tournament! Once you get past the first few rounds the bracket would look like it does today.

I am in favor of expansion on a very small scale. For the 2000 tournament the NCAA added a 65th team following the creation of the Mountain West Conference. The MWC conference tournament champion did not receive and automatic bid so rather than take away an at-large bid the NCAA created the play-in game.

The play-in game has been a huge success but the NCAA needs to take it a step further and add
three more teams creating four play-in games. The winners would then be slapped with a #16 seed and sent on their merry way to an opening round game to play a one seed.

This formula would open the door for "bubble" teams and hopefully give an opportunity for more Mid-Major schools to be selected.

Creating a NCAA Tournament with more than 68 teams would not be a good idea... It would dilute the tournament, make it harder to get a bracket (for the office pool) on one piece of paper and more importantly further weaken the CIT, CBI and NIT.

NCAA Bracket
NIT Bracket
CBI Bracket
CIT Bracket