March Madness

A couple of thoughts about the NCAA basketball tournament selection process:

* Is CBS insane? A 2 hour show to reveal the 68 teams in the tournament. Dear God, the show used to be a half hour long. An hour is plenty. They dragged that thing out forever. No wonder the bracket leaked early. Serves the NCAA and CBS right.

* Speaking of CBS, what was the thinking of completely submarining their regular college commentators and their big moment of maximum national attention in favor of turning over most of the broadcast to the TBS NBA guys - Ernie Johnson, Barkley, Walker, et. al.?  And nothing screams amateurism and college basketball like NBA announcers. 

* Having said that, I thought Barkley was spot on in his assessment of the selection committee. They really didn't want to make Villanova a #1 seed. Heck, I'm not even sure winning the Big East tourney would have made the Wildcats a #1 given that Mich. State was the top #2 seed (in front of Nova).

* It's also hard not to see the 'Nova snub as a slight to smaller schools and the Big East. The NCAA has a habit of doing this to some teams - like Gonzaga. They were an emerging power for years and the NCAA kept screwing them by always giving them an extra hard bracket. And when Gonzaga lost, they would just shrug and say, "see, we told you Gonzaga wasn't ready for prime time." 

That's the way it is looking for Villanova right now after they got moved out of the East and given a second round matchup vs. city rival Temple or Big 10 power Iowa. Pick your poison. Until Villanova can show it can get out of the first weekend expect more draws like this. Oh to be the basketball royalty of Duke, UNC, or Kansas.

* There really should be a limit on the # of teams each power conference can send. The magic of the tournament is David slaying Goliath, not Syracuse trying to upset Dayton. I only wish the mid-majors would at some point rebel against the selection committee's tyranny. (speaking of which, when do you think a mid-major AD will chair the committee? Never?)

For the mid-majors it's Lucy pulling the football from Charlie Brown. Monmouth did everything it was asked to do. Play a hard out of conference schedule - UCLA?! Georgetown. Rutgers. Notre Dame.USC - twice! And yet, when it comes down to it, the selection committee found some nitpicky rationale to deny Monmouth. Because their mid-major in conference losses were just too unfortunate. Give me a break. I'd much rather watch Monmouth play this week than a middling Michigan or Syracuse team. And that doesn't even take into account that entertaining bench! 

As Donald Trump would say, "Sad!"