Making sense of NCAA hoop madness
March Madness — aka the NCAA men’s collegiate basketball tournament in the US — outdid its moniker in its opening weekend of action.
Usually, big names are toppled left and right annually in the tourney. But the results of first-round games this year were beyond madness — a new tag will have to be invented to describe the craziness that took place.
And it could have been even more insane were it not for the NCAA’s, well, maddening method of selecting participating teams.
More on this in a bit, but first a quick recap of the unprecedented hoop insanity that transpired last Thursday through Sunday.
During that time, the field was cut from 68 teams down to the “Sweet Sixteen”.
Over the next two weekends, the remaining ballclubs will look to “survive and advance” in what is the Bataan Death march of sports tournaments.
When all is said and done, the eventual winners will have played six, possibly even seven high-pressure “win or go home” contests.
Here’s an itemising of the beyond the pale madness.
Easily, the biggest story of the opening weekend was the making of tournament history by previously little-known UMBC (University of Maryland — Baltimore County).
Since the inception of the current 68-team format in 1985, no 16th seed had knocked off a top seed in any of the four regionals comprising the tourney bracketing.
Prior to this year, the top seeds were 0-135 versus the 16th teams, with an average 24-point margin of defeat.
UMBC entered not just the 16thseeded team in the South regional, but also as the lowest seeds in the whole dang shebang.
Meanwhile, Virginia, their firstround foes, came in as not only the top seeds in the regional but also as the No.1 seeds in the entire tourney.
Ready for this? UMBC not only upset Virginia, but routed them by 20 points.
To say UMBC shocked the US is a massive understatement.
Filling out an NCAA bracket is akin to an annual rite for most Americans each March — basketball fans or no.
Before each tourney, diehard hoop fans and people who don’t know a basketball from a pumpkin, dutifully fill in their brackets (try to predict the winners of each game one-by-one, all the way through to the championship game).
For some folks, serious preparation and pool money are involved. At the other end of the spectrum are the type who pick winners by means of, say, team colours or mascots and the like.
Usually, almost everyone gets done in along the way by an erroneous pick.
It’s estimated that UMBC blew up 97 percent of the brackets in America when they toppled Virginia. (For the record, Wiggins World had Virginia winning it all but at least we had lots of company).
Unfortunately, the Retrievers — how’s that for a nickname? — lost a down-to-the-wire battle in their next game against Kansas State.
But by then, UMBC had won something much bigger — the hearts of Americans.
Let’s move on to the other examples of extreme craziness over this past long weekend:
A pair of long range, buzzerbeating bombs propelled Michigan and Loyola of Chicago into the “Sweet Sixteen” round and produced joyous mob-the-shooter celebrations that were a sight to behold.
An unprecedented number of upsets of hoop blue bloods by unheralded, lower-seeded teams.
Examples: No.13 Buffalo sent fourth-seeded and perennial powers Arizona home, Loyola ousted big names Miami and Tennessee backto-back and underdogs Nevada eliminated both Texas and Cincinnati (overcoming 14- and 22-point deficits consecutively to do so).
Alas, their accomplishments were overshadowed by UMBC’s monumental feat.
A larger-than-usual number of high seeds were sent packing early. In addition to Virginia, Xavier, also No.1 seeds, exited in the first weekend, as did defending national champions North Carolina, who had entered as second seeds, and third-seeded Michigan State, the prestigious Big Ten titlists.
Potential Cinderellas proliferated and enthralled: Unsungs UMBC, Loyola, Nevada, Buffalo and Marshall all qualified early on for a potential slipper-fitting Wiggins World says The Big Dance, as the tourney is also known, should contain even more, should we call them “Cinderfellas”, seeking to fill the glass sneaker.
Every year, the NCAA gives an inordinate number of tourney spots to high-profile schools that could easily go instead to ballclubs from lesserknown conferences.
The NCAA’s reasoning: the quality of play is superior in the big name conferences. Too many times, though, fifth- or sixth-place teams (some with losing records) are over chosen over a lesser-known conference’s more worthy runners-up.
St Mary’s of California, for instance, finished the regular season 29-5 and second in the West Coast Conference to Gonzaga, who last weekend advanced to the Sweet Sixteen round. Alas, St Mary’s stayed home. Clearly, that NCAA reasoning doesn’t hold water anymore. Parity has definitely arrived in US college hoops.
It’s time for the NCAA to wake up to this reality. Team selections should reflect this closing of the competitive gap.
Wiggins World says “yes” to an even greater degree of on-court March Madness. But “no” to off-court NCAA selection process nutiness. Contact Wiggins World at davwigg@ gmail.com