With all due respect to the NCAA (which my Volleyball Insider will tell you is absolutely none), the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament starts today, not on Tuesday. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, there are more fun things to do, but I will give my two cents. That is, after all, my purpose here.
From 1985-2000, the NCAA Tournament had 64 teams. This created a perfect 6 round bracket that fits nicely on one sheet of paper. In the internet age (which I expect to end any day now), the fitting on one sheet of paper thing doesn't really matter, but back in the day, you know, when we all had to walk to school, uphill, through the snow, both ways and we respected our elders and the world was just a better place, being able to fit the entire bracket on one sheet of paper was essential to an organized March Madness pool. I went to college right in the middle of this time period, and I can tell you, an organized March Madness pool is necessary for a full college experience.
In 2001, the Mountain West Conference did whatever needed to be done to merit an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. This increased the number of automatic bids from 30 to 31. In order to maintain our organized, one page bracket, the NCAA would need to eliminate one of the 34 at large bids. But, NO!!! We can't have it, Billy Hoyle. The NCAA would not, could not and did not eliminate that last at-large bid. Instead, they took two teams who accomplished the greatest achievement they could, earning a bid to the Tournament, and made them play a play-in game. THANK GOD! I, for one, do not know what we would have done if the 2001 Tournament did not include both Oklahoma State and Xavier. The whole thing would have seemed unsatisfactory if Xavier hadn't gotten bounced 83-71 by Notre Dame AND Oklahoma State hadn't gotten bounced 69-54 by USC, both in the first round. Good thing we kept that last at-large bid, we wouldn't have wanted one of those two winners to miss out.
The first two days of the NCAA Tournament are the two best days in sports. No other two day combination gives us such a level of non-stop action, excitement and intrigue. My three loyal readers know that I am an Olympicophile. (Yes, I just made that word up - try to use it in conversation.) The Olympics can provide multiple days with non-stop action. The Olympics can provide great stories. They can not provide non-stop, meaningful games, upsets, Brackets going down the toilet and buzzer beaters on the level of March Madness. Nothing can. During the Tournament's first two days people are constantly walking up and down the hallway at my office to give updates, potential upsets and remark on how their picks are doing. You don't get that any other day of the year.
The teams from one bid conferences deserve to be part of those two days. Sure, most of them will get blown out. Teams seeded 16th are 0-116 against teams seeded first, with a 24.8 point average margin of defeat. Only 14 of the 116 games have been decided by less than 10 points. Regardless, if you asked these players whether they want to play a play-in game in Dayton or join the "big boys" at one of the 8 first round venues for the full party, I think they would choose against Dayton. They have earned the right to be on CBS on Thursday or Friday, not TruTV on Tuesday or Wednesday.
In 2011, the Tournament decided that the farce of 65 teams wasn't big enough, so they added 3 more to make it 68. I remember when this happened. Gary Williams, the very successful, but often bubble-bound coach of the University of Maryland from 1989-2011 was a huge advocate of expanding the tournament field. I don't agree with him, because a bid in the tournament should be a reward for a successful season, rather than a mediocre season. Unless you win your conference tournament, in which case it is a reward for a succesful three or four days. This separates basketball from football, where anyone who can squeeze out a .500 record gets to go to a bowl. Of course, we appear to be moving towards mediocrity as a standard for admittance anyway, so maybe Gary was right and we should just start letting everyone in.
The 2011 expansion gave us "The First Four". The Tournament now includes four opening round games, instead of one play-in game. At least they got one thing right by making two of those games between the teams that "earned" the last 4 at-large bids. I could support this more if they made all four games between the last eight at-large bids, but progress comes in miniscule steps, and usually goes backwards when you are talking about the NCAA. I also can't claim that the "First Four" is a bastion of mediocrity in which teams pretend to matter before summarily exiting in their next game, because VCU went from the First Four to the Final Four in 2011, the first year of the First Farce, er, Four. In the two years since 2011, one of the two non-16 seeded teams to win their First Four game won their next game as well. Whether they were actually good and deserving, or they used the victory in Dayton to gain some momentum or shake off the nerves, they did it. Showing either that I am wrong or a one and done basketball tournament can be random. Let's go with the random theory, if for no other reason than we can use it to argue that Billy Donovan is just lucky, and not good.
History tells us that the Tournament will expand again sometime between 2020 and 2025. Maybe we will have bigger paper by then. Maybe this internet thing will stick around and people will make their picks on computers and track the results on their phones and paper sized devices that look like an old, hand-held chalk board used by Abraham Lincoln. We could call them tablets. Until then, enjoy the games.
On a West Wing episode, Sam Seaborn said that good writers borrow from other writers and great writers outright steal from them. In a Quixotic Quest to be at least a good writer, I am going to steal from the great Tony Kornheiser, and give you various Final Four picks.
Big Cats: Pitt Panthers, Memphis Tigers, BYU Cougars, Kentucky Wildcats
Dogs: Albany Great Danes, UConn Huskies, Gonzaga Bulldogs, Wofford Terriers
Colors: Syracuse Orange, Harvard Crimson, Creighton Bluejays, Duke Blue Devils
Old Time Americans: Eastern Kentucky Colonels, GW Colonials, Oklahoma State Cowboys, UMass Minutemen
Academic Final Four: Stanford, Harvard, Wisconsin, Duke
Homer Final Four: VCU, UVA, American, Texas
Where is That?: Mt. St. Marys, St. Joseph's, Weber State, Mercer
Who is That?: Stanford, Harvard, Creighton, Mercer
What is That?: Stanford Cardinal, Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajun, Manhattan Jaspers
Agricultural: Ohio State Buckeyes, Delaware Blue Hens, New Mexico State Aggies, Wichita State Shockers
Scary Animals: Florida Gators, Cincinnati Bearcats, Wisconsin Badgers, Michigan Wolverines
Not So Scary Animals: Kansas Jayhawks, Delaware Blue Hens, Creighton Bluejays, Wofford Terriers
Holy War: Stanford Cardinal, Providence Friars, San Diego State Aztecs; Arizona St. Sun Devils
Aviary: Kansas Jayhawks, St. Joe's Hawks, Creighton Bluejays, Louisville Cardinals
Geographically Diverse: Florida, Harvard, Gonzaga, Cal Poly
All ACC: Syracuse, UVA, Duke and ...
Female Four: Delaware Blue Hens...
Most Common: Florida, Michigan State, Louisville, Arizona
Middle: Syracuse, UVA, Oklahoma, Duke
Upsets, but Possible: New Mexico, UNC, Oklahoma St., Kentucky
Upsets, and No Way: UCLA, Cincinnati, Creighton, St. Louis
Chalk: Florida, UVA, Arizona, Wichita State
I'm not Brave Enough to: Syracuse, UVA, Oklahoma State, Kentucky
My Picks: Florida, UVA, Arizona, Duke
As much as I would like to watch Tony Bennett win the first of his four national titles in Charlottesville, I can't help feeling like Billy Donovan is going to get lucky again, and win his third.
Random Fact of the Day
If I am correct (and that is a VERY big IF) and Florida does win, there will only be three coaches in the history of the Men's NCAA Tournament with more titles than Billy Donovan - John Wooden, Adolph Rupp and Mike Krzyzewski. He would be tied with Bob Knight and Jim Calhoun. That is some elite company.
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