Apr 01 2011

Should March Madness have byes? Does the BCS actually have it right? #NCAA

Published by at 9:13 am under Rant,sports

When we look back on 2010-2011 NCAA College basketball season who will we say was the best team in the country? One of UCONN, Kentucky, VCU, or Butler, will end up being crowned “national champion”. Yet, can anyone truly say they are the best teams in the country? Everyone in the world loves the NCAA tournament, and “March Madness”. Granted it’s because all of us humans really just love the gambling aspect and chance to win the pools. It’s the same reason fantasy sports are so popular. It’s one thing to watch your favorite team but people would much rather have some stake in the game. It makes it that much more fun. Thus fantasy sports with players in just about every game, and March Madness pools with peoples brackets on the line are both huge things in our society. Think about it, would the 1st weekend of the NCAA tourney be anywhere NEAR as exciting if you didn’t have your bracket on the couch right next to you? Of course not. But back to my point. 90% of the time we get some upsets here and there but ultimately we get a winner of the tourney who has been a team who has been in the top 5 most of the year and has been # 1 or in the talks for # 1 at least some point int he season.

These 4 teams that are left, while show the tourney is fun as can be, also shows what is wrong with it as well. It’s a slap in the face of the idea of a “national champion” to see the caliber of team that will eventually be crowned champs. None of the 4 teams that are left have been in the talks at all this year as the best team, and no one will be able to say, “the best team won” when it is all said and done. Don’t take this the wrong way, this is not a rant b/c I think UNC should be there, b/c as much as I love them, they should not be there either. A great team, but not champs either. See, over the course of a tourney many factors have to go right to win. Even tho as a higher seed you play “lesser” teams you still have to play a ton of basketball to win it all. And in those games anything can and will, happen. Just look at the VCU – Kansas game or as mentioned earlier my UNC’s loss to Kentucky, more on that in a sec. The HUGE HUGE HUGE problem I have with college basketball is it’s the one sport of all of them that’s outcome can COMPLETELY be controlled by the referees. Other sports, no matter what happens, you can still manage to overcome the officials. Hockey, you can still score even if you spend more time short-handed. Baseball, no matter how many bad strike calls you get you are still going to be able to hit the ball and score. Basketball, not so much. Foul calls and lack there of, easily pre-determines the outcome. A friend of mine said to me the other day “fouls called in the beginning of the game are still fouls in the last minute of the game”. And I agree 10000%. However, this isn’t the case EVER in basketball. Refs consistantly call tickey tack things early in games and call completely different calls late in the game. It’s never called the same the whole game. Case in point, the UNC/Kentucky game. Ref’s called so many marginal fouls on Barnes and Henson early that they took the team out of the game. Sure, any team “can” overcome this but you are taking a team out of the game calling 3 and 4 fouls on players before the second half is a minute old. And consequentially they did not use this same liberal foul calling in the last minute of the game as they did earlier.

With all this randomness involved in winning, and the tournament committee wanting more and more teams in the field, is it time we go to 1st and or 2nd round Bye’s for the top teams? Right now the top teams only have 1 or 2 slightly easier games, in which still random things can happen. Maybe there should be more concessions made for being one of the top 4 teams in the country or for being the top overall seed. You put bye’s in you can also get more precious teams in the tourney along with the 800 play in games they have as it seems it is now.  If this happens then perhaps we get a true “champion” or best team in the country over the mediocre winner of this years tournament that we will get.

Next, perhaps the BCS has it right? No matter what we have to say about the lack of playoff in college football what we CAN say without a shadow of a doubt is that one of the truly best teams in the country has won the national championship. Generally we get the arguments about one of the teams that are in the game not earning that shot at the game but either way they are pretty damn close. Is that the case this year in college basketball? Did they get even close with the best team in the country? I think not. We all may love the tourney and love the pools and love the brackets. Yett, by doing so we are ensuring that every few years or so we are going to have teams that end up as “national champions” in the record books being complete farces and not even close to the bestteam in the country for the year.

I am not ready to get rid of the big dance as of yet, but I think a good case could be made to look into some changes that could be made to it for the betterment of the crown of “National Champions”.

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