March Madness needs no renovation
STORRS — So how do we fix one of the most popular and anticipated sporting events on our calendar?
How do we fix what nobody thinks is broken, nobody except those who want to extract still more money for their conferences and colleges at the expense of others.
To wit: There is SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who said, “We are giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers, and I think that pressure is going to rise as we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of expansion.”
Then Michigan State coach Tom Izzo weighed in with this: “… I just think what’s happening now, everybody likes the upsets in the first weekend, but I’m not sure moving on that’s what’s best for the game. I think it’s got to be looked at seriously.”
Looked at? Seriously?
A funny thing happened when that two-day national holiday called the Round of 64 was played. Five out of six SEC teams lost, including Kentucky to Oakland, Mich., and Auburn to Yale, Wisconsin to James Madison and Grand Canyon beat St. Mary’s.
That’s two 12 seeds and two 13 seeds moving on, two fours and two fives headed home.
What’s to do? Expand the tournament past 64 or else the power conferences may go their own way and create two competing tournaments. None of this is necessary.
Many things are cyclical in sports. Yes, mid-majors often have more experienced players and can give freshman-laden, five-starstudded rosters problems, as John Calipari is starting to accept at Kentucky. This is accentuated by the extra COVID year, which has 24-year-olds playing in this tournament. But that part is coming to an end. The easy transfer rules and NIL opportunities will keep some players in the college game longer, but isn’t that a good thing?
The tournament selection process is quirky. Some of the mid-majors finish under .500 but get hot in their conference tournament. So be it. The quirkiness works, it’s why we watch, why we strive to become experts on teams we’d never known existed.
If the SEC and Big Ten want to have 16, 18, 20 teams to rake in more football money, they live with what that means for basketball, not demand more of their teams get in.
As for “giving away highly competitive opportunities,” give me a break. Why is the Ivy League champ, in this case Yale, not as deserving of a highly competitive opportunity as a team finishing sixth, seventh, eighth in another conference?
James Jones’ Bulldogs are highly competitive. Teams in the major conferences have all season to play themselves into the NCAA Tournament. As for the Big East, St. John’s, No. 32 in the NetRankings, should have gotten a bid over one of the six Mountain West teams, as Indiana State, at No. 29, should have gotten an at-large.
If you’re going to go by metrics, go by them consistently. Providence, Seton Hall were in the 50s; if bid stealers in conference tournaments like New Mexico in the Mountain West pushed them off the bubble, that’s part of the circumstances of being on the bubble.
All these things make us argue about the tournament, discuss, laugh or grit our teeth. All these things make the NCAA Tournament, especially the Round of 64, must-see basketball. Just leave it alone.
More for your Sunday Read:
Coach to coach at Old Lyme
When Old Lyme won the Class V boys basketball championship, defeating Coventry last week, it was the first state title in the history of the program.
“Hey, they turned the corner,” Jim Calhoun joked. He was delighted to hear the news. Calhoun’s first head coaching job was at Old Lyme, in 1968-69. He went 1-17, learned his first lessons about the art, then moved on to great success coaching high schools in Massachusetts, winning a state title at Dedham High, then on to Northeastern, UConn and the Hall of Fame.
Calhoun, 82, reached out to Old Lyme coach Brady Sheffield, who is 21 and played for the school only a couple of years ago, to offer warm congratulations.
“It was a cool conversation,” Sheffield said. “We talked about what it was like when he was coaching at Old Lyme, how much he liked the town. He said he had a hard time getting guys to play because they wanted to play soccer at the time. It was so surreal to be able to talk to him on the phone. It was a quick conversation, but it was so cool.”
There’s a photo of Calhoun with members of the 1968-69 team in the athletic offices, and Don Bugbee, the girls basketball coach at Old Lyme, played for Calhoun and has been telling Sheffield some of the old stories. Bugbee was on the bench at Mohegan Sun for the title game.
Sheffield is still sorting out his aspirations in coaching and academics. He works at an insurance agency, the Magnolia Agency in Essex, and has the flexibility to pursue coaching, which he began right out of high school. He is Old Lyme throughand-through, and like an old-school coach, he helps out where needed — as an assistant with the baseball team, too.
“I love Old Lyme, everything about the kids, the parents, the school, the community,” Sheffield said. “And we have some great groups coming up in seventh and eighth grade I’m excited to work with. For the foreseeable future, I’m at Old Lyme.
For the next four or five seasons, I’m really excited about what we have here. … We’ve got to be back, we’ve set ourselves up now. We’ve got to be back and the expectations are high.”
To win a state title as a rookie coach … at age 21? The kid’s got a future.
Sunday short takes
With a lot of openings in Division I men’s basketball, and likely more to come as coaches move around, here are two local coaches to consider. How long does Jones have to do terrific work at Yale before a power conference program gives him a shot? And how about Scott Burrell at D-II SCSU? Seems like a great candidate for a mid-major D-I. Just putting it out there.
This historic career of Jonathan Quick, the goalie from Hamden High and Avon Old Farms, reached a new milestone during his resurgence with the Rangers (2.44 goalsagainst) at age 38. This week, Quick was in goal for a 5-2 win over the Bruins and tied Ryan Miller for most career wins by a U.S.born netminder with 391. Next win, and it’s Quick’s mark.
UConn women’s hockey coach Chris MacKenzie didn’t believe at first he was national Division I coach of the year, an honor he richly deserved, asking sports information guy Collin Stewart if he was sure he wasn’t just a finalist.
But MacKenzie likes dad jokes, so he was probably just being COY. (See what I did there?) To his team, he said the award was a reflection of the program’s players, assistants, staff. “But
I’ll take it,” he said.
NFL free agency was good for a couple of local offensive linemen. UConn’s Matt Peart left the Giants to ink a one-year deal with the Broncos, and Madison’s Jack Driscoll, a versatile backup for the Eagles, moved onto the Dolphins.
Last word
Permit me a sentence or two to brag about my alma mater, to which I owe much. Congrats to Notre Dame-West Haven, which won both the boys basketball and hockey Division I titles this season. The last to win state titles in both sports was Suffield in 2000.