Is Having Baylor in the Tournament Really Worth It?

Sixty-five. It’s just so much worse. Sixty-four is a beautiful number. It’s two to the sixth power, eight squared. It’s a beautiful number. It has cache. It even has nostalgia for my generation; we were reared on Nintendo 64. Sixty-five is inelegant. It leads to an imbalanced bracket — there’s an odd growth protruding, ruining the symmetry of our office print-outs. Or they would, if we didn’t completely ignore the opening round game. UNC will soundly defeat their anonymous opponent. Opening Round Winner has no chance.

But we need 34 at-large teams. It’s a give and take. Sure, it sucks that the NCAA tournament has 65 teams, but could you imagine March Madness this year without Baylor or Oregon? It would be unbearable. It was a tough decision, but the NCAA made it. It’s probably for the best. We need to have 34 at-large teams to have a proper tournament, clearly.