To me, though, that's the problem with the way college basketball picks it champion.
In football, the clearly better team will likely win 9 of 10 if not 10 of 10 games.
People on this very board were complaining about TCU making the playoff, too.
That, and the fact that the game is so physically demanding, makes a single-elimination playoff viable. In college, by contrast, the clearly better team will maybe win 7 of 10 because sometimes shots just don't go in or the best player gets into foul trouble. So, a single-elimination tournament makes no sense. Let alone one in which there's no re-seeding.
What causes this in COLLEGE BASKETBALL that is unique to all other sports is the "one and done" concept. UCLA won, what, seven straight championships? Does that happen if Alcindor or Walton can go pro after one year?
What happens in b-ball is you wind up with a TEAM of guys who have played together for 3 years playing a Blue Blood or high level team that consists of 3 guys heading to the NBA (one after one year) and a couple of borderline cases who MIGHT make it if they improve. Those players know almost telepathically where one another are when they play together a lot. Meanwhile, Duke or Kentucky with their one superstar and "our role is to get the ball to him" team run into trouble.
For example, I'm old enough to have rooted for the Phi Slamma Jamma Houston teams with Akeem Olajuwon and Clycle Drexler. They were far and away the best teams year in and year out but always got tripped up along the way.
Yeah, but they probably win in 1983 if there's a shot clock, too, so that's not the most compelling argument. Georgetown was better the next year.
I've long said that the NCAA tournament is the most exciting and dumbest championship in all of sports. By contrast, the NBA (and similarly-constructed NHL) playoffs are the least exciting and most logical.
I'd venture to say that there's some truth to that.
College b-ball sort of "discovered" March Madness in a way.
My experience with it is a little different, but I'm not willing to go out on a limb whether I'm "right" or "wrong," either.
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I lived in Illinois back when DePaul was a national power, which is (to be frank) why I hated them so much. There used to be a guy named
Ray Rayner who had this morning show on WGN out of Chicago back before everyone across the country could get it. It mixed cartoons with a weather report - and the guy would give a sports report, too. During the baseball season, he had this double-sided helmet with the Cubs on one side and White Sox on the other (note: Wrigley still owned the Cubs in 1979, and although WGN showed their games, the Tribune Company that splattered them all over the country on WGN and tried to run the Sox out of business did not buy them until 1981).
And he gave the DePaul update during the long winter
Blizzard of 79. But he's also why I heard of some dude just 100 miles away named
Larry Bird. He - and the local news - covered Bird like he was the President of the US. My first thought when I saw him was, "Well, he kinda looks like a bird." So I was familiar with Indiana State and that they lost the 1979 championship because I saw it on the (sorta) local kids show.
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