NCAA Play-in Games

With 68 teams in the field, 8 of these teams must play what is called a "play-in" game to make it to the tournament. I understand the reasoning behind this is a money grab, and to be honest I don't really care that these games exist. What I do care about is who is forced to play these games.

Last night North Carolina A&T beat Liberty and Saint Mary's beat Middle Tennessee. 

Liberty (15-20) was Big South champions and won the automatic bid.

North Carolina A&T(20-16) was Mid-Eastern champions and won the automatic bid.

Middle Tennessee (28-5) last to Florida International in the semifinals of the Sun Belt tournament.

Saint Mary's (28-6) lost to Gonzaga in the West Coast Finals.

I brought these facts up because these two games boast two very different scenarios for the teams. The first match up of two 16 seeds consists of conference champions. Are they quality teams? No. Liberty has a losing record for crying out loud. The other game teams boast quality resumes and seem to have a strong case to be in the tournament. Saint Mary's should be in the tournament and is capable of beating most. 

Now which game do you think I have issues with? The two conference champions playing an a play-in game or the two quality teams playing to get in?

Let Saint Mary's and Mid Tenn duke it out! There are only so many number of seeds available, and these two teams have arguments for being in and out of the tournament. So let them play to get into the dance. 

For the 16 seeds, neither should be required to fight to get into the tournament. Why? Because they are CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS and have earned that conference's automatic bid. These kids played their hearts out and became bubble busters! This is the highlight of there college lives! They won their small conference and got an invite to the biggest stage in college basketball. So let them play the 1 or 2 seed and try their hardest to have an upset, but don't deny one of them that opportunity by making them compete in a play-in game. A play-in game isn't an automatic bid to the tournament. It is just another loop these teams have to do to convince the selection committee that they deserve to be playing for the NCAA championship. 32 teams, no matter how good or bad their season was, get an automatic bid into the tournament for being their conference champions. So, let NC A&T and Liberty play games in the first round instead of each other, and let those bubble teams play for a spot in the tournament.