March is quite possibly the best time of year. It means the end of usually a cold winter, the arrival of baseball season, and oh yes, that little thing that everybody likes to refer to called March Madness.
Let's face it, The NCAA tournament could be the greatest invention of Western Civilization, but is it possible that the NCAA tournament could be better?.
I believe so.
1. Lose The Play In Game
Somebody give one good reason to have the Play-In Game in the NCAA tournament except for the fact that it means ESPN shows two fewer reruns of last years World Series of Poker. Nobody takes this game seriously. All it is, is a way for the sports world to poke fun at a smaller school.
For the team that loses the game, they get all the shame of losing in the first round of the tournament, without any of the glory of even making the field. All it means for the team that wins is they get a chance to be humiliated by the best team in the tournament.
Playing this game also means that they have played one more game than the rest of the teams in the field. Nobody thought it was fair when Georgia put on their miraculous run winning three games in two days, but nobody thinks its wrong for these two teams to have to play an extra one.
Why should a team that will meet the best team in the tournament be punished by playing an extra game while their opponent rests?
The Play-In game has got to go, for the respect of the smaller schools and for the sake of not making me sit through that two hours of completely boring basketball.
2. Expand The Field
Why must we be forced to listen to the Jim Boeheim's every year when their team doesn't make the tournament?
We all know that Syracuse deserved to be in last year and most of us believe that Arizona State (21-12 9-9) was unjustly left out this year. How could they not get in, finishing with a better conference and overall record than 10th seeded Arizona (19-15 8-10), also beating them twice during the season?
Something must be done about this injustice.
Why not add one extra round to the tournament and expand the field to 128 teams? What would it hurt?
It adds a maximum of four days to the tournament plus a whole extra round to the greatest invention ever. That way the teams that deserve to make it, do in fact make it and an added bonus would be getting rid of that bogus College Basketball Invitational where teams like Cincinnati (13-19) get in over teams like Sam Houston State (23-8), but that's a different story.
3. Forget The Major Markets
Being From Texas, I realize that the USD vs UCONN game isn't a priority over the Texas-Austin Peay game. I understand the regional broadcasts and that Texas' market is probably double that of USD and UCONN combined, but why must I watch an Austin Peay player struggling to put his contact back in place in a 20 point game, while a 13 seed is in the process of a major upset over a four seed.
There is no need for that.
When Texas fans are calling me and telling me they stopped watching the game because it got boring then I believe we have a problem.
Forget the major markets and show the people the potential great games.
All in all I love the NCAA Tournament and besides these little things I have no complaints. If nothing happens to improve these things, it won't stop me from watching the tournament, but it would be nice to see the little things eliminated from an almost perfect creation.
5 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Silas Beyman about 1 year ago
Expanding the field to 128 would be ridiculous. That would mean a team with a sub par record would make it every year. And Mid-Major making their first appearance in a long time or ever won't mean as much as it does now. Plus, all brackets will go to hell, with 30 seeds beating 4 seeds and so on.
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Roman Petrowski about 1 year ago
Wait teams with sub par records like coppin state? Teams making the tournament with sub par records is better in my opinion than teams that deserve to make it not making it at all. If the teams that dont deserve to be in it play a higher seed then they will lose if they dont deserve to be there it will work out in the end anyways. I also dont think some chump tryin to win money off of picking a bracket is more important than a kids dream that he's busted his ass for all of his life.
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Andrew Butler about 1 year ago
First of all I think it's important to note that smaller schools that get the play in game, have already won their conference tournament days and maybe even a week before they get to their game. In the conference tournaments they schedule all the strong conferences to take on the weekend and friday, and they go back to back games against each other. In smaller conferences they may start as early as March 7th, and they get breaks in their tournament before their next game unlike the big time conferences. Second, if people make bets on that game, I'm sure they're gonna watch it, it's still march madness, and granted few people will bet on that game with our lack of knowledge of who would win, but people still enjoy a good bet because it makes the worst of games much more interesting. Third, both of those teams are very proud of making the tournament and should be, they worked hard for it. Not to mention they are in the top 65 teams of the NCAA, they're doing better than the other 250 plus teams who aren't there. Also it shows respect for their school and recognition with free advertising which would usually cost millions to put their name on a sheet of paper that millions of americans fill out which we call march madness brackets. And basketball is interesting regardless of whose playing for the most part, unless it's at a retirement home, watching teams fight it out is basketball and it's fun. I like to watch the game for the sport, not for the players, that's like watching a team instead of the sport, when obviously you must like the sport if you like that team because without a sport the team wouldn't exist. And finally if you think the complaints about on the bubble teams is difficult, now imagine at 128 teams, making the seeds with those at the lower end of major conferences compared to all the mid-majors, that would be ridiculous, and we'd be fighting all day about who deserves to be in and we would nit-pick at the smallest things, that's too much to ask for the NCAA selection committee. But I do agree with your comment about the higher seeds on TV, it does get to be distasteful when you know there's competitive real games on.
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Roman Petrowski about 1 year ago
Wait teams with sub par records like coppin state? Teams making the tournament with sub par records is better in my opinion than teams that deserve to make it not making it at all. If the teams that dont deserve to be in it play a higher seed then they will lose if they dont deserve to be there it will work out in the end anyways. I also dont think some chump tryin to win money off of picking a bracket is more important than a kids dream that he's busted his ass for all of his life.
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Ari Kramer about 1 year ago
You have to be kidding.
128 teams? That is way too many teams. There were a few teams that missed the tourney that deserved to be in, but certainly not 64 teams. The 64 team field is what makes college basketball 100 times better than the NBA. It causes regular season games to have more meaning than a mere win or loss. In the NBA you have 4 opportunities to beat division teams, while in college you only have 2 in most cases and in other cases only 1. 8 teams from each NBA conference make the playoffs. That means that half of the NBA makes the playoffs. What is the point of playing a whole season to eliminate 50% of the teams?
That is exactly what the NCAA would be doing by adding 64 more teams. The smaller field puts more pressure on bubble teams like Arizona State, Dayton, Rhode Island, etc. And hey, there is always the N.I.T., which is still a good postseason tournament.
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