Fair and balanced

Did I mention I love this tourney debate? Today is one of my favorite days of the entire year.

But be careful about going overboard on the mid-major debate. I'm a champion of the little guy, I cover one for a living and feel strongly that since the NEC teams just as hard as the big teams, they deserve a seat at the table.

However, let's not overshoot it. The seeding and selection process the committee does in no way counts teams from conferences. In other words, at no point do they say either "we need another Big East team" or "We have too many A-10 teams". It goes team by team.

Think of the biggest snubs: Dayton is an A-10 team and Arizona State is a Pac-10 team. That's a (kind of) mid-major and a major.

But you can't go the other way. You can't put a limit on conferences just to take more mid majors even if they don't deserve it. If Dayton should be in, great, but you can't make Dayton go just to "be fair." It should be the best teams (including the champs of every conference). This is a national championship tournament, not a charity event. If Villanova is better than the third best team in the West Coast Conference or CAA, then it should be in. If it's not, it shouldn't. But we can't pick who's better strictly by a quota system.