First Four....Really?

Now that the NCAA tournament is well under way and the games are as spectacular as ever before, we can reflect on the new tournament structure. I have been an avid college basketball watcher my whole life and love nothing more than more games. On that note, I was completely dissatisfied with how the new structure of the tournament was set up. Not only did these four extra games prevent me from putting in my tournaments before the very last minute, but it seemed like these games were irrelevant. It made absolutely no sense to have these four and maybe even meaningless, unless VCU can beat a Georgetown team that cant score more than cousin’s middle school team. I was always unable to conceive this idea of having these extra seeds play against each other, but I don’t know maybe it was just me. Maybe I just don’t have enough passion of the game to watch these "pre-tournament" games, but instead of complaining about it, I came up with an even better proposal for the NCAA. Instead of making Clemson play at 9:00 PM Wednesday and than having them wake up to play again at Noon on Thursday, I came to a conclusion on how we should have the tournament. Before I go any further I do want to mention that I am an opponent of adding teams to the tournament field. Don’t get me wrong, I love watching more basketball, but come on people this is suppose to be a tournament for the National Championship and even Morehead State can beat one of the best teams in the best conference in the nation one time. The tournament field should be restricted to the very best teams, maybe even shortening the field would work. Shoot maybe even get rid of all these "baby" conferences altogether and just the best records go period. Ok, but my actual proposal for the NCAA tournament would be instead of having the first four, why not just give a bye to the best teams. I know just giving a bye to the four number one seeds would only give us four extra 16 seed teams, but maybe even give the first four seeds byes and now you have even more teams in the bracket than ever before. I don’t think my idea will get very far, but I DO think it would be better than making these kids play in the tournament before the tournament. Let me know what you think or if you have any better proposals.