Its Tourney Time

Two hours from now the Bulldogs and Trojans will kick off one of the most exciting times in sports, March Madness. Unfortunately, we will have to sit through the UNCA vs UALR game first. Followed this evening by a riveting match up between 12-seeds UAB and Clemson.  For all of the excitement of this tournament, I am strongly against adding more teams.  How does adding worse players, coaches, and teams to a basketball tournament improve the overall product?  For all the talk about how egregious it is that one team made it in and another bubble team was left out, have any bubble teams ever cut the nets?  8-seed Villanova defeated Patrick Ewing's Georgetown 25 years ago, but an 8-seed is no bubble team.  George Mason and LSU have both reached the Final Four as eleventh seeds, but George Mason was an automatic qualifier.  That leaves us with one LSU team 25 years ago.  In the current tournament format, bubble teams usually sit around the 11-13th seeds.  So in the history of the tournament only one, single bubble team has even advanced to the Final Four, meaning bubble teams have a history in the NCAA Tournament as successful as the history of George Mason's basketball program.  Why do we want to extend the tournament and add more of these irrelevant teams?  You can allow as many teams as you want, but there will always be bubble teams, always be teams thinking they should have been included instead of Team X.  The real tournament begins Thursday, when the round of 64 begins.  By then we will have already been forced to sit through two thrilling 16-16 match ups, an 11-11, and a 12-12.  If the selection committee really believed they belonged in the tournament, they wouldn't make them play in.  After an entire season and a conference tournament does the committee really need teams to play in to the Tournament.  If they can't make the tough decisions, maybe we should find people who can.

 Moving along, there are some very exciting things to watch in this years tourney.  Rick Pitino and 4-seed Louisville face 13-seed Morehead State in one of the Tournament's first games.  Watching Pitino try to outlast Morehead should be a treat.  It's just a shame Oral Roberts won't be waiting in the second round.  Also in the Southwest region, Tulsa will play host city to Kansas.  The games will be a homecoming of sorts for Bill Self, who has personal and professional ties to the city.  Bill was born in Okmulgee and spent time as an assistant for Oklahoma State before taking over as head coach for ORU ('93-'97) and Tulsa ('97-'00).  Self set the record for wins in a season and reached an Elite 8 while coaching the Golden Hurricanes. 

The East is loaded, with Ohio State, UNC, Syracuse, and Kentucky taking seeds 1-4 respectively.  Watching Jared Sullinger, Harrison Barnes, and Terrence Jones audition for draft scouts should be a treat.  I like Harriosn Barnes and UNC to reach the Final Four. 

Out West, Duke leads a weaker bracket and seems poised to make a run to the Final Four.  San Diego State seems like a rather overrated 2-seed.  The Aztecs are coached by Steve Fisher, former coach of the Michigan Fab Five.  I won't argue that SDSU isn't a big, athletic team, but the 2-seed seems a bit high.  Here at Jock Talk, we are in agreement that SDSU would be merely the 6th or 7th best team in the Big East, but hey received a higher seed than Big East Champ UConn.  Unless Kyrie Irving comes back from his toe injury, Kemba Walker will be the player to watch in this regional, especially when he puts the team on his back and carries them past the Aztecs.

The Southeast seems to be the weakest regional.  When did Florida become a 2-seed?  The player to watch is obviously Jimmer Fredette, but the player to look at is Gary McGhee of Pitt.  Why?  He. Looks. Like. Predator.

We will talk about all of this and more during out All-Tourney Podcast that should be up this week.  You can download the podcasts through iTunes.  Search Jock Talk with Crum and Kok and subscribe!