Continued playoff expansion is not what USC or any other school needs across the NCAA

Everywhere college fans look, the answer to the postseason appears to be playoff expansion. What started as four teams in football is now at 12, and most believe a 14- or eventually 16-team system is coming. Basketball is already at 68. Assuming March Madness gets expanded further, 128 plus the four First Round selections would see the tourney increased to 132.

Assuming the next step in college basketball would be 260, Kansas' coach Bill Self made his stance known in terms of where he would lean in that debate. Lawrence Journal-World's Henry Greenstein reported that the Big 12 coaches are in agreement that expanding the NCAA tournament further would be a positive step for the sport.

The degree to which those at the Big 12 meeting in Orlando would potentially have it in mind was not further disclosed. The "consensus among the coaches" should indicate that it is something that would likely not receive too much pushback in the event of the format actually being expanded.

Whether it is football, basketball, or a local league in any given sport, tournament expansion does not bring the solutions that people believe it does and invariably waters down the meaning and significance of the regular season.

As is, when a tournament is set up with four selections, for example, there are cries of someone being snubbed. The pool of teams that can legitimately make that claim, however, is small.

As the entries expand from single digits into double digits, more teams with more flawed resumes whose body of work truly does not warrant being up for consideration as the champions are able to enter the conversation and point at holes in others' resumes in a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Yes, there are times when a team has gotten hot late and gone on a run that they may otherwise not have received the chance to do. By contrast, certain teams make it only to be 'exposed' and bow out in humiliating fashion.

In either event, what happens once someone is granted entry cannot have a bearing on the process that does or does not allow competitors to have the right to have a chance in the first place. The regular season and postseason are two entirely different entities in that regard.

Teams, whether USC or otherwise, need to earn a trip to the playoffs

Instead, what needs to take precedence in these types of conversations is if a school truly deserves a shot to be crowned the national champion. It is understood that some programs can define success by simply making the tournament. That is valid. Different programs are in different stages in their respective development. That does not need to also enter into the decision-making process here, however.

Certainly, the pool needed to be expanded from two, and although the BCS system is more straightforward, it, like anything, had its flaws. To now view that blind, assumed expansion every two or three years is the answer to everything, is doing athletics as a whole a disservice.