Let's Keep The Tourney The Same - What's Your Verb 3/9

In this installment of What's Your Verb lets discuss why the tourney shouldn't change.

I know this is usually sweet sixteen day here at Jumping Offsides but today I feel like I have something that trumps that. I know that selection Sunday is only 6 days away and well this is the perfect week for my final sweet sixteen but I will be giving that to you later on today or tomorrow. I may even do it Saturday to see how close I can get to what the committee thinks the top 16 seeds are. Trust me, I won't quit on the sweet sixteen now, I just have bigger fish to fry today.

Last Saturday I was driving home from work around 10:30 and I turned on ESPN Radio. I enjoy listening to it when I drive to and from work because I have about a half hour commute so it gives me a chance to catch up on anything I may have missed. Well, I had never listened to this show before and to be honest I don't know who was hosting it because he never said his name but it was kind of like an open forum about whatever was bugging people. I think that's a cool idea so I decided to listen.

As I was listening the host of the show gave what his topic was. Fans, he argued that the NCAA tournament is flawed because its not the top 65 teams in the country. He wants to do away with the mid and low major conference tournament champions and just have the top 65 teams get in. He used Providence vs. Radford as his example. He thinks that because we let the conference champions in, we leave out some better teams "that could actually win the tournament." He thinks because Radford doesn't have a legitimate shot at winning the thing we shouldn't put them in.

I think he is crazy for like 2 or 3 reasons. First of all, the most basic and easiest argument to make to him is that does he realistically think Providence can win it all. I will give him the idea that Radford doesn't but I really don't think Providence does either. So if we were to do it his way, I think that realistically this year we would have maybe a twelve team tournament to decide. I don't think that sounds as fun as what we are going to have this year. The other thing is that if he really thinks Providence could win the whole thing, I would love to call him right now and ask him to join my office pool because I would love to have those 5 bucks in the pot.

Secondly, if you don't let these mid and low major conference champions in, what do they have to play for? Some of these conference tournament championships are the best games to watch of the season because those kids will leave EVERYTHING out on the court for a shot to play in the big dance. Even if they make it in a 16 seed and lose by 40, those guys can tell their kids that one day they played in the biggest tournament on the planet. It's all they play for throughout their 4 years in school and if we took that away from them it would be a crime. It's not like Providence doesn't know the system and hasn't had plenty of opportunities to play their way in.

Thirdly, sometimes the most exciting games of the whole tournament are when one of the mid to low major teams push one of the big boys to the brink or even beat them. If we took the top 65 teams overall, I suspect that even when there was an upset it just wouldn't be as exciting. It's part of what makes the first two days of the tournament so great. It gives those programs a chance to show what they can do on a national stage and when they do pull an upset or four like George Mason did a few years ago, people don't ever forget it. Those two or three teams that pull the huge upset are the only thing we talk about for a week. If you just took the top 65 only about 7 or 8 of them would be mid to low major at best. That doesn't help those programs.

I think the cat was way off line and I really wish he would've said his name because I would have loved to call him out personally on here.

I love the way the tournament is set up and if we adopted that idiots idea it would take a lot of it away for me!