NCAA Tournament Final Four: VCU Basketball Proves It's Time To Expand to 96

If you listened to anyone who considers themselves a college basketball expert immediately after the NCAA field of 68 was announced, the focus of their ire was that Virginia Commonwealth was invited.

VCU was one of the eight teams that, despite the fact that it was called Round 1, had to win a game to get to the real tournament. However, despite the extra game, the boisterous claims from pundits like Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale were that the Rams were not nearly as deserving as Virginia Tech or Colorado.

And, honestly, they were right.

VCU started the season with a respectable record of 18-5 and 10-1 in the underrated Colonial Athletic Association, but finished up at 23-11 and 12-6 in conference. That's not exactly the type of season closing trend that gets you an NCAA invitation, especially when you have no pedigree and your mid-major conference already has two bids.

However, the tournament committee saw something in VCU that others failed to appreciate and gave them a chance. If you are reading this, then you know that they made the best of it by reaching the Final Four.

VCU’s place in the Final Four wasn’t a fluke. They defeated a No. 6 seed, a No. 3 seed, a No. 10 seed and a No. 1 seed and, with exception to needing overtime against Florida State, all of their wins were by double digits.

So, their improbable run seems to indicate that making the tournament field even larger to include similar teams would be a smart thing to do.

Increasing the field to 96 teams would mean giving the No. 1 through 8 seeds in each region a bye and having the No. 9 seed play the No. 24 seed, the No. 10 seed play the No. 23 seed, and so on. And if logistics weren’t an issue for four games being played on the Tuesday before the Thursday-Friday games then it shouldn’t be a problem for 16 games either.

More teams, more games, more interest, more underdogs stories, and, most importantly, more money. Everybody wins.

However, unlike college football, where there is a huge clamor for an expanded playoff system, most media members and fans do not want more teams in the NCAA tournament. They say the current setup is perfect and the addition of more mediocre teams would diminish its greatness. In short, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Although, I would counter that you don’t have to watch the first 16 games played on Tuesday. Just start watching when there are 64 teams remaining and it will be seamless to you. In fact, it could be argued that the additional 28 teams would make the Thursday-Friday games even better since you would eliminate squads that weren’t prepared to make a run anyway.

So, in essence, there is no drawback to expansion which, if the history of common sense is any indication, probably means it won’t get done. However, if keeping things status quo means missing out on another VCU type run next year, we all lose out because stories like theirs is the reason why we watch in the first place.