A couple of thoughts after the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament:

I, and pretty much everyone else in the country, vastly overrated The Big East. Most of the “X’s� on my bracket (yes, I filled one out just for fun) are the result of buying into the “strongest conference in the country� b.s.

In fact, I think all the big conferences are overrated. It’s clear the mid-majors have closed the gap considerably. I never remember this many hotly contested games the opening weekend, and it’s ridiculous to think there aren’t more teams from these smaller conferences capable of the same type of showing in a 1-game elimination tournament.

I say, put a cap on the number of entries from any single league. That’ll make the regular season and conference tournaments even more meaningful, as well as open up the field to all these exciting teams shut out so the power conferences can gobble up even more money.

Billy Packer is nothing but a shill for the big boys. How great was it to see the Missouri Valley Conference clubs make a fool out of him for complaining about the number of teams invited to the Big Dance? Either he doesn’t know the game as well as a lead network analyst should, or more likely, he’s too far in the pockets of the bigs to be an unbiased observer.

BC has a legit chance at the Final Four. As a matter of fact, the opening round scare might have been the best thing to happen to them. Tournament history is full of teams that got a huge scare in what should have been an easy game only to move onto the final weekend. I have the Eagles Indianapolis bound and saw nothing this past weekend to change my mind. (For the record, my Final Four contains Duke, UCLA, BC and UConn, with the Huskies edging the Blue Devils for the big prize)

Finally, the NCAA needs to institute a playoff system for Division 1 football as well. Forget this crap about not enough time for the kids to study. Every other NCAA sport, including all the other football divisions, has a playoff. If the kids at UMass-Amherst, Northeastern and UNH can complete their studies and compete in a tournament, so can the USC’s, Miami’s and Notre Dame’s of the world. It’s time for the hypocrites in the NCAA offices to put the bowl games and the greedy big conferences out of business.

Start a tournament to declare the “NCAA Champion� and if teams don’t want to enter, let them compete for their own “Betty Crocker Cake Mix� trophy or whatever corporate sponsor wants to sponsor a fake national champion. Eventually, everyone will fall into place and compete for the real prize. Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that the NIT was the most prestigious post-season basketball tournament. We know how that turned out, and it’s time for the people who run college sports to do the same for football!

That’s my take….what’s yours? Is BC Final Four bound? Is there anyone out there who can make a legitimate argument against a football playoff system? What’s your Final Four?