(Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
The NCAA tournament is a near perfect sporting event. The only real argument made against the design of the tourney—that the field should be expanded to include more teams—is a faulty one.
The fact No. 15 seeds have beaten No. 2's, and that a No. 16 has never beaten a No. 1, speaks to the mathematical perfection of the 64-team field. It stretches the field to a perfect point on the edge of believability and leaves that one question just hanging out there, the question of if and when, maybe someday, a No. 16 will turn the trick.
The mere consideration of such a possibility is one of the many small storylines that combine to make the NCAA tournament endlessly fascinating and intriguing to the sports fan.
To go just one step further would be to cross the line into absurdity. Imagine a one seed going up against a No. 18 seed and what that No. 18 seed might look like. Not much intrigue there.
And besides, when we factor the conference tournaments into the equation, the fact is that the tournament already gives every Division-I team in the nation a chance to qualify. When it comes to the size of the field, then, the tournament is perfectly constructed.
The only real problem with the tournament, and one that receives surprisingly little comment or attention, is the seeding process. Granted, it’s a problem that doesn’t really impact the enjoyment we get out of the tournament as fans. But it’s a problem that detracts from the inherent fairness to the teams and the players involved.
The problem is that the tournament is not re-seeded after each round, and because of this, certain higher seeded teams receive significantly tougher draws than teams seeded much lower than them.
As a result of this flaw in design, teams are not sufficiently rewarded for the “body of work” they have built during the season. In fact, they are often punished for it.
The most glaring example of this is the case of the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds who are automatically slotted in to face the top seed in their region in the second round. Take a private poll of expectant tourney coaches on selection Sunday, ask them if they’d rather be a No. 8 seed or a No. 10 seed and I’ll bet a dollar they’ll take the 10 slot.
They very likely might even prefer to be a No. 11, No. 12 or even a No. 13 seed rather than an eight or nine. This doesn’t speak well to the idea that higher seeding is supposed to reward the season’s achievements.
Let’s take the Siena Saints as a case in point in this year’s tournament.
Siena dominated their league and played a tough enough non-conference schedule to earn a No. 9 seed, not to mention a No. 20 ranking in the RPI. In comparison, a team like Arizona took the backdoor into the tournament, sneaking into a No. 12 seed to go along with their RPI rating of 62.
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