It’s called March Madness because of all the excitement of NCAA basketball, and we’re right in the middle of it. During this single elimination tournament, we find out who is the best in college basketball. Sixty-five teams are invited, and
It’s called March Madness because of all the excitement of NCAA basketball, and we’re right in the middle of it.
During this single elimination tournament, we find out who is the best in college basketball.
Sixty-five teams are invited, and one by one they go home, the excitement building with each departure.
It starts to heat up with the Sweet Sixteen, which narrows to the Elite Eight, then down to the Final Four, ending, of course, with the championship game.
Part of the fun is filling out the brackets and predicting who’s going to win — following of the tournament and checking off each correct guess is part of the hype.
For the teams that didn’t get invited to the NCAA tournament, there’s the National Invitational Tournament. It’s not bad, but it’s not that great either.
I suppose it’s great for the basketball fan who just can’t get enough, but since the NIT invites 32 teams, that’s a lot of basketball to follow.
I don’t really have a problem with basketball overload because, like millions of people across the country, I tend to get caught up in the action.
For example, who thought 13th-ranked Siena would beat No. 4 Vanderbilt? Or that San Diego could overtake UConn? Or Western Kentucky over Drake?
That’s good stuff.
But now there’s the College Basketball Invitational. The CBI invites 16 more teams, all of which didn’t make it to either of the tournaments.
When will this stop?
There are already enough teams playing post-season basketball. Do we really need more teams or another tournament?
What’s the point? Why not just let everyone play then? The NCAA tournament is supposed to weed out the weaker teams and let the ones that earned their spots by winning play for the glory.
Besides, the winning CBI team is really celebrating being 98th in the country. Who brags about that? Who comes home after winning the CBI and says “Well, I wasn’t good enough to play in the NCAA or the NIT, but we’ve won the CBI! We’re No. 98!”
Why don’t we just hand every basketball player on every basketball team a medal and a certificate of participation. Why don’t we just reward everyone?
The NCAA has considered opening up its tournament to allow more teams in, but I think March Madness is fine as it is.
Don’t add more teams and definitely do not add more tournaments. The next thing you know, there’ll be individual conference consolation tournaments for the who went through their conference tournament and lost.
I’m now announcing the Western Athletic Conference Consolation tournament, where we will invite all the WAC schools to play in another tournament.
It’s just another bracket for everyone to fill out, but it’ll be a small one.
No more tournaments! There’s only so much madness a person can take.
