We all saw the tweet, or the blog. The NCAA tournament expanding to 96 teams was “a done deal.” Then, we saw the second tweet, Jeff Goodman’s link quoting the NCAAs Greg Shaheen saying the expansion is not a done deal.

Shaheen, despite his pellet gallery position, is a good guy who has responded to my emails twice. (Technically, I am a nobody.) Give him some leeway for his comical quotes–he didn’t have to say anything.

After reading the quotes and knowing that no matter what anybody says we all know 96 teams is inevitable, I did everything I could to be outraged. Angry. I was ready to fire off the emails: They are not going to destroy the last beautiful thing sports, not on our watch!

I was a phony.

You see, I’m a thinking kind of person. I prefer to analyze with great thought before I react. It’s why I stunk as a radio color analyst, and it’s why the more I examined how I felt about the whole 96 teams thing, the more I realized I wasn’t angry in the least.

For all of the angst the end result you know is coming is going to create, all I can feel is pity and sickness. It’s like the head shaking you have when a 40-year old man is cursing the refs in front of his 10-year old son. Pitiful.

It isn’t worth my time and my attention to get angry. I have better things to do, and so should you.

Let them change the rules for money or whatever they want. No matter, really. Let it go, and hope a third CAA team can nab that coveted 19th seed in Topeka.

Soak it in just as you always have–if others are going to make policy, let them, and then go about doing what makes us full of pride: beat them at their own game. It’s much more fun anyway. I don’t care if VCU beats Duke in the round of 64, 96, or 326. It’s still VCU over Duke and Coach K can’t get around that shellacking no matter how much NCAA money comes his way.

Because we revel in this stuff, and that’s today’s reason why I keep saying we have it better.

It’s the same deal with this whole Benny Moss being fired reassigned thing. Sickness to the point of wanting to vomit.

There are so many avenues and worm holes we can go down, and none are worth it, at least not right now. When the rumor mill heats up and there is information to be had, Brian Mull will have it and we’ll link to it. That’s not our role here.

Nobody smells  rosey in the firing of Benny Moss, and I question leadership. You can argue the merits of a coaching change in midseason. Fine. I’d argue any athletics director worth a damn has “that list” of five coaches in their desk drawer. So whether it’s needed or inevitable, a significant part of the job of the athletics director is succession planning is it not? You can do background work during the season quietly.

This is the thing: Director of Athletics Kelly Mehrtens gave Moss a contract contract extension. By letting Moss go in midseason she is admitting she made an egregious mistake. You get a pass for “didn’t work out” where parties go their separate ways. This is an act of desperation, in my mind. Or, poor leadership.

(Note: the original text said that Mehrtens hired Moss, and that was incorrect. Former AD Mike Capaccio hired Moss. My apologies for the error. It has been fixed.)

Moss was not an embarrassment to his university in the way he carried himself and the struggles of his team. Sure, you can get snide and say their record was an embarrassment or the loss to Hofstra was an embarrassment but that’s like saying the worst part of roadkill is the dead animal in the road. Some other things, in the view of the animal, were worse.

Benny Moss probably deserved to lose his job, but he deserved better than he got. If I’m a UNCW supporter, I’m keeping a keen eye on this coaching search.