Please , Sir, I Want Some More!

If 68 teams are good, then more must be better, right?

That seems to be the guiding philosophy behind the latest push to expand the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. Because when something works beautifully, the natural instinct—apparently—is to stretch it and squeeze it. We’re like Oliver Twist, always pleading for more porridge.

Why stop at 68? Let’s go full buffet line. Ninety-six. One hundred twenty-eight. Let’s invite your neighbor’s rec league champion and the entire KSR bowling team while we’re at it.

Sadly, this is where we are.

The inevitable expansion isn’t really about competitive balance—despite what analysts like Seth Greenberg will tell you between commercial breaks. It makes for a great soundbite. It just doesn’t happen to be true.

Honestly, the choice isn’t about inclusion. It’s not even about giving that plucky mid-major a better shot at glory. This is about money—cold, hard, TV-contract, inventory-filling money.

And yes, before someone sends me a strongly worded email with 17 bullet points and a KenPom chart, I understand the arguments. More access, more Cinderella stories, more games, more reason to retain coaches, more content for media.

More.

That word should make you nervous. Because in college athletics, “more” rarely means better. It usually means diluted, bloated, and harder to care about.

Sixty-eight teams already felt like we were pushing the limits. We’ve got First Four games that feel like play-in games to the play-in games. We’re asking fans to invest emotionally in teams that, in many cases, barely proved they belonged in the field to begin with.

And now the solution is to… add more?

At some point, you don’t have a tournament. You have participation trophies with a TV schedule.

The beauty of Selection Sunday has always been its tension—the idea that you earned your shot through the grind of a long season. Expand the field, and you cheapen that accomplishment. Why even play the regular season?

And let’s not pretend this is being driven by some noble mission to “grow the game.” The game is doing just fine. The arenas are packed. The ratings are strong. The brackets—those glorious, chaotic brackets—are already a national obsession.

This is about squeezing more out of something that’s already near perfect.

It’s the classic mistake: taking a great product and over-engineering it in the name of revenue. Like adding extra endings to a movie that didn’t need one. Or turning a tight 90-minute thriller into a bloated three-hour director’s cut because you can.

The NCAA sees inventory. Networks see programming. Advertisers see eyeballs.

Fans? We get a longer, messier tournament that asks for more of our time while giving us less of what made it special.

And here’s the irony: expanding the field doesn’t really help the teams it claims to help.

Those fringe teams? They’re still long shots. They’re still walking into a buzzsaw against better, deeper, more talented programs. The difference now is we’re pretending their inclusion is meaningful when it’s mostly symbolic.

Congratulations. You made it. Here’s your one shining moment.

Now please exit quietly after your 20-point loss. You shouldn’t have been here anyway.

Meanwhile, the top seeds get an even easier path. More mismatches. More tune-up games disguised as tournament contests. The rich get richer, and the rest get a slightly nicer seat at the table before being asked to leave.

That’s not equity. That’s optics.

And let’s talk about the fan experience for a second. The bracket—arguably the greatest interactive element in all of sports—is already a delicate, maddening puzzle. It’s what pulls in casual fans, office pools, and that one friend who hasn’t watched a game all year but suddenly becomes a bracketologist.

Now we’re going to complicate it further?

More teams means more variables, more confusion, and frankly, less fun. There’s a tipping point where complexity stops being engaging and starts being exhausting.

We’re flirting with that line.

Look, I’m not naïve. College sports has been on this trajectory for years. Conference realignment, NIL deals, transfer portal chaos—it’s all part of the same ecosystem. The business side has been winning for a long time.

But this one feels different because it messes with something that didn’t need fixing.

March Madness wasn’t broken.

It was one of the few things in sports that felt universally loved, reliably unpredictable, and beautifully simple at its core: win or go home.

Now it’s starting to feel like: win… or maybe you still get in.

And maybe that’s not just a tournament problem.

But hey, what do I know?

I’ve never won a bracket.

Now it’ll be even harder.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. He currently serves as a columnist for Nolan Group Media and invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. His latest book is Whining for Posterity, available on Amazon.