A basketball official holds the game ball during the Pac-12 tournament, one of the 32 conference tournaments that helps funnel teams into the NCAA tournament in March. (Gray Bender/CU Independent)
The NCAA Tournament is over and the Duke Blue Devils have been crowned as national champions, but is the way the tournament is set up fair? Are there too many teams? Does it devalue the regular season? Our writers debate.
Alissa Noe: The NCAA tournament is, in essence, a showcase for the best 68 teams in the country in any given season. The Big Dance is the primary goal for every college basketball team every year. Earning a bid represents a team’s ability to compete at a high level with some of the biggest names in college hoops. This year, those names included Duke, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Michigan State, Gonzaga, Louisville, Notre Dame and the Pac-12’s own Arizona.
These eight elite teams, some of whom were not expected to make a big run this year, proved themselves to be the best teams this year in spite of some of their regular season records. These were the teams who didn’t fold under the pressure, which is something only the best of the best are able to do on the big stage. That’s more than can be said for No. 1 seed Villanova, No. 2 Virginia, No. 4 Georgetown — who always seems to choke early in the tournament — and No. 2 Kansas, just to name a few.
Some of the biggest bracket-busting games happened on day one, when R.J. Hunter of Georgia State single-handedly destroyed many brackets by stunning No. 3 Baylor with a single shot, or when Alabama-Birmingham sent No. 3 Iowa State packing after a solid second-half performance and a one-point victory.
Were those two the better teams this year? Absolutely not. But they were the better tournament teams, and that’s all that matters when March rolls around. Regular seasons become irrelevant, and every player lucky enough to make it past the conference tournaments has one goal in mind — going home after the third weekend and watching their own version of “One Shining Moment” over and over again to relive the glory of their title victory. Okay, maybe or maybe not, but that’s definitely what I would do in that situation.
Jared Funk-Breay: The first thing I’ll say is the NCAA Tournament is most definitely not a collection of the 68 best teams in college basketball. Do you really think that a random 16-seed would beat a bubble team from a power conference? The answer is no. Everyone gets a chance to make the tournament, but only a few of them that make it ultimately have any shot whatsoever of winning it all. Having so many teams play in the same tournament to me makes it feel drawn out and it takes a while to get to the point.
But I understand there’s no such thing as a perfect playoff system in any sports league, and the NCAA Tournament is no different. It’s a super exciting event that is geared toward fans and betting rather than trying to find out the best team.
The idea that any of the 68 teams that are included in the bracket could win the championship simply is not true. No team seeded lower than eighth has ever won a championship — just like that, half of the field is essentially eliminated. Lower-seeded teams of course have the capability of knocking off higher seeded ones, but ultimately they have no chance of keeping it up. If we really want to get down to the nitty gritty in an NCAA bracket, then we would do away with the lower seeds.
I think the main question you have to ask is if a team has clearly shown that it is better than another throughout the course of a 30-plus game season, why does it have to show it again? A fluke, as often happens in tournament upsets, could take place and a team’s entire season could go to waste on a last-second buzzer-beater. I know that life isn’t fair, but it seems to me that a body of work that encompasses an entire season should be more important than one game.
Alissa: You make valid points, Jared, but you’re forgetting that only the best teams know how to make the winning plays under pressure. This year, some of those teams included Georgia State, UCLA, Louisville over UC Irvine, Kentucky in their Notre Dame matchup, Wisconsin over Kentucky and, of course, Duke over Wisconsin in the title game. The outright frontrunner of this competition is R.J. Hunter, whose three at the buzzer made his own father eject of out of his fancy swivel chair in excitement. But Hunter Jr. made the play he needed to to win the game, which is something the Bears couldn’t do to secure what should have been an easy tournament win.
This was certainly the year for coaches’ sons, as Bryce Alford comes in second for the biggest winning play of the tournament. As time was running out, the UCLA guard had two choices: take a desperation shot or let SMU advance to the round of 32 in his team’s place. The obvious choice was to take the desperation three, which no doubt would have either been an airball or a rim clanker. But, thanks to a poor decision by SMU center Yanick Moreira, the pitiful shot attempt was counted as goaltending. The Bruins made the cut in the first round, which few expected after the outrage that resulted from their earning a tourney bid over more deserving teams. Their image improved even more when they made the Sweet 16.
The same can be said for a beaten-down Louisville team, who struggled to take down a team most fans had never heard of, UC Irvine. Down the stretch, the Cardinals struggled to get anything going on offense and let the Anteaters beat on them. But, when push came to shove, the Cardinals did what they had to do to run away with the win. With 43 seconds left, Wayne Blackshear hit the layup that ultimately tied the game for the last time, and freshman Quentin Snyder grabbed a crucial rebound off of Will Davis’ botched three-point attempt, got fouled, and sank two foul shots to give Louisville their final lead of the game.
Perhaps the most notable game-winning play of all fell on the Wildcats, who survived an Elite Eight scare against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Up until the final minutes, the Irish had played the better all-around game. They had dominated the pace and wouldn’t allow Kentucky to gain much of a lead on them at any point during the game. When Notre Dame took a 61-56 lead with five minutes left, it looked like the Wildcats were in trouble. But in the final minutes, Kentucky did what it had to do by making stops and taking big shots to give them to final push to end the Irish’s dream.
Jared: I think you’re missing the point. Sure, the teams you mentioned had great runs and deserve the accolades that they received, but that’s not what I’m concerned about. It’s all the teams that were seeded lower and lost in the first few rounds that are dragging the competition down.
Everyone loves a cinderella, and I get that. Some would argue that without a lower-seeded team making a deep run, it just wouldn’t be March Madness. But if the ultimate goal is to find the best team, no one should be worried about these lower teams being left out. Even the double-digit seeds that have made the Final Four in the past, like VCU, Wichita State and George Mason didn’t make the championship game after they made it that far.
Louisville, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Wisconsin and, of course, Duke, could have all made their runs if the number of teams in the tournament was trimmed down. I’d much rather see top competition from the get-go than having to wait a few weeks, and even have some of the best and most exciting teams eliminated by chance.
(Side note: Bryce Alford’s game-winning shot was complete luck on UCLA’s part and calling it a ‘winning play’ is unfair to SMU)
Alissa: It’s the coaches who are the real stars of every tournament in the end. Sure, having elite players is no doubt important, but it’s up to the coaches to breed that talent on, and off, the court. Using that mindset, it should come as no surprise that many of the Elite Eight coaches this year are forever engraved into the memory of the college basketball world, whether it be through the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame or simply through continued tournament success.
The first and most highly-acclaimed of the eight is easily Duke’s own Mike Krzyzewski, and I’m not just saying that because the Blue Devils took home the title on Monday night. After this week’s tournament win, Duke tied for third place in the all-time program tournament wins category, falling only behind UCLA, which has 11 titles, and Kentucky, which sits at eight. Every single Duke title belongs to Coach K, who also reigns as the USA men’s basketball coach for the Olympics on top of his 35-year career with the Cameron Crazies. His reign peaked in 2001, when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame and has since kept his incredible run going strong.
Coach John Calipari of Kentucky basketball can also be named among this elite group. After spending 23 years yelling at his players on the sidelines, Calipari stands as one of two coaches in college basketball history to carry three different schools to the Final Four. He is also one of two coaches to lead three separate No. 1 teams during the regular season. And though he’s only won one national title in his five-year stint with the Wildcats, his prior and current successes were enough to convince the committee to induct him into the Hall of Fame during the Final Four weekend this year.
The other coach on the end of that spectrum is Louisville head coach Rick Pitino. He, too, has led three separate schools to the Final Four and is the first coach in the history of the game to win a national title with two different programs. In his first 29 seasons as a head coach, Pitino held a remarkable .739 winning percentage. Clearly, the committee believed in his talent when they inducted him into the Hall of Fame two years ago.
Michigan State’s Tom Izzo can also be named among the elite of the elite. Though this eight-time National Coach of the Year has only claimed one national title in his 20-year tenure with the Spartans, his teams have almost all made their marks in the tournament in one way or another. To date, he owns 11 conference tournament titles, has made seven Final Four appearances and has played in 18 straight NCAA tournaments. If that doesn’t scream best of the best, I don’t know what does.
Jared: That’s great. I’m not arguing the best teams aren’t eventually showcased by their coaches. They could showcase themselves even more if they weren’t bogged down by the rest of the field that doesn’t stand as much of a chance as the blue-blood teams like Duke, Kentucky and Michigan State.
Maybe the NCAA’s logic is that since there are 351 Division I men’s basketball programs, a ton of teams need be included in the playoff. But let’s be real. Most of the lower teams might as well be in another division as the upper 100 or so schools. For example, Northern Colorado up in Greeley is technically in the same division as all the best teams in Division I and has the same chance to make the tournament. But that’s kind of a joke. That will never happen, at least not in the near future.
The last thing I’ll say is that the tournament also kind of makes the regular season unnecessary to an extent. For example, Michigan State had a pretty average regular season for its standards, but, as the Spartans so often do, they made a deep run even though they were only a seven-seed. What’s the motivation to do well in the regular season if you can do well in the tournament regardless? I know that you still have to make it, but the reward for doing well, even for going undefeated like Kentucky, isn’t really that great. The Wildcats eventually lost and had a tough game with Notre Dame before it made the Final Four. I know that we’re far away from anything like this happening, but I’d like to see a greater incentive for regular season success, like a bye of some sort.
But I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man, I love the NCAA Tournament. It’s one of, if not the best, sporting events in the world, but to say the undisputed best team wins the championship every year just isn’t true.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Alissa Noe at alissa.noe@colorado.edu.
Contact CU Independent Assistant Sports Editor Jared Funk-Breay at jared.funkbreay@colorado and follow him on twitter: @jaredfunkbreay
