NCAA Wants to Expand Tournament? Why Then 96?

So the NCAA wants to piss everyone off and expand the tournament to 96 teams. I hate that idea.

Why 96 teams? Oh, so they can have an extra 32 games they can sell to ESPN (along with the entire tournament package). So what if it waters down the tournament??? If a 16-16 North Carolina team would make a 96-team dance, who cares? The luster of getting into the tournament will go completely away. It will be like the NHL in the 1980s where 16 of 21 teams made the postseason every year.

Why not just start out with 72 teams? Have eight of those "play in games" with the 16 worst teams in the field battling for those No. 16 and 15 seeds. It gives those smaller schools the ability to say they actually won an NCAA Tournament game, allow seven of those "bubble teams" (like Miss State, Illinois, Va Tech, Rhode Island, etc from this past season) to get in and make the first round even more competitive. If you figure that these "bubble teams" who now got in were seeded 12th or 13th, those 5-12 and 4-13 games would be even better. Not to mention the 3-14 games would now feature a stronger team from a smaller conference than from before.

Let's apply this to the current tournament.

The opening round would include these teams: Lehigh, UCSB, Vermont, North Texas, Morgan State, East Tennessee State, Winthrop, Robert Morris, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Ohio, Oakland, Sam Houston State, Montana, Wofford, Houston and Siena. The winners of those games go on to play a No. 1 or No. 2 seed.