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Has the 'Dance' gotten too big?
It has gotten so crazy that there is a show set aside specifically to announce who will get an invite to the "big dance." And then television, looking for even more drama, makes a poor team like Baylor sit there, waiting to see if they had made it. They constantly switched to live shots of the players and coaches, anxiously awaiting the news. And the last team, of the 65 invitees, was the Baylor Bears. It was not funny. Coaching careers and player's legacies are determined by a group of folks sitting in a hotel room in Indianapolis. This is a fickle bunch of people. You can never really tell who is in and who is out. But first, there are 31 automatic bids that go to conference champions. The rest are "at-large" bids. It is those that drive good people to go bad. Case in point. Arizona gets invited but Arizona State does not. During the regular season State won both meetings and had a comparable record. But it was the Wildcats who got the call. Even if we had a "Bracketologist" there would be no rhyme or reason. And speaking of the 15-cent word I just used...where did it come from? Sounds like a proctologist. And you know where that is headed. They aren't too far off. I realize it is one who analyses the bracket and then someone who studies a bracket is an expert in Bracketology. Sounds like some sort of a field in science where they fix an elbow or a knee, but it is a fancy term that was probably thrown out by ESPN. It is a lot of fun to get with friends and fill out a bracket. It makes the games more interesting and makes the entire tournament bearable. After the first two rounds it starts being predictable. But for those first few games it is great because it is on those days that anyone can beat anyone. Yes....even a 1-seed will eventually lose to a 16-seed. It will happen. How would you like to be Mount St. Mary's or Coppin State? First you have pulled off a miracle and won your conference tourney....you have punched your ticket to the dance and then your reward is this. You meet in a play-in game, the day before the tournament actually begins, just to see who gets to match-up with the overall top seeded team. There is your reward for hard work and tenacity. It is like saying... "you look nice in your tuxedo but you won't make it past lead-out." Probably ranks right there with some of the best prom dates in history. The one thing the tournament does have going for it is the fact that it decides a National Champion on the court and not using sports writers or coaches. If you do win an automatic bid or you get an "at-large" invitation, then you have a chance at winning the whole kit-andkaboodle. Folks who love their CBS soap-operas will be mad for the next few weeks.....but you can't make everyone happy. By the time this hits the press I will have my six or seven sheets filled out.....hollering at the TV, checking scores on the Internet, listening to games on the satellite radio...doing my part to make this craziness called March Madness even crazier. Too much hype indeed, but with everything else going on, sports is probably the only thing that will keep us sane. Here's wishes that Coppin State or Mount St. Mary's doesn't hit the upset this year. And Go Hoyas!
That is all folks........
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