Does anyone else feel like the NCAA is trying to pick a fight with, oh I don’t know, EVERYONE!?

The talk today is expanding the tournament from 65 to 96 teams.  The NCAA laid out their plan to do so yesterday.  Of course everyone knows that this is about TV money and the fact that they are stuck running the NIT; a tournament that no one cares about outside of the participants and their mothers.

Naturally the NCAA wants to take the rotten egg that is the NIT and shove it up under the golden goose that is March Madness and tell us all they’ve just given us more golden eggs.  The problem is the shine from the golden nest won’t cover the stinky aroma wafting towards our nasal cavity.

Another thing that makes this a bitter pill to swallow is that this body is once again talking out of both sides of their collective mouths.  The NCAA argues that really it’s not expanding post season participants it is subtracting one; being that with the current 65 team system and the 32 team NIT they have 97 teams.  However, they’ll be playing on more weekdays now which means these “student” athletes will be missing more classes.

Now I wouldn’t give a hoot about that because statistics show most of these kids aren’t graduating anyway but if you’ll jump with me to another NCCA boot to the face of the college sports fan, the BCS.  Here the NCAA contends that a playoff would be a logistical nightmare requiring too much travel and “student” athletes will miss too many classes.  Really?  Last I checked football games were played on Saturday.  And they could play most of these games in December when schools out so we’re not buying that.  Especially now since 96 teams can squeeze into the same time frame as a 64 team tournament and you all don’t blink an eye.

Again the argument they give is really just a diversion from the truth.  It’s about money and arrogance.

So on one hand they are taking an event widely heralded as the pinnacle of post season competition and watering it down with everyone screaming that they should leave it alone.  On the other hand they have a post season that is roundly criticized and wholly unsatisfying and while the public begs for change the NCAA just waves them off.

Did you ever see Gladiator?  Joaquin Phoenix plays a marvelous villain Commodus.  As emperor he gives the people back the games in the coliseum but then fails to give the people what they want.  He spares those the people dislike while trying to kill the one they do.  Then he doesn’t understand why the people won’t just love him.  Well this tournament expansion is the equivalent of stabbing Maximus in the lung underneath the stage before attempting to defeat him, surrounded by his guards, in front of us all.  If only this story had a chance for a happy ending.

Aaron Blaylock
2BigBaldGuys.com

Tags: basketball, ncaa