Cut the tourney in half after pathetic night of bursting bubbles

I never want to hear about expanding the NCAA tournament field again.

Never.

Hey, way to win when it's really needed, Minnesota. (AP)

And when I say never, what I mean is as long as I live -- plus as long as my 6-year-old son lives -- plus as long as all eight of Octo-Mom's kids live -- and then like 600 more years after that. Seriously, never again. Because it's ridiculous. So ridiculous, in fact, that I'm ready to cut the field of 65 to 32 -- just give automatic bids to the champions of the 16 best leagues, then dish out 16 at-large bids and call it a day.

I have no desire to watch 65 schools be rewarded with a trip to the NCAA tournament when roughly 30 of them are mediocre. And if you sat around Wednesday night watching college basketball and tracking scores right here at CBSSports.com, then you know why I feel this way, and you probably feel this way, too.

"Nobody won who needed it." That's a text message that came from CBSSports.com's Jason Horowitz.

I'm pretty sure my response was a string of curse words.

I mean, there might've been another night in history when more bubble teams simultaneously messed themselves in spectacular fashion, but I'm not a historian, so I don't really know. What I do know is that Wednesday was as bad as I can remember, because every time I looked up another bubble team was going down, and if it was up to me I'd eliminate them all from at-large consideration and banish them to the NIT.

Bubble team Boston College lost at N.C. State.
Bubble team Miami lost at Georgia Tech.
Bubble team Florida lost at Mississippi State.
Bubble team Virginia Tech lost to North Carolina.

Each of those bubble teams desperately needed a win, and each of those bubble teams fell short. The only game on the schedule in which a bubble team actually beat a decent opponent was Minnesota's 51-46 victory over Wisconsin. But that was a game featuring two bubble teams, meaning one of the bubble teams was guaranteed to win. Otherwise, I'm sure it would not have happened.

Either way, congratulations are in order for Tubby Smith. First, for his bubble win over a bubble team. Second, for no longer being the coach at Kentucky.

"It feels like our season ended tonight."

More than 11,000 Kentucky fans gathered at UK's most famous message board late Wednesday, and the above quote was the title of a thread mixed in between about a million other threads detailing the need to change coaches less than two years after Smith decided he'd rather lead a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten program than deal with 11,000 people on a message board.

Enter Billy Gillispie, whose approval rating has never been lower than it is now that the Wildcats are coming off Wednesday's 90-85 home loss to Georgia, the same Georgia team that's so bad the athletic director fired the coach in January.

Honestly, how can UK lose that game?

I know many Kentucky fans will point to Smith's final recruiting classes, and I get that, to some degree. But Smith's final recruiting classes are the reason Kentucky isn't winning SEC titles; they aren't the reason Kentucky can't beat freaking Georgia in a must-win game at Rupp Arena, because Jodie Meeks, Patrick Patterson and three midgets with no arms should be able to beat Georgia in a must-win game at Rupp Arena.

That's what I believe.

What I also believe is that any talk of expanding the NCAA tournament should cease forever, and I encourage anybody who disagrees to take a sheet of paper, jot down the names of the projected 31 automatic bids and then try to complete a field of 65 with 34 other schools.

Trust me, by the time you get to the end you won't believe the uninspiring teams you're considering -- that is unless you watched college basketball Wednesday night, in which case you already know exactly what I mean.