I'd rather see a 26-4 St. Mary's team than a 19-13 Arizona team. Simple solution, expand the field to 96 and give every conference 2 automatic bids, to their regular season champion and to their tournament champion (if a team wins both, the 2nd bid goes to the next best conference overall record counting both the regular season and the tournament). Three advantages to this format are: 1) the first weekend runs from Wednesday through Monday instead of Thursday through Sunday, 2) small conference teams have a chance against #9 and #10 seeds instead of playing #1 and #2 seeds in the first round, 3) in the 2nd round (equivalent to the 1st round today) the top teams have to play a halfway decent opponent instead of a Jackson State.