68-team NCAA tournament should have bubble team play-in games

The NCAA averted disaster by choosing to expand to 68 teams rather than 96. The 96-team format would have had the following effects:

• Watered down the tournament with no increase in fan interest
• Absorbed the NIT, depriving schools with a mediocre season a chance to win a legit championship
• Destroyed the time-honored tradition of picking brackets, probably the biggest reason that people who aren't big basketball fans pay attention once a year, and
• Crammed way too much basketball into too little time, and created a 'break' at the Round of 32 rather than the Sweet Sixteen, which would be terrible

Going from 64 to 65 teams was one of the stupidest mistakes the NCAA ever made. It created a worthless game that no one cares about (see how many brackets give points for picking that game?) and screws one legitimate qualifier out of being in the real tournament. Why should two teams who have automatically qualified by the rules have to fight it out to see who really gets in? And no, no one ever believed this was anything other than a play-in game. It was not the "first round."

But expanding to 68 at least makes things parallel in all brackets. The question is, who will be the play-in teams? One would expect that the NCAA would simply match up the 8 lowest-seeded teams (essentially the 16 and 17 seeds) and the winners would play the 1-seeds. But supposedly they are considering having at-large teams in the play-in games, which would be a better solution.

Like I said, the conference winners have earned it, regardless of their conference's quality. The 16-seeds are still going to have to face 1-seeds. So they're not getting a break if the play-in games are between the final bubble teams. They're just getting to play in the tournament like they should be able to.

The bubble teams are a different matter. It makes all the sense in the world to have them "play-in" to the tournament, even if they're playing for a 12 or 13 seed. No rules dictate that they have to be in the tournament in the first place. It's like the NCAA saying "we couldn't decide between these 8 teams, who should be in or not, so we'll have them play their way in."

This makes the selection process easier. And the expansion to 68 gives even more teams a chance. By adding three teams, and making the bubble teams the play-in teams, it would be more fair to both the automatic qualifiers AND the bubble teams.

Make it so, NCAA.