March Madness

I will be the first to say that I am a huge contrarian, but like anything else there is a method to my madness. I am only a fan of things that make sense. We all agree that the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is not a fair system (whatever fair means) but the BCS is a much better system then what we currently have in NCAA Men’s Basketball. I’ll save my BCS rant for a later date. Today’s post is about my disgust with the NCAA Basketball system.  Every year we complain about the teams that get in and the teams that are left out of the tournament. That is not my argument; my solution to that problem is win more games, period. My problem with this system is we almost eliminate four months of basketball in one weekend of play.

In the world of football, we always hear the cries and complaints for the Boise State and TCU’s of the world, but what about the cries of the Ohio State and Kansas’ (basketball) who have to endure a hard and grueling season in which they performed as a well-oiled machine to have it derailed one night in March by a team that did nothing to merit an invitation to the party. My problem is not the tournament, the tournament is pure bliss. My problem is what little amount of stock we put in the regular season.

Out of the four teams we have left competing for a National Championship, NONE wore the crown at the end of their regular season.  It is baffling that after 30 games consisting of out of conference opponents, invitational tournaments and conference play, your season is defined in a three game weekend tournament at the beginning of March. UConn, currently the public’s favorite to winning the National Championship, finished an embarrassing 9^th place in the Big East. Butler had to win their conference tournament for a birth to this year’s field of sixty-eight that erased a very disappointing 20-9 season. VCU had a better record last year (2009-2010) and played in the CBI.  Not the losers bracket we refer to as the NIT, they played in the “everybody gets an award” CBI, where your competition is *Roast Beef Tech,* literally. Since when do we reward mediocrity? VCU’s 23-11 record in the CAA was just that, mediocre.  

The system that is in place is not accounting for a whole season of work, only the month of March. This display of fairness is far worse than the BCS. The BCS has a playoff; it’s called the regular season. You lose, you’re out. It’s simple. The BCS at least rewards excellence not mediocrity. I would rather see a team that was dominant the entire season in a major conference against other top notch opponents in a fight to be called National Champions week in and week out rather than a subpar, mediocre, middle of the pack coaster fighting for their lives in a three weekend tournament that is based on match ups and seeding. The top three teams in this NCAA tournament bracket combined for fewer losses than all four of the teams in the final four, in a power conference for an entire season, not just in the month of March. Where’s the sympathy for them?

As the tournament continues to grow we are putting less emphasis on the bulk of the season and more on just the month of March. Can we honestly say that is the best team of the 2010-2011 season?

-Jae Pierce