I wish we'd all just turn our backs...

It’s a good thing that the NCAA has a monopoly on major collegiate athletics. If they didn’t, surely fans would understand the way they are being treated and go running for an alternative.

Last Thursday, the NCAA held a big press conference in Indianapolis where it announced that the likelihood of expansion of the NCAA Tournament is well…very likely. They announced that there are 3 options that they are considering: staying at the current field of 65, expanding to 68, or expanding to 96. Then they talked for 20 minutes about the positives of expanding to 96.

This makes a growingly useless regular season even more so, and makes conference tournaments completely pointless even for small, one-bid leagues.

The NCAA wants to do this in conjunction with its anticipated opting out of its current 11-year, $6 billion contract with CBS. It will then open new negotiations which are expected to be dominated by Disney with its ABC and ESPN family of networks airing the games.

The NCAA receives just over $500 million annually from the current television contract. They distribute $332 million of that revenue to its member institutions, leaving the tax-exempt, non-for-profit association to find a way to get by on just $168 million a year. And evidently, that’s not enough.

Did I mention that not one single player receives one single cent of this $500 million? Well, at least not above the table.

Maybe the single most insulting thing about this impending change is that the NCAA seems completely content with breaking a postseason that worked just fine. Meanwhile, it steadfastly remains silent on changing its completely broken postseason in football.

To recap: Your football postseason is broken. Wanna fix it? No. Your basketball postseason is one of America’s great sporting events. Let’s pull it apart and reinvent the wheel? Yes!

Now, the only time of the season that will have any drama worth watching will be the NCAA Tournament itself.

Joe Lunardi is a NCAA Tournament selection specialist for ESPN. Joe contends that if the 96 team field would have been in play this year, the Big East conference would have sent 13 of its 16 schools to the NCAA Tournament. What’s the point?

Soon the NCAA Tournament will be like college football’s bowl season. Once making a bowl was a reward for being one of the best teams in the country. A seven win season would only get you to the fringe of bowl discussion. Now, there are so many bowls that a handful of 6-6 teams make it every year. Congratulations on not being bad!

The NCAA Tournament will now be much the same. Ole Miss and Mississippi State, who anguished on the bubble for the latter half of this season, would have easily been in. No question about it. The new system will essentially reward teams for finishing at least at .500. Awesome.

No longer will any of college basketball’s giants collide early in the season. No longer will mid-major stalwarts lock heads in hopes of boosting each other’s tournament resume. It won’t be necessary.

It just another example where the ungoverned crooks at the NCAA has chosen to stuff their pockets in lieu of giving you the best college sports possible.

By the way, they mentioned nothing of expanding the Women's NCAA Tournament to 96. Guess that one actually costs them money to run.