Michael Wilbon argues passionately here that the NCAA basketball tourney sucks this year because it’s becoming more BCS-like, but do you know what his screed really boils down to?
Sure you do: the regular season doesn’t matter like it should.
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UPDATE: It’s a meme!
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UPDATE #2: More of the same.
Get The Picture 
Is there anything wrong with liking the BCS the way it is? Sure it’s controversial but boy does it generate interest and income for the sport not to mention it’s fun to talk about vs. any other sport out there.
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St. Mary’s lost by 25 in their conference tournament. They defeated one ranked team all year, Utah State, which also happens to be the only tournament team they defeated this season. They went 0-3 against Gonzaga, including the aforementioned 25-point beatdown. The one major conference team they played was Oregon who finished the year 8-23. The rest of their competition are teams that major conference teams play for fodder at the beginning of the season. That’s not exactly the resume of a contender.
Arizona beat San Diego State during the season, who Wilbon mentioned as a team more deserving. They beat Gonzaga. They beat Kansas. They beat Washington, UCLA, and USC. Even though they finished 19-13 and 9-10 in conference play (including tournament), I find it hard to value St. Mary’s great accomplishments against far lesser competition over Arizona’s meager accomplishments against top-notch competition.
Perhaps there should be a 1-AA in basketball to allow these mid-majors to have a shot at a national title.
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For people that are so beholden to settling it on the field, they sure are against settling it on the court. For playoff proponents, doesn’t bracket-creep or bracket expansion seem to require the very things that a playoff format is supposed to eliminate? Judgment. If the tournament were strictly limited to conference champions, this wouldn’t be an issue.
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Yep.
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There is nothing “fun” about talking about the one thing that stinks about college football.
The college basketball season has not been hurt by March Madness. The 1 and done rule is what did that. There is no continuity at all because of all the 1 year players making a pit stop before they enter the NBA.
March Madness has been around for decades, and the regular season never suffered. It is only the past couple years that the regular season was blah, and the only new variable is the 1 and done rule.
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I agree. The degradation of college basketball is due to the players like Kobe, KG, Lebron, etc. that skipped college altogether. This led to an influx of players leaving early, even as marginal prospects. That left college bereft of talent. So those that were any good in college as underclassmen were the pick of the litter, and they left early. It has become an endless cycle where NBA prospects never stay longer than 1 or 2 years.
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Honestly, I think that’s hurt the level of play in the NBA more than it has college.
And really, out of the 3,000+ kids playing D-1 basketball, how many wind up as early departures each year? Ten? Twenty? Are you saying that’s all the talent there is on the college level?
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Almost every “contender” has at least one. As a result, the major teams have no continuity.
Imagine if of the top 20 college football teams, their 5-10 best players only played for 1 year. That’s pretty much what is happening right now in college football.
It simply doesn’t make sense to blame March Madness when this is a very recent phenomenon (the lackluster regular season). For the previous 20-30 years college basketball’s regular season was quite good – at least when you properly factor in the overall popularity of basketball in general.
That gets us to another point. The NBA compared to the NFL, well… there is no comparison.
I realize you are going to try and twist every thing possible to protect the idiotic lack of a playoff system in college football, but it just doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Out of all pro sports, and all other division 1 sports, it really makes sense that college football doesn’t have one? Really? That is just beyond illogical.
The sports industry in general has BOOMED over the last 20 years, and all of those sports have a playoff. It is pretty darn conclusive that people like having their champion decided through actual play, not angry, former locker stuffed, sports writers.
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” That’s pretty much what is happening right now in college football.”
Ugh, I meant in college basketball.
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