I think it also all comes down to perspective.
When my mom was growing up, her high school wasn't very good at sports, so winning their sectional title was a big thing. When my sister and I were growing up, her high school soccer team had made the final four of the state tournament 6 out of the last 8 seasons. My sisters team would be upset to not make the State Final four after that standard had been set, my mom's high school's teams would have been thrilled to just make it to the Divisional Title game. A lot of those kids who are on those teams with higher digit seeds, have goals of playing in the tournament one day. A player like Paige Bueckers has bigger dreams of winning the National Championship, because it's the standard set for a number 1 recruit playing at UConn.
It never feels great to lose, but would you have told Mississippi State in 2016 (sorry to their fans) they should have been cut from the tournament because they lost to UConn by 60? In that same year, 12-seed South Dakota State beat the 5-seed Miami. 12-seed Albany also beat the 5-seed Florida in their first round game. I don't think cutting teams out of the tournament is the answer. Blowouts can happen at anytime and do happen in the Men's tournament as well. Just because you happened to see Jackson State lose big to Baylor doesn't mean it wasn't a great experience for their players and fans. Jackson State actually has a top-100 player in Se'Quoia Allmond signed to play next season, now making the Tournament is a viable goal for their team next year. In 2009, 2-seed Baylor had to play an Overtime game in their first round game very 15-seed UTSA.
In more recent years, if you had reduced it to 32-teams we wouldn't have had 10-seed Oregon make it to the Elite 8, a run that put Oregon and Sabrina Ionescu and Co. into the media conversation. It would have cut 11-seed Central Michigan from the tournament and eliminated their run of upsets to the Sweet 16 (Where they lost to the 2-seed Oregon Ducks).
So, yeah, maybe 16-seeds don't beat 1-seeds (Sorry, Stanford and UVA [men's side] fans) but they aren't supposed to. Majority of the time, they aren't close, but in 2018, future National Champions Notre Dame, only beat Cal State Northridge by 18 in the first round. There have been some super close 2-seed/15-seed games (Oregon State only beat Long Beach State by 1 in 2017. In 2018, South Carolina needed all of A'ja Wilson to put away a pesky 15-seed in North Carolina A&T). Also, the 12-seed South Dakota State team from 2016, which was 14-seed in 2015 and lost to Oregon State in the first round, returned to the tournament in 2019 as a 6-seed and made it to the Sweet 16 where they gave 2-seed Oregon a run for their money. So, maybe that previous high seed experience helped get them some more recruits, maybe it helped with those future 6-seed seniors get NCAA tournament experience where they could perform on the big stage again. Now, maybe players who go to South Dakota State aren't just happy to make the tournament as a high digit seed, maybe they have shifted goals and dreams of winning and making it to the Sweet 16? It's all a growing experience for all involved. I'm sure the fans from Orem, Utah were happy to cheer on their Wolverines as they faced the Number 1 overall seed. In the future, J. Williams from Utah Valley can say they scored 18 points against the number 1 team in 2021. Maybe it's a bit long-winded and a fantastical view of March Madness, but I love this time of year, so I'm all for the Round of 64.
