The cost of a few shekels more

Must we, for the sake of money, ruin everything under the sun?

The rim had hardly ceased reverberating from Gordon Hayward’s near-miraculous shot at the buzzer for Butler against Duke in the men’s basketball final when NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen was outlining a proposal for expanding the tournament to 96 teams.

Long rumored, a tournament of that size would feature first-round byes for the top 32 teams and third/fourth rounds on the Tuesday and Wednesday after the opening two.

There’s no mystery why this baby was put on the table. More games, Shaheen said, means more revenue for the NCAA.

In the big picture, I’ve often wondered: With all the cash the NCAA reaps from its major sports, with all those multi-millions from TV contracts, why does anyone have to pay to go to college or, more reasonably, have to still be paying for it 10 years after graduation?

As for the tournament: Why mess with it? The NCAA Division I basketball postseason is matched only by the Major League Baseball and NFL playoffs, multi-tier systems that span multiple weeks and accrete in drama as the field narrows.

This year, from the moment Ohio knocked off Georgetown in the opening round through Northern Iowa’s upset of Kansas to Butler’s classic final with Duke, the tournament was nigh perfect.

The NCAA D-I men’s basketball committee and board of directors could approve the 96-team field. It could suck up more money. But it would water down its product and cheapen the magic.