I want to start today with four observations about last night’s game:
1. John Calipari said on Pardon the Interruption several weeks ago that he was not worried about Memphis’ foul shooting because they would make the free throws when they needed to. He added that when he looked at a recruit, on a list of twenty-five important attributes, free throw shooting was twenty-sixth. Those words came back to haunt him last night.
2. Chris Douglas-Roberts’ play in the tournament certainly moved him up on the draft boards for NBA teams. However, his gagging on three free throws in the final two minutes of the game that allowed Kansas to put the game into OT might give some NBA GMs pause.
3. The referees last night definitely decided to call a loose game. That’s fine because they were consistent from beginning to end and consistent with regard to both teams.
4. Billy Packer went on a huge rhetorical flight last night. He said that Kansas knew all about overtimes in championship games – - referring to the multiple overtime game for the championship in 1957. Not a single person on the team was alive in 1957 and it is possible that none of the Kansas players’ parents were alive in 1957. Talk about filling the airwaves with unimportant blather…
With regard to the tournament as a whole:
1. Tennessee coach Bruce Perl said his team did not deserve a #2 seed. Looks to me as if he was absolutely right; they were not that good.
2. Where and when did the idea of players on the bench locking arms begin? It would probably be interesting to study videos of games to find out how often it works to secure victory. Scientists love to quantify superstitious behaviors…
Now that the men’s tournament is over, I want to offer to the NCAA and the tournament organizers a couple of ideas on how to make March Madness even better. I also have some thoughts for the folks who run the women’s tournament. As with my ideas for improving the NFL game, I will not be holding my breath until any of these things come to pass.
The final two or three minutes of a college basketball game might take 30 minutes to get through. With all of the time-outs and all of the delays by the coaches, the pace of what was probably an exciting game staggers to a halt. Here are two ideas to speed that part of the game up:
1. No team may call more than two timeouts in the final two minutes of a game AND there can be no more than three timeouts called by both teams.
2. When a player fouls out in the final 5 minutes of a game, the coach must replace the player within 10 seconds or the ball will be put in play. Every time a player fouls out, it becomes a de facto timeout.
Tournament organizers need to get rid of the “play-in game” – - or whatever euphemism they want to attach to that contest. It’s not interesting at all. The reason it is there is to allow one more at-large team to make the field. Forget that; invite one less at-large team and drop this silly and meaningless game.
Please limit the games played in football stadiums to the Final Four. There were regional games this year in Houston and Detroit in huge domes. It affects the players; it makes for bad seating and viewing. The raised floors make the players on the bench look as if they sitting in a pew in a church. I know it brings in more revenue, but is everything about money here?
Please assure that colleges allow at least some of their student body to buy tickets to the games. I don’t think any school has to go as far as Davidson did in providing transportation for its students to the game site, but when I looked in the stands at folks dressed in team colors, there seemed to be a lot more “codgers” and “beautiful people” there instead of students. If the players on the floor are really “student-athletes”, shouldn’t there be a lot more “student-spectators” around?
Why are halftimes of tournament games longer than halftimes of regular season games? Please do not tell me there has ever been a clamor for more time listening to the studio folks chatter on about the various games. No one wants to see them; everyone wants to see basketball. So cut back the halftime shows and put the games on the air.
To avoid the contrived controversies about #1 seeds getting home court advantages, a simple rule will take care of that. Except for the Final Four where the site is fixed long in advance of the tournament, no team will play any of its tournament games within 150 miles of its campus. That will keep Duke and UNC out of places like Charlotte or Greensboro and it will keep UCLA out of Anaheim and Syracuse out of the Carrier Dome.
The difficulties facing the women’s basketball tournament are much more serious and need suggestions that are more radical. Bob Molinaro of the Virginia-Pilot summarizes a major part of the problem with women’s college basketball here:
“ESPN’s relentless promotion of women’s basketball gives the impression that it’s more popular than it really is. In Greensboro, N.C., on Tuesday night, high-profile UConn and Rutgers played a regional final before an intimate gathering of 4,623.”
Women’s regional finals games averaged 6400. Put that in context here; LSU was in New Orleans in a regional final and drew only 5000 fans. Women’s basketball is not a sufficiently popular draw to sustain the tournament the way it is organized now.
First of all, just because the men’s tournament has 64 teams does not mean the women’s tournament needs to have 64 teams. Wins by teams seeded ten-and-below happen every year in the men’s tournament; in the women’s tournament, winds by teams seeded five-and below are rare. The women’s tournament needs to be cut back to 32 teams at the very most and perhaps to 24. Moreover, while they are at it, the women’s tournament should get rid of all “automatic qualifying teams”. It’s all very egalitarian and very proper, but it makes for a lot of early round massacres that no one wants to watch and then they lose interest and cease to pay attention to the rest of the games. UConn beat Holy Cross this year 91-36; would anyone want to see a rematch just because Holy Cross was an “automatic qualifier”?
Next, the women’s tournament needs to go in the opposite direction from the men’s tournament on this next issue. Women’s basketball is not a sufficient draw to get fans to travel very far to see games so they need to really make their “regionals” into “regional matters” and keep everyone close to home until the women’s Final Four. If they send the Ivy League champ out to Eugene Oregon to play in a #1/#16 sacrificial game, few if any people are going to go. But if the game is in Buffalo or Boston or even Philly, you might generate interest. And generating interest should be front and center for the women’s tournament organizers.
As the collegiate basketball season ends, here is a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:
“In other college hoops, Ohio State won the NIT title, after which its players did a good job faking like they were thrilled.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…