Bracket Improvement

A suggestion to improve the near flawless NCAA mens basketball tournament:

About eight years ago the bracket was expanded to incorporate 65 teams. Since one more conference was awarded an automatic bid, the committee decided they didn't want that small conference team to take the place of a big name school. So they make the 2 smallest schools play a game before the tournament starts. The loser of this game does not even get to play in the actual tournament even though they received an automatic bid.

So, what they could do is declare who the last 2 bubble teams were to get into the tournament without an automatic bid. Since they didn't even win their conference these 2 teams should play the "play-in" game before the tournament.

Sure, these big school bubble teams (like this year's Arizona squad) are better than the small time "play-in" school (like this year's Coppin St). So instead of having Coppin State play Mount St. Mary's in a "play-in" and having the winner take the #16 seed to play #1 North Carolina, have Arizona play Kentucky (2 bubble teams this year) and have the winner take the #12 seed and play the #5 seed.

Reward a conference champion and make a bubble team play the pre-tournament game.