What's So Wrong with No March Madness Upsets?

I'm an NBA fan, much more than a college hoops fan. College just seems to have too many team to follow, and if you're following a team that isn't your alma mater, you risk investing a season in a team that won't make the field of 65.

But March Madness is something we call all get behind. After all, anything can happen. Right?

Right.

Do you know what has happened this year, and will probably happen every year from here on out?

The hype around the tournament will be insufferable.

The talking (writing?) heads at ESPN, Fox Sports, and all the other places are trying their best to ruin the tourney.

They've made it impossible to enjoy the tournament, just for the sake of watching good basketball games.

For instance, all I've read this morning is about how disappointing the tournament has been so far.

Right now on ESPN.com's Front Page is a Pat Forde article about the tournament losing its charm, since all of the top seeds are in it.

The Cinderella in peasent clothes metaphor isn't funny, or clever (Andy Katz).

The first day of the tourney was focused on upsets that could have been. People write about how Pitt, Memphis, Villanova almost were upset.

Sure, the games were close, but it seemed like every single recap and headline screamed about how these teams were pushed to the brink, when in fact they were just part of the natural ebb and flow of a game.

American, for example, jumped to a good lead with some momentum, but the talent and depth of Villanova won out.

On Friday night, I happened to catch the Siena-Ohio State game, the Wisconsin-Florida State, and the Michigan State-Robert Morris game, all of which were close at some point.

My friend and I spent much of the night switching between streaming games online, as the Siena-OSU game and the Wisconsin-Florida State game were ending at almost the same time.

And it was fun to watch. It was fun to watch the guy from Siena bury two impossible threes, one at the end of the first OT, and one at the end of the second OT.

Good stuff. 

But if you didn't watch the tourney, you would think that the games weren't any good, that somehow we should be disappointed in the outcomes.

Does the tournament's success really depend on an underdog going deep? Sure, it was fun to watch George Mason a few years ago, and Davidson was fun to watch last year.

But the reason that it's called "upset" is because it doesn't happen all that often. If it became the norm, it wouldn't be special anymore.

It seems these major networks have become so obsessed with finding a Cinderella, that when things play out as expected, it's a disappointment.

Last year, four No. 1 seeds made it to the Final Four, and the games were more memorable than years past. The final game was epic, and the Final Four games were pretty good.

It's funny how college hoops is the only sport where no one wants to see the best teams duking it out; they want to see a Cinderella story.

Call me crazy, but when there are only four teams left, I would rather see two good teams leave it all out on the floor than see some pretender, that just happened to get hot at the right time, get mauled by a top-tier team.

Sure, its fun to watch a team like Mason take out powers like UConn and UNC, but it would also be great to watch Louisville and Memphis play. Or UNC against Pitt.

There's a reason why they're the best.

I just resent the fact that just because there is no crazy Cinderella story, it implies the tournament is a bust.

I would think that the people who write about this for a living would be the people who can appreciate good basketball the most. But they're so focused on pushing for upsets, they're missing some good games in the process.