Every year it seems just like clockwork that there will be the inevetible 1st round upset in the following matchups (4-13, 5-12 and 7-10).  None of which occured this year, which means one of two things, the selection committee was dead on with the higher seeds or dead wrong with their picks for the lower seeds.  I tend to favor the latter.  Of the last remaining at-large bubble teams selected, only Illinois put up much of a fight. 

If you're a Syracuse fan, such as myself, how delighted were you to see Villanova, Marquette, and especially Arkansas, Stanford, Old Dominion and Illinois all go down?  And if you're not a 'Cuse fan, tell me that Drexel, Kansas State, Air Force, Florida State and West Virginia  wouldn't have fared drastically better than those bubble teams knocked off in the 1st round?

If you ask me, there's gotta be a better, more exciting way to have bubble teams play into the tournament.  The current system is flawed anyhow, seeing as two teams that recieved automatic bids by virtue of winning their conference tournament, with the loser going away with the feeling of having never been in the NCAA tournament to begin with.  Obviously one can't have two potential powerhouse at-large teams competing for the 16 seed, that would be unfair to those teams who earned a 1 seed. 

Thus my proposal is this, assuming the 11/12 seeds are all the last of the at-large bubble teams to be selected to the tournament, this year's being Stanford, ODU, Illinois and Arkansas, have those teams play other bubble teams in order to get into the NCAA tournament.  One could even make the case that there could be play in games for the 8/9 seeds thus giving the number 1 seed an easier matchup in the 2nd round.  By doing this, one would expand the field to 71, with 4 play-in games, which would be played on either the Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday before the tournament.  This would breed more excitement than disapointment and would be quite a juicy appetizer to the tournament.  Imagine Syracuse playing Arkansas, Drexel playing Illinois, Florida State playing Stanford and Air Force playing ODU for the right to get into the actual field of 64.  Of course one does also have to factor in that a certain number of automatic bids are already in, so in addition to expanding the field to 71, one of three things could happen. The play-in between the two automatics from weaker conferences to determine who faces the 1 seed could still be in effect, thus expanding the field to 73.  Secondly that play-in game could be done away with and the weakest of the automatic teams remaining could be put into a play-in game with one of the at-large teams in the 4 play-in games in the field of 71.  The final option would be to put a team from a larger conference such as New Mexico State or George Washington, who had to essentially run the table in their conference tournament to get in, to be put into the one of the 4 play-in games with the other at-large teams in the field of 71.  After some of this year's selections and snubs alike, it certainly wouldn't be a bad idea.