Fishing from my stream of consciousness:

*Expansion: Take a good look at your bracket because it will most likely be the last one you will fill out and (in my case) crumple up with 65 teams.

NCAA Tournament expansion is on the horizon, may come as early as next year and it may feature as many as 31 more teams.

The NCAA has the best tournament going and figures it can parlay it into more money by adding more teams, more games and more rounds.

Since expansion is inevitable, I offer the following suggestions with hopes of preserving the integrity of the regular season and the tournament.

*Two bids: Let each conference’s regular-season champion and tournament champion into the NCAA Tournament. Reward the team that wins both a generous seed, a first-round home game and/or a first-round bye.

*Above .500: Allow any team that finishes above .500 in the Big Ten, Big East, Atlantic Coast, Pac 10, Big 12 and Southeastern conferences into the NCAA Tournament.

*Sports Take: Pat Hegewald chimed in with his most memorable coaches as part of last week’s “Sports Take” feature.

“I’ve had the pleasure of being on staff for two Hall of Fame coaches in Lee Hlavka and Bob Freund and they head a list of some great names from our community,” he wrote. “In my opinion one guy stands alone and that is Carthage baseball coach Augie Schmidt.

“The man has top 10 all-time numbers and has built and sustained a program that is known nationwide as a Division III powerhouse.

“His coaching staff is always loaded with former players which indicates a fierce sense of loyalty and his record speaks for itself.”

*Bracket time: My bracket is an absolute disaster. What made me possibly believe that UTEP could beat Butler, Villanova could reach the Elite Eight and Temple was a Final Four team?

The only upset I can lay claim to is Old Dominion’s win over Notre Dame. Is that really an upset though? I pick Notre Dame to lose in the first round every year.

*Just do it: The perfect fit for the coach-less crumbling DePaul basketball program is Duke assistant coach Chris Collins.

In addition to his tenure as both a player and assistant at college basketball’s premiere institution, Collins grew up in the Chicago area so he should be familiar with the area DePaul needs to exploit in order to return to the glory days of Meyer, Aguirre and Cummings.

If the school is worried about Collins’ youth (35) or lack of head coaching experience, they can tell him to bring along his dad, former Chicago Bulls coach Doug Collins, as his chief assistant.

David Marran is Sports Editor of the News. Contact him at dmarran@kenoshanews.com