Leave well enough alone.
The NCAA basketball postseason has begun and teams are fighting for their lives every day. It’s considered the finest month in all of sports, for the sheer amount of drama that each and every game holds. One win and a team moves on – alumni are happy, students celebrate and life is good. One loss and it’s wait-till-next-year, months of “what if’s?” and a feeling of inadequacy. The peaks and valleys in college basketball make every game so compelling. There is no greater showcase for this other than the NCAA tournament, aka “The Big Dance”.
The NCAA basketball tournament committee will pick its final 34 at large teams and combine them with the 31 teams that won their conference championship and an automatic berth. Just an invite is a win, and not hearing your team called on Sunday night is a loss. That’s where it begins. There is talk about changing the number of at-large teams, and I have to admit I absolutely agree. However, I’m in the minority that thinks they should be reduced, not increased. Almost ten years ago, the NCAA increased the teams from 64 to 65 and added zero to the tournament. The NCAA took the thrill of being in the tournament away from a pair of below-average teams and made them fight each other like gladiators to see who dies and who lives to face the lions.
By adding the extra game, the NCAA offers the illusion that anyone can win an NCAA game, even a No.16 seed. Since that’s never really happened, as no No.1 seed has ever lost a first round game, this is merely the NCAA saving an at-large spot for one of its big conference teams. Conferences have sprung up in the past 20 years, either completely organically or teams separating from established conferences and starting new ones (Mountain West, Big East, Conference USA, etc...). This has forced the committee to keep giving an automatic bid to whoever wins their conference championship. Unfortunately, in doing this it threatens the sanctity of giving a team ranked sixth or seventh in a “big” conference an invite that it may or may not deserve.
This season, the talk about expanding the NCAA tournament may be quiet only because there really aren’t a convincing amount of at-large teams that can be upset if they don’t get in. Everyone had their chances and didn’t seize them. Usually a few teams hang around the proverbial bubble and have them burst when they are left out, while another team gets in. It shouldn’t detract from the fact that adding more teams dilutes the craziness of March madness. It will forgive a late bad stretch by a team like UCONN, and not reward a team like Notre Dame that clawed its way through injuries to make a true run for an invite. Expansion allows both teams in without bias.
Bring the tournament back to 64, where it’s an even amount of teams and every team that walks to the door with an invite goes straight to the ballroom, not a side room just to entertain the people of Dayton, Ohio. Fans want to see the anguish and joy of emotions that are elicited by players as their playing careers are on the line. It makes for great theater. Not every team will make the tournament; welcome to a fact of life. Players need to handle rejection and realize that if they had done just a bit more during the season, and tried harder when their backs weren’t up against the wall, then maybe their non-invite would be a non-issue. This could be said of life for everyone just as well. Right now, it’s time to prepare my sheet and figure which team out of the 65 will win it all. I’ll take strong odds on a team with a “K” to start to smile as the confetti drops in April. Just don’t make the field any bigger because there are only so few teams that truly deserve to be rewarded.
Email: Luke.Adamo@classactsports.com
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