Ridger Sports - March Madness just got even madder

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

This is time of the year a lot of folks call “March Madness,” referring to the overwhelming amount of collegiate basketball games that are on the news, on TV, on the radio and the subject of many a discussion (mostly guys, though).

To be sure, lots and lots of teams get into the act. Sixty-five teams get invited to what they call “the Big Dance.” Nearly half of the teams get their invite by virtue of their winning their conference tournament. For most, winning a ticket via the conference championships gets them into the dance but a second date for them will probably be out of the question.

Most local sports fans know about the big conferences like the SEC, Big East, ACC, Big 10, Big 12 and the PAC 10. How many are familiar with the Summitt League, the Horizon League, the Colonial Athletic Association, the Patriot League, the Great West Conference or the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference?

To be sure, if the NCAA tournament had only the top 65 ranked teams in the nation involved, most of the so called “mid-major” teams would never get an invitation.

An interesting quirky thing about the NCAA is that they have that 65th qualifier. They then have a play-in game between No. 64 and No. 65 with the winner getting to play some powerhouse.

This year, one of our state’s teams, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, got into the tournament and were slated to play in the playin game. They won in an upset and were privileged to earn the right to be pounded by Duke in their next game. While they had no chance to beat Duke, they lost by only a 70-44 count, due largely to playing a team with as classy a coach as Coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Sometimes, a mid-major team, called a “Cinderella” team, gets in and does well. St. Mary’s was one such team, winning a couple of upsets before bowing out. Another mid-major team, Butler, actually made the final four this year, but they have been ranked in the nation’s top 10 this season so they can hardly be referred to as a “Cinderella” team. Even so, you can bet that much of America will be rooting for this particular underdog.

For those teams that had good years but missed out on a NCAA invite (Mississippi State for one), there was always the National Invitational Tournament.

Some pundits have referred to it as the National Insignificant Tournament, but it does draw good teams and their final four finalists would probably have beaten a good many of the squads selected to play in the NCAA’s. Even so, adding together the 65 NCAA teams and the 32 NIT teams, that puts 97 teams into post season play. And I thought that was enough.

For the past three years, March Madness got 16 teams madder and I didn’t even know it. I don’t know how I could have missed this as I am a fairly avid news and sports news reader.

There has been going on for the past three years another post season tournament - the Collegiate Basketball Invitational.

The CBI invites 16 teams that got passed over by both the NCAA and the NIT. The first three rounds are single elimination with the final teams playing a best twoof-three format to determine their champion.

This week, the St. Louis Billikens will be playing Virginia Commonwealth for the title. Tulsa won the first title a couple of years ago.

The CBI has the participating schools hosting all games with the higher ranked team getting the home field advantage. All NCAA games are on neutral floors with the NIT relying on home games for the first three rounds, reserving the finals for Madison Square Garden.

This puts post-season basketball teams at 113, nearly one-third of the 347 schools in Division I.

Since the NCAA forbids teams with losing records from participating in post-season competition, there aren’t many teams left who could be in tournaments.

I just a great idea for a new tournament. For those few teams beyond the 113 but who had winning records, I propose the creation of the BSO Tournament. (Beats Starting Off-season).

For players who hate off season drills, this would give them a reprieve, and winning a few more games might just save some coaches jobs. On the other hand, one and done in the BSO would perhaps be the ultimate downer.

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John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The TIMES.

He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].

Sports, Pages 7 on 03/31/2010