More Thoughts on the Play In Game

It's finally sunny and nice here in New York. Spring is here and with Spring here, hope is always eternal at the College Hardwood. And with the Spring, comes the best time of season, March Madness.

I just wanted to clarify something. The reason I call the Play-In-Game, aka the P.I.G, the "You're Not Worthy Game", is not that I think the teams aren't worthy. Oh contrare, any team that wins their conference tournament and gets an "automatic bid" is truly worthy to be in the NCAA Tournament. It's the committee members who decided after the Mountain West conference was formed that there should still be thirty four at large bids. And thus the 30th and 31th ranked auto bid teams have to play their way in. It's these geniuses who think these teams aren't worthy.

So, I consider it a sham that two "automatic bid" teams have to play their way in to the Round of 64. If you have to "play your way in", you don't have an automatic bid. Now when the NCAA Women's Basketball Committee was faced with the same problem, they did the right thing and got rid of one of the at large bids. There is no play in game. All the teams get to play in the round of 64.

Think about it, one team tonight Winthrop or Arkansas Pine Bluff will not experience the Round of 64, despite earning their way in. The players of one team won't get the chance to face a #1 seed and tell their kids they got to face Kansas or Duke or Kentucky in the tournament.

And this is nothing against the Dayton fans, who do an absolutely terrific job of coming out and supporting these two teams in UD Arena. I am watching the game right now and the place seems packed and the crowd is loud.

But these two teams got automatic bids, thus they should play in the round of 64. Let the last two at large teams play the play in game. Based on the bubble talk the past few days, these are the teams apparently not worthy.

But then again, I would rather have the P.I.G. than 96 teams. Any day.