Oh my god, it is the Big Dance. The tournament of all tournaments. Every time Selection Sunday used to roll around, I would be glued to the TV for about 6 to 7 hours, just watching the last conference championship games, and then finding out who goes where.
On the following Monday, I would wake up in the morning in order to get the paper so I could fill out the brackets. This was probably the greatest moment of the year (sad, isn’t it?).
The three days of hell would commence as I would just wait for the damn tournament to start, and I placed my bracket above my bed. I used to review it over and over again to see if I missed anything.
And then the Madness began.
Then I would find ways to skip class or do whatever I could to watch every single game on TV. It didn’t matter to me, the first round was always the best round considering just about every upset that occurred would happen there.
The second round was almost the same as the first, since there were still 32 teams in the tournament, and upsets were still occurring left and right.
Then the true part of the tournament began, as the Sweet 16 was underway. That’s when all the crap teams who are good stories that nobody cares about were weeded out.
National championships were handed out and the season was over, but the madness would begin again next March.
Or would it?
Some seasons are different. This season has been different. Although I will watch every single game I possibly can of the tournament, the luster of the entire experience has been diminished.
Through lack of star power, the NCAA Tournament is now only exciting for the first couple of rounds, when we occasionally see the No. 2 seed go down.
However, the entire tournament turns to crap after the Sweet 16. All of us know the Duke stars, Duhon, Dunleavy, Williams and Boozer. However, who pays any attention to players like Jarvis Hayes, Tayshaun Prince, Drew Gooden, Frederick Jones and Juan Dixon?
Only people who care about college basketball, and that is not the majority of the people who watch the NCAA Tournament.
Those players are good, but are obviously not as good as the underclassmen who left in order to get the cash in the NBA (good move).
Now, everyone gets involved in the tournament because it is the thing to do.
The office pools and everyone in school pitching in a buck with a bracket in hopes of a large return. But the magic of it all seems to be diminishing before my very eyes.
Or I am just bitter.
I know I complain about every single thing this planet has to offer, however, the NCAA tournament is actually something I hold dear, and the entire sport is heading down the tubes.
So how do we fix the problem? How could we create more luster in a tournament that relies on a person to figure out what the hell is going on in college basketball?
Just like the way we create interest in every thing in America.
Hype.
It is the key to the Super Bowl (damn the Patriots), any boxing match, and absolutely everything else in this country.
What type of hype is there for the college basketball regular season?
NOBODY CARES.
The opening tournaments start and end without anybody giving a damn.
Half of the people I talk to don’t even know the college basketball season has started. Nobody cares about Midnight Madness or any other mark of the beginning of the season.
Why?
Because nobody knows it’s happening. When was the last time you saw a commercial for NCAA basketball before the season had started on CBS? I see them on ESPN about a week before the games started.
What does that result in?
People filling in their brackets and having fun when the tournament rolls around, but by the end of the tourney, nobody cares.
The teams that many of them picked for the brackets have already lost, so why watch “The Crappy National Title Game That Has No Implications Towards the Pool”?
The players are unknown, the teams are known traditionally, but the current teams are filled with players who have never been heard of.
I am not telling players to stay in school, because they shouldn’t. The point of college is to get a better job, and they are taking that job, but it is up to the little hype machines to come up with a little something to add some luster to the college basketball season.
Or else March Madness will just be another tournament that nobody cares about, like?I don’t know?the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Asad welcomes feedback at: [email protected].