March Madness 2010: Don't Buy into the Mid-Major Hype: It is One Big Tease

Welcome to March Teaseness.

It happens every year when the underdog from a small conference shocks the college basketball world and upsets a traditional power from a major conference in the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament to wear Cinderella's coveted glass slipper.

St Mary's and Northern Iowa are this year's darlings after taking out Villanova and Kansas, respectively, in the round of 32 Saturday. My bracket is busted. Your bracket is busted.

Heck, President Barack Obama's bracket sure is busted after he penciled in Kansas to win national championship. I think it would be wise for him to use an executive order and request a brand new one.

I know, a few giants falling at the hands of the little engines that could is great, right? That is why the twelve-five upset has become the new black. That is why we love March Madness.

Wrong. That is why we should not buy into the fairy tales when it comes to the three- week tournament.

The first two days of the tournament we get excited about the prospect of upsets. We marvel at the bands, cheerleaders and the camera shots of crying underclassmen after a tough defeat, and the youthful exuberance of victory after a buzzer-beater.

It's binge drinking at its finest college basketball style.

Then we wake up Monday morning with a splitting headache, and teams from the Ivy League and the Missouri Valley laying next us, all the while wondering what the hell happened.  

Crazy weekends can provide uncertainty and regret. I've been there.

St. Mary's and Northern Iowa contingents should know the ending has already been written. It is not a happy one.

Time and time again the unlikely teams have given us a little shoulder by besting No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4 seeds. Yet, they always seem to take a little back.

Gonzaga, the defacto father of the modern Cinderella squads to make deep runs in the tournament, upset Florida, Minnesota, and Stanford before falling in the Elite Eight in the 1999 NCAA Tournament.

The 2002 NCAA Tournament saw Southern Illinois get by Texas Tech and Georgia. The  unexpected run died in the Sweet 16.

In 2003, Butler shocked SEC power Miss. State and Big East foe Louisville when their dreams of a national title ended in the Sweet 16.

University of Alabama-Birmingham took out Pac-10 representative Washington and No. 1 seed Kentucky in 2004 on their way to the Sweet 16. The following year saw UW-Milwaukee out-play Alabama and Boston College. Again, the little guy could not get past the not so Sweet 16.

A breakthrough appeared to be happening in 2006, as Bradley and George Mason made memorable runs in the NCAA Tournament. The Braves knocked off Kansas and Pittsburgh in an impressive bolt to the regional semis.

However, George Mason gave the country a thrill it had not seen. The 11th seeded Patriots toppled tournament veterans Michigan State, North Carolina, and UConn to the Final Four. No seed that low had ever walked on college basketball's biggest stage since the field expanded to 64 teams.

Although George Mason was dismantled in the national semifinals by eventual champion Florida Gators, it gave those in the A10, Southland, SWAC, MEAC, Horizon League, and CAA hope that a national championship banner was possible.

Considering that the 1985 Villanova Wildcats, an eighth seed, are still the lowest seed to win it all, those lofty possibilities are nothing more than a mirage.

I'm tired of being teased. I'm tired of all the foreplay with nothing in return. A mid-major has to win the national championship for all of these yearly tournament upsets to mean something, and expanding the tournament to possibly 96 teams won't get smaller conferences closer, either. It will only water down the product, not make it better.

St. Mary's, Cornell, and Northern Iowa are not going to win the national title.

The NCAA should allow those teams to cut down the nets, receive a plaque, and then send them on their merry way to make room for the real teams.

Sooner or later a BCS school is going to knock their blocks off in the later rounds and take what has been rightfully theirs since the NCAA Tournament began in 1939.

That is how the story always ends. As it will again.