of conference champs only. However, I do not like the idea that a conference champion could beat a team during the regular season and then that team could win the tourney/playoff and be crowned the national champ either. All that being said, there is a strong possibility that NCSU and Maryland were the two best teams that year and because only the conference champ advanced the public was deprived of a rematch in the NCAA tourney.

64 games each day for the first two days. It's doable. Think of the extra money that could be made.

I would say top 100, but sometimes the RPI doesn't reflect the quality of a team. If you win your conference tournament and ranked below 150, you do not qualify for the NCAAT. You go to the NIT.

formulas picking winners and losers. A field of 64 is big enough to include the little guys. If the big schools don't like it, they can drop down to and "easier" conference and take the bid every year. However, I do think that in these small conferences that it's kinda BS that all you have to do in win the conference tourney and that the regular season championship means nothing. Maybe they should limit the amount of teams invited to the conference tourney or something. Or allow a committee to pick between the regular season champ and tournament champ for the auto bid. But either way, it's not that big of deal to me. I also have an affinity for Cinderella. St. Peter's beating UK when their entire athletics budget is less than Calipari's salary is just an awesome thing.

Adding the "First 4" games gave them an opportunity to win a tournament game and gain a credit for their conferences. The big conferences saw that and wanted the 12 seed games so that they could pick up an extra credit for their conference. In short, the tv networks wanted content, the NCAA wanted money, teams 65-68 added.

when the mountain west formed, rather than take away an at-large bid when adding the new conference auto-bid, the NCAA added the extra play-in game. Then they added the three more to even the 4 brackets out.