Well it’s March again and that means the collective minds of America are thinking about just one thing … the return of those delicious green shamrock shakes to McDonald’s!

No wait that’s just me. America is thinking about the “Big Dance,” the upcoming tournament in college basketball to determine the national champion.

By the way, anyone who comes up with another name for the NCAA championship please tell me. You’ll be handsomely rewarded.

Yes, it’s tournament time and a lot of bubble teams, teams on the edge of qualifying like Michigan, Syracuse and the Hawks, will be sitting by the television this Sunday to see if they get invites.

Other teams won’t be quite as nervous because their tourney tickets are being punched this week.

Yes, it’s “conference championship week” this week on ESPN where a multitude of teams will lock up automatic bids to the “Big Dance.”

And there’s no shortage of these conference championships or apparently automatic bids. The following conferences recently have held or will hold a conference championship tourney this week that will net some lucky teams an automatic bid to the NCAAs.

Deep breath. Here we go. The Big South, Ohio Valley, MAAC, Southern, Colonial, Sun Belt, MWCC, Missouri Valley, Patriot, ACC, Big East, Atlantic 10, WAC, Big 12, Conference USA, Mid-American, American East, West Coast and Big Sky conferences.

Oh and let’s not forget the other autobid receivers, the regular season Ivy League, Big Ten and PAC 10 champs. Wow.

That’s a lot of teams that will sleep a little easier the night before bids are passed out. Twenty-two by my count. But should they?

It’s hard to argue letting #2- ranked and Big Ten champion Minnesota in, but what about the Ohio Valley tourney champ Murray State who by some fluke defeated “mighty” Austin Peay to get an invite. Do these two teams deserve equal treatment? I don’t think so.

There’s a thing called the CRI, a computer rating index more commonly known as the power poll, that appears regularly in USA Today. This index gives the computer ratings for all division I men’s basketball teams. I wonder how many of these tourney champs show up in the top 64. Not many I bet.

Maybe this is a ridiculous concept but I think the top 64 teams should be the one’s participating in a tournament to determine the national champion.

I’m not saying we should take a marker and draw a line below number 64 on the index with everyone above in the tourney and everyone below out, but there’s got to be a better way.

If the tournament truly invited the best in the nation most of these bubble teams would have nothing to worry about. Who do you think is rated higher, Texas or Charleston Southern?

I think the best teams should be the ones playing in this.

Oh well, just wishful thinking. I’m off to fill out my tournament bracket.

I’m taking Canisius over Ball State.

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KEVIN PETTY is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Carlisle.