by Paul Jordan
Enjoying this March Madness so far? Are your eyes bleary and bleak after sitting through approximately 42 basketball games this week? Do you have the latest “bracketology updates” committed to memory and know without a doubt what a Washington Husky win does to the worlds of the Florida Gators and Mississippi Rebels. Do you already have laundry and dishes piling up? Do you have the wing and pizza places on speed dial for the next week? Do you refuse to talk to anyone unless that conversation includes “Did you see the _________ game?”
Yea, me too.
Isn’t March Madness grand?
Unfortunately, the greatest month of the year for college basketball junkies is in severe danger of undergoing a “day after tomorrow nuclear winter shift” if the powers that be go ahead with their plans to tinker with our favorite pastime. I am talking of course, about the NCAA’s continually tinkering with the NCAA Tournament and possible plans to expand it to 96 teams. They would effectively be killing March Madness as we know it. They would take the thing that is the most sacred to the fans and turn it into some kind of bloated ultra tournament that will render the regular season and the conference tournaments meaningless only for the sake of money.
Do you really think we would have been as transfixed by the 42 points of Anthony Johnson and Montana’s 22 point comeback in the Big Sky Tournament Final if we knew that with 96 teams, both teams would already make it?
Would we really be rooting as hard for Tubby Smith and his Minnesota Gophers as they shocked Michigan State and Purdue on back to back nights to bust the brackets … when with a 96 team tourney the Gophers would have already wrapped up a 20th seed?
Would we really care who won the PAC-10 (yawn) basketball tournament unless it meant the winner was stealing a spot from someone else?
Where would be the drama in today’s SEC Final if Mississippi State was already guaranteed a spot in the Big Dance? Would the Gator, Illini, Golden Gopher, Hokie, Seton Hall, Ole Miss, and all the other “bubble teams” still be rooting their asses off for Kentucky to win the tourney and deny the Bulldogs that automatic bid?
And where would be the fun in watching Billy Donovan, Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun and Roy Williams sweat for their NCAA lives for most of February and March? Under the 96 team plan, these teams can punch their ticket every year … even with a 16-15 season.
And how in the hell will we convince Betty from accounting to cough up her $10 to pad the office pool kitty when she sees that 96 team bracket? Whaaa?
I guess there is one good thing that will come from the NCAA ruining March Madness and making February and March irrelevant to most of the teams. Worker production will go through the roof with no bracketology or bubble teams to research while we are at work. That kinda sucks….
Unfortunately, the NCAA ruining our March Madness is out of our hands. We are pretty much helpless and it sucks that the NCAA cares more about money than the fans that watch the games and buy the tickets. But it’s a hard reality.
So savor this month to the fullest. It may be the end of March madness as we know it.
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