I wouldn't say I am a bitter old sports fan, but after watching last night's selection of the annual bracket I caught myself missing the good old days of 64 teams, playing in the East, West, South, and Midwest regions with each individual bracket playing on the same day with two neutral sites for each bracket. It seems like the NCAA has tinkered with these tournament every year and it screams the question; Why mess with something that isn't broken? Couple that question with the fact that in the easiest year to pick the field the selection committee still managed to screw it up makes it an interesting night to review.
Did we really need to change the regions to the East, West, Southwest, and Southeast? So the Southeast regional final will be played New Orleans, while the Southwest regional final will be played in San Antonio Texas, which borders Louisiana? Seems strange to get rid of the Midwest region which could extend from Ohio to Colorado and encompasses the Big 12 and Big 10 regions?
The pod system is confusing and forces you to carry around a bracket for the entire opening. I understand that the NCAA wants to protect the higher seeds under the guise of saving travel time, but the neutral site locations were part of the fan experience and left open the possibility of neutral fans backing the underdog when the games got close. Now not only are the 1 and 2 seeds protected with literal home games, but each individual regions play on different days. For example in the Western region half the teams play on Thurs, half on Friday with each 4 team group playing in four different locations forcing you to keep a bracket on hand at all times.
64 teams is the perfect number of teams with games on Thursday to Sunday for the next two weeks until the Final Four is determined. This gave you 3 and half days to complete your bracket and all the matchups were set on Sunday. Two 16 seed play in games, UAB/Clemson, and USC/VCU is as un-exciting as a Northern Exposure marathon. The over/under for stubhub tickets to those four Tues/Wed games has to be a robust $3 and seems odd to add teams when the committee can't get the at large picks right.
Speaking of USC and VCU, including two teams no one thought had a chance to make this tourney and turning Jay Bilas into Jim Rome interviewing Jim Everett was quite an accomplishment. This brought up an interesting debate about who should be picking this tourney and the Dick Vitale suggestion of appointing Bilas as NCAA basketball commish seems like a great idea to me. One thing is for sure; having the OSU athletic director as committee chair during an ongoing athletic scandal at his school probably isn't a great idea. Leaving Colorado out of the field when they have 4 better wins (Kansas State 3X and Texas) than VCU and UAB combined was a travesty, while the seeding lines of PSU, MSU, and Michigan scream out Big 10 bias. I do have to hand it to the committee for the humor in pitting Louisville and embattled coach Rick Pitino in a first round matchup against Morehead State.
One change that I will welcome this year is the decision by CBS to join with TBS/TNT to televise every game this year. Not only will this enable the individual viewer to choose the game they want to watch, but by adding game announcers Steve Kerr and Reggie Miller the quality of the viewing experience will increase. You also can't argue with more Charles Barkley and even if he and Kenny Smith know less about college hoops than world finance they keep trips to the studio entertaining while Greg Anthony and Seth Davis provide the insight.
Even with some bad changes and a less than best field the tourney will continue to be the best couple of weeks in the sporting calendar due to the one and done format, upsets, stories, and quality of play. By next Thursday's sweet 16 games I will be all in. Speaking of the sweet 16 here are my picks.
East: OSU will get by George Mason in Cleveland and will face Kentucky. In the bottom half of the bracket I like Cuse to beat Marquette and Washington to ride their veteran guards past UNC in Charlotte.
West: Duke will get by Tennessee in Charlotte as Kyrie Irving continues to practice with hopes of playing next week. In one of the best possible 2nd round games I like Arizona to beat Texas in Tulsa. In the bottom half of the bracket I like Missouri to press their way to two wins over Big East teams and face a very athletic team in Diego State.
Southwest: Kansas in Tulsa will be too much for Vegas, and I like Vandy over L'Ville. Purdue will advance with two games in Chicago and the home crowd will help ND over Texas A&M.
Southeast: Pitt will grind out a win over Butler and will face Utah State who will be beat Belmont in a second round matchup of a 12 vs. a 13. St. Johns has a tough draw in Denver vs. Gonzaga and BYU, but they have the bodies to run at Jimmer and advance. I also like MSU to find their rhythm against UCLA and beat Florida in Tampa.
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