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Complaining about anything concerning March Madness Weekend One is like telling Mila Kunis “I don’t care for that shade of eye shadow.” It’s akin to going to a steakhouse, ordering chicken tenders, and complaining about the lousy honey mustard. One could liken the act to attending a craft beer festival and openly lamenting that it doesn’t have Bud Light.
Sitting in front of the television for probably longer than is reasonably healthy (it’s one weekend a year — chill), you started to see negative opinions surface about the greatest four days in sports. This isn’t meant to be snarky, just to let everyone know that it isn’t that bad. In fact, it’s all awesome. I’m here to tell you about three things I saw or heard over and over as negatives and why they aren’t that bad. After all, the glass is never half empty. Sometimes it’s just half full of air.
1. Who cares if Dayton played in Dayton and then Columbus?
Ripping the selection committee every year is a total shell game for folks that like to complain. I mean, really, what does a “good job by the selection committee” look like? If all the chalk wins? Yeah, I’m sure there would be no kvetching about that (sarcasm). If there are a lot of upsets? Then maybe they weren’t seeded correctly because what, they undervalued the mid major teams? Or like this year, a healthy mix of upsets and chalk, and a ton of close games which either indicates they… what — messed up on understanding the gap betwixt a 13 and a 4 seed?
Dayton was the team that drew the ire of the committee conspirators along with UCLA, which was validated in belonging without an extra game by doing something amazing about it … winning. The committee said they were trending up. The Bruins obviously were.
But then there was Dayton, deemed to be one of the last four teams worthy of being in, and thus had to play an extra game that had already been contracted out to be in Dayton. I’m not debating the merits of Dayton belonging in that group or not. That’s above my pay grade. But if the committee determined the Flyers were one of the last four belonging in, you can’t just give them a free pass because the “First Four” games are played in their home gym.
That would be just a horrific Pandora’s Box of where to put teams if you don’t necessarily like the venue they might play in. Boise State lost to Dayton on a last possession attempt and home gyms had nothing to do with it. Don’t leave it up to the official to make one call.
Dayton then pumped Providence in nearby Columbus and eventually clawed with Oklahoma but came up short. This comes off as something to find a flaw in when there’s no real alternative that makes sense. You can’t just cobble together a game in a different gym and cancel one already set in stone with a venue that’s prepped, staffed, and ready for it, all because the home team happens to be one that would have to play in it. If you want to talk about moving these games to different venues, fantastic. Go for it. Just know that doesn’t cure anything if a First Four game was scheduled to be played in Boise, Boise State deserves to be slotted there.
What was done was the right thing, the only thing, and ended up coming out in the wash. If you’re losing games because of venue, you aren’t championship timber anyway.
2. Late tip times
Now with this one, let me admit that I originally complained about it to a buddy because of the Sunday night tip that had most of us saying hateful things to our alarm clocks. But then after deep, introspective thought (read: 30 seconds at a stop light), I came to realize that when it comes to trivial (or even large, at times) matters, we don’t complain until it bothers us personally. Prior to that, it’s great.
Like with late tip times Thursday and Friday I thought, “Great! More basketball!” Some folks hated it all the same, but the reality is, it really doesn’t matter and for the most part, we overlook it in other sports. This is classic cherry picking.
NFL games on Sunday and Monday nights, which are far more drawn-out affairs, often end close to midnight on “work nights” and we nary say a thing. It’s the NFL. When college football has a championship that doesn’t end until near midnight, again, we don’t say a whole lot. Hell, when bowl games in the middle of December end late, we don’t care.
But with the NCAA Tournament, we suddenly do? Eh. Seems flimsy in hindsight. There was even the “poor college kids the NCAA doesn’t care about” commentary running around, because that has to be run around daily. For everything. As if Maryland’s players hopped a flight home near midnight after losing to West Virginia and had to get up for an 8 a.m. chemistry test after being on the red eye.
Schools plan, and plan well on the fly, for how student-athletes will account for not being able to be at certain classes (as in, here’s Selection Sunday and we have to figure it out in three days). There’s an awful lot schools and teams do to make sure the student-athlete doesn’t fall behind academically due to games, even last-second-scheduled affairs. So spare that conversation, please.
The honest truth is, we want to watch season-defining events and get a full night’s sleep. The world doesn’t revolve around Eastern Standard Time. I promise. We never complain when folks on the West Coast are having to miss games or barely get home for a big kickoff or tip because of the time difference. If you’re going to be salty about college basketball games being late, you may as well be singing that tune to Steelers versus Ravens in November on Monday Night Football. That … will never happen.
3. CBS/Turner in-studio talent
As hilariously noted on Awful Announcing, during the halftime of Wichita State versus Kansas, Charles Barkley incorrectly praised Cliff Alexander of Kansas for a good first half. Innocuous. Until you realize Alexander hadn’t played for Kansas in nearly a month due to an NCAA investigation.
This has become a rite of March Madness … college basketball diehards lamenting that the NBA on TNT crew which obviously watches very little college basketball over the course of the season is doing halftime for the biggest games of the year.
On one end, I see the point. Why sully your broadcast with guys who clearly haven’t had the time to be invested in this against all of their other responsibilities? However, to understand why that’s the case is to understand that the halftime crew isn’t for you, college basketball diehard.
This is true in much the same way the Super Bowl halftime festivities (and commercials) aren’t for the loyal, beer-drinking, hard-core football fan. Those folks aren’t jamming out to whatever Katy Perry calls music. It’s there to bring in the fringe viewer who otherwise may be apathetic, and while, no, studio crews aren’t going to make a person decide whether they watch or not, guys like Charles Barkley or Kenny Smith are big names outside of college basketball and their talent at being entertaining is immense.
The NBA on TNT must be doing something right. It’s the longest running show on the network and went from a contract of $340 million in 1998 over four years to $2.2 billion over six years in 2008, in no small part because of that studio crew.
Absent the fact that for the most part of the first weekend, you can go find another game on during the halftime show and avoid it altogether, casual basketball fans … especially in the NBA … love The Jet and Sir Charles no matter what they’re saying. Yeah, a lot of it is comic relief.
But a lot of it is seriously good basketball talk, especially from a psychological perspective, how teams should feel about being in these situations. Yeah, they slip up and don’t know the names of some of the players, but the guys know the game of basketball at a level even a die-hard college basketball fan or writer cannot duplicate.
If a Jay Bilas or a Jay Williams is in there, does it really change anyone’s interest? Moreover, does putting Barkley and Smith in the studio really keep the diehards from watching? Nope. Not even one person. But it might bring even one more person to be interested in it that otherwise wouldn’t be, and that one person is financially worth it.
Enjoy yourself some tournament. Life’s too short not to.
