What a 96 team tournament, that’s great, not really! I love College Basketball but if you make the tournament longer I think you have to move into the water that you as the NCAA has already made muddy, the definition of a “Student Athlete”. If you extend it you will have to look into the fact that these players are making you and your affiliates, or chartered division 1 schools lots of money. The fact is the argument that the players are getting paid with scholarships to the school that they play for, is getting out dated and flat out doesn’t work anymore.

In this new format the first 32 teams will get a first round bye, this is completely ridiculous because that means that the teams that they have to play will have momentum coming into their next game.  The 64 bottom teams will play on Thursday/Friday and then the winning 32 will meet the top 32 on Saturday/Sunday so that after the first week there will be 32 teams left in the tournament. The round of 32 will play on Tuesday/Wednesday and then it will be on to the Sweet 16 and the schedule will be the same as it is in its current state.

You have to love the fact that if a team makes it to the Sweet 16, their mythical “Student Athlete” will end up missing a whole week of school. The NCAA will try to sugar coat the change, saying that it is to allow more teams an opportunity at the big dance but everyone knows that it is about one thing MONEY, CBS has a clause in their contract with the NCAA that allows them to opt out of their 11 year $6 billion dollar contract, what is a better way to keep that from happening then expanding the already very popular NCAA Tournament.

The fact is the horses that are creating this money machine a receiving very little in return, I am not calling it a sweat shop because lets not be delusional some of them are receiving full rides to play but how much does that cost the school, very little and what about the players that aren’t scholarship players. I don’t get how a companies employees are generating billions of dollars yet, don’t see any of that money in return.

So the NCAA needs to figure out if they are an institution that is their to help out the youth of our great country or if they are a Cartel that is no worse then the Italian Mob in New York. I have been saying for years that college players should be able to be paid because it will get rid of some very stupid rules that only hurt schools when they get sanctions placed on them because a booster wants to help out his team without permission.

This will never happen because the NCAA on their white horse still thinks they are doing the right thing and that they are in anyway using the talent of these young stars.

The NCAA if they really want to help student athletes learn they should let less teams into the tournament because lets face it not every team in the country deserves to be in the tournament.