This is a solution searching for a problem.  The NCAA tournament is just fine.



 

A timely reply to the self absorbed douche Bilas has become



and when ya click on it.....as the man in the commercial says.....I think you're gonna like the way it looks

I didn't read Bilas's column because (1) he's a moron and (2) I'm too cheap to become an "Insider."  But my question is: If they reduced the number of D1 teams, who would these "powerhouses" play OOC?  Each other? Nah.  They'd lose their home court advantage in OOC games.  Here's a rundown of the true road games on the OOC schedules for the Top 10 teams in the final USAT/ESPN poll for 2011-12:

Kentucky: 1 (a loss at Indiana, their only OOC loss of the season)
Kansas: 3 (losses at UK and Duke; a win at Southern Cal)
O$U: 2 (loss at Kansas; win at South Carolina)
L'ville: 2 (win at Butler; loss at UK)
Syracuse: 1 (win at NC State)
UNC: 3 (win at UNC-Asheville; losses at UNLV and UK)
MSU: 4 (losses at UNC and Duke; wins at EMU and Gonzaga)
Baylor: 3 (wins at Northwestern, BYU and WVU)
Florida: 3 (losses at O$U, Syracuse and Rutgers)
Marquette: 2 (win at Wisc; loss at LSU)

That's 24 OOC true road games: 2.4 per team.  If they had to play each other all the time, they'd wind up with either home-and-home, thus making half their OOC schedules on the road (good luck doing that with UK, as Indiana found out) or a bunch of neutral site games, which also dilutes their home court advantage.  Let's face it, they like having mid- and lower-major teams available to pad their home games (thus justifying their season ticket prices) and their records (notice just one of the above listed teams -- UNC -- lost to a non-powerhouse school).