Trouble in Bracket-ville

The NBA Finals just ended and the draft is this week. Major League Baseball is about two weeks from their All-Star break. International events such as the World Cup and Wimbledon are underway and gaining interest. The NFL training camps open in about a month.

Yet with all of this going on, the ESPN.COM headline that most caught my eye was ‘Field of 128? Coaches want NCAA tourney expanded’.

At first I had to do a double take. Did I really read that correctly? Double the size of the tournament. Are they serious? Isn’t the phrase, ‘If it aint’ broke, don’t try and fix it’, not ‘If it aint’ broke, double it’?

Would the NFL ever put the Super Bowl in Green Bay? Would baseball ever push the World Series back to November? Would the NBA schedule the two worst teams to play on Christmas day? No, of course not. You don’t mess with something that’s perfect the way it is. But that’s exactly what some people want to do.

The No Clue Athletics Association would be better off having the tournament in May and having the winners cut down the rims then it would by doubling the size of the tournament. 128 teams? I’ve come up with eight elite reasons why this would mess up what is now the greatest sporting event that this world has.

8-Too many to keep track of
OK, I can handle following about 15 mid-majors a year. I watched Wichita State last year before they made their Sweet 16 run. I saw Bradley before they shocked Kansas and Pitt. But how on Earth would I be able to get a serviceable scouting report on 50 mid-major squads? It’d be nearly impossible for me to make intelligent picks, and the clueless people would just be lost.

7- Billy Packer overkill
If there is one guy in this world that I can’t stand more then all others, it’s CBS basketball announcer Billy Packer. Being forced to listen to him for twice as many games each March would make my ears dissolve. Also, since he hates every school that isn’t in the ACC, he would be constantly complaining about how NoReasonBeingHere U used their cupcake schedule and favorable officiating to make it as a number 22 seed in the East regional.

6-Not enough good teams
The national media has enough trouble figuring out who the top 25 teams are in the country each week, so do you think they could name the top 128? According to the article, the leader of the proposal is Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim. Maybe Jim wants to include others in the tourney experience he’s had 25 times as coach of the Orange. Or maybe he’s just worried that his squad would have missed the big dance in ’06 if they hadn’t had their miraculous Big East tourney run. Instead of complaining to the NCAA Jim, why don’t you recruit some big men so you don’t lose to DePaul by 39 again.

5-Regular season become pointless
Apparently Dick Vitale and I are the only ones who watch college basketball from Thanksgiving through April Fools day. Because if the tournament expands to 128, the NCAA is officially declaring that the regular season is pointless. Last year there was seven Big East teams, six from the SEC, and five each from the Big Ten and Big 12 in the tournament. You think if there were twice as many teams that they would ALL go to mid-majors? About as likely as a complete game by a Cubs pitcher. The big conferences would just earn more bids, and the smaller conferences would still be left out.

4-Purple Power
If the NCAA tournament was expanded, eventually Northwestern would qualify. And that would just take the fun out of everything. It’s strange enough that NU football has reached a level of respectability. Having the hoops team do the same would just be ridiculous. Plus have you seen how many teams in the tournament are already named the Wildcats? I guarantee you this will cause confusion for somebody.

3-Too long
I wait all year for the third Sunday in March. Selection Sunday. You get that fresh piece of paper, with all those lines waiting to be filled in and all those dreams to be fulfilled. You know that in three weeks, you’ll either think of yourself as the smartest guy to ever walk the Earth or the guy that if you had just wrote down Valparaiso or George Mason, you’d be the smartest guy to walk the Earth. But if the tourney were doubled in size, the tournament would probably go for over a month. And while this may sound good, it means less time for scouting potential Cinderella’s and getting excited for another crappy Cubs season.

2-No pools
OK, there would still be pools. But you wouldn’t have the gi-normous, mammoth, every senior in the entire school type of pools. Casual fans wouldn’t want to waste their time, energy or ten bucks filling out this thing that is nearly impossible to predict, and even some hardcore fans would pass as well. Other then the hoops, the best part of the tourney is gaining bragging rights, and if there are no bracket pools, that aspect is lost. Another reason pools would be eliminated is because….

1-You couldn’t fill out a bracket!
There is no document in the world that better utilizes an 8 ½ X 11 piece of paper then an NCAA tournament bracket. 64 teams, 63 games, four regions, one champion. So complex, but yet so simple. But how the hell would we fill out a bracket with twice as many first round games? You’d be forced to use two sheets, and that would just complicate everything. Plus all the tree-huggers that already are up in arms about all the paper used during March would blow up like a balloon.

So in conclusion NCAA, don’t expand the tournament. It’s perfect the way it is. (Unless you remove Billy Packer’s press pass, then it’d be perfect).