NCAA Tournament play-in games: an ugly deformity

Of all the bad ideas the NCAA has had (and there have been many), the “play-in” games in the tournament have to be among the worst. In order to crowd a few more teams into the tournament (already too large), they have created a major deformity. The NCAA makes a big deal about the tournament actually starting with the play-in games, and that they are the First Round. The fans, however, generally speaking do not regard the “real” tournament as beginning until the round of 64, and the play-in games are just a culling process for teams that ought not to have been there anyway. I would imagine that 9 out of 10 fans call the round of 64 the “first round.”


So what is the result? The teams from the bottom-feeder conferences who legitimately earn the right to play in the NCAA championship tournament are now considered “culls” (although few would be so crass as to say that.) That is a slap in the face to those programs and schools. A tournament that is already too long is now too longer. All this was done undoubtedly to make more money and probably also to help save the jobs of the money conference coaches who are in jeopardy. Please, NCAA, just admit your mistake and reverse that decision.