OK folks, the time has come and gone. We’ve endured Championship Week and we went through the pseudo-drama of the “Bracketology” shows on TV where we found out what teams were going where to play whom in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Now let all of us take a deep breath and try to get all of our adrenaline secretions under control and let’s try to look at all of this marginally dispassionately.
First of all, we really do need to acknowledge that the “Brackets Shows” on CBS and ESPN are nothing more than “made-for-TV” over-hyped events. These are nothing substantively more than a TV show to announce who will be invited to participate in an event. Imagine if the Heisman Trophy folks held a TV show to “decide” who they would invite to NYC for the presentation of their award. Would you give a damn? I hope not. Well, that’s what these “Brackets Shows” are and not much more.
Quick Quiz:
In terms of an over-hyped made-for-TV event, which is the most unimportant in the context of its sport?
1. The NFL Draft
2. The NCAA Brackets Shows
3. The post position draws for the Triple Crown/Breeders’ Cup races.
4. Each and every NBA game prior to March 1st.
Discuss in 500 words or less…
Let’s also agree to ignore the furor that Syracuse and/or Drexel was snubbed by the Selection Committee. Understand, I am an alumnus of Drexel; I received a PhD from that school in 1970. Truth be told, it would be nice if they could have been in the NCAA tournament; but they have no less chance today of winning it all being on the outside looking in than they would have had with a twelfth seed in one of the brackets. Far too much angst is taken on by folks who think the Selection Committee needs to “get it right”. In just about every circumstance in the past 25 years, the Committee has actually “gotten it right” in terms of where it seeded the champion and how that team was put in the field in the first place.
In addition to the sage commentary of the talking heads on these programs and their staged outrage at how few “mid-majors” got invited to participate, we will all get to hear in the next 24 hours about some management consultant trolls who have “calculated” that businesses nationwide will “lose” about a billion dollars of “productive work time” in the next three weeks as folks fiddle with their brackets and discuss the progress of the tournament.
Memo to Consultant Gurus: We heard you last year and the year before that. We don’t care. Please just shut up and go away.
ESPN took their pre-tournament coverage even further over the top than usual this year. We had animated promotions for “ESPN 360” in which a young male in a men’s room was trying to figure out why he didn’t get his recent promotion. From a toilet stall, an animated “Kenny Mayne” appears to tell him he is suffering from “sports video deficiency” and that “ESPN 360” will take care of that. Forget that there is a guy in the background taking a leak at a urinal during the first 90% of this promo; forget that there is a woman in the men’s room to cheer this doofus on at the end of the promo; focus on the message.
This jackass didn’t get a promotion and so the way he should change his behavior such that he might do better in the next round of promotions is to have ESPN sports piped to his desktop at work. Yeah, that’ll get his productivity up and get him noticed by his superiors as a critical cog in the future of his company. If he does what the promo suggests he should do, this is a guy destined for unemployment benefits in the near future.
I’m not going to do full brackets for the tournament because you can find those things in about 5000 other places. Nevertheless, here are a few thoughts for those of you who might be filling out brackets.
Here are a couple of “low seeds” who could provide upset potential. Davidson is seeded 13th in the Midwest Bracket. Davidson was 29-4 over the season and was the big dog in the Southern Conference. Winthrop is seeded 11th in the same bracket. They were 28-4 in the Big South Conference. Davidson and Winthrop can’t be more than 60 miles apart along an Interstate highway. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the Selection Committee found a way to make it such that these teams would meet if both make it to the Elite Eight? I don’t.
Texas A&M is a 3-seed and this is a team that has to scare any opponent because they play really tough defense and because they have a bonafide star who can get on a roll and score at will in Acie Law IV.
You could talk me into the position that Duke and Pitt are seeded too high. You could also talk me into the position that Marquette, Michigan State and Tennessee are seeded too low. Whatever! Let the games begin…
The Kentucky Derby bills itself as the most exciting two minutes in sports. Frankly, I’d take any two minute stretch in the Hearns/Hagler fight over any of the Ky Derbies over the past 20 years, but that’s a detail. Here’s what the NCAA Tournament is; its first two rounds are the best and the most exciting and the most attention-grabbing 84 hours of sports events anywhere. Forty-eight games cut the tournament field from 64 to 16; it’s all great fun; it sets up even greater fun for the next two weekends.
During the 60+ games in the NCAA tournament, you are going to get more than ample opportunities to see collegiate basketball coaches strutting and performing on the sidelines. Here’s an idea for the NCAA mavens to think about. Why not emulate the Duke model at Cameron Indoor Stadium? Why not have the TV cameras behind the team benches so that the coaches don’t feel any need to “play to the cameras” whilst they are doing whatever they do in the midst of the games? Forget who the coach is and whether or not you love him or hate him; wouldn’t you really want to be able to focus on the game and the players without having one of these thespians over there trying to get some face time on network TV?
Finally, here’s an observation from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:
“The American Medical Association, getting into March Madness, is expected to declare that the mouth will temporarily be reclassified as a Vitale organ.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…