Monday, March 22, 2010
Why March Madness is Overrated
Every time I hear someone say that the first week of the NCAA tournament is the best week of the year in all of sports, I can't help but channel my inner Larry David: I squint my eyes at them, I try to get a read on them to see if they are lying to me, and eventually I just let out a long, exaggerated "ohh-kay" and end the conversation.
Not only do I not believe that everyone loves March Madness, I'm not sold on the fact that they even believe it.
Honestly, if you were to ask someone in May or September or any other month besides March what their favorite time of year sporting-wise is, how many people answer March Madness?
More than likely, if you ask someone at any other time of the year they'll say, "the start of football season" or "the MLB playoffs" or even "the NBA playoffs."
That's because March Madness has no lasting effect on sports fans. It's instant gratification. No one remembers the NCAA tournament once it's over.
Don't believe me? Name the four No. 1 seeds from the 2009 tourney. Surely, those of you the love March Madness so much will be able to rattle off the best teams from last season.
Can you name them? Don't worry, I couldn't do it, either. For the record, it was North Carolina, UConn, Louisville, and Pittsburgh.
But that's okay; it's not all about the hype entering the tourney. After all, sometimes the powers that be get the seeding wrong. The best teams heading into the tournament don't always have the best tournaments. I get that, so maybe that's why we don't remember the No. 1 seeds.
So I'll make it easy: name the Final Four teams from last year.
Come on, really? You love the NCAA tournament, remember? Surely, you remember the best of the best of your favorite sporting event.
No? Okay, it was North Carolina, Villanova, UConn, and Michigan State.
So maybe you were busy last year and didn't catch as much of the tournament as you would have liked. But you still love the NCAA, so you probably remember 2008 like it was yesterday. So here's an easy one, who won the national championship in 2008?
Come on. Memphis missed a bunch of free throws. Justin Timberlake made a bunch of jokes about it at the ESPYs. You know this one.
All right, fine. I'll give it to you. It was Kansas.
Catch my drift here? There's a reason we don't remember the NCAA tournament: the actual basketball is terrible. The reason we don't remember who won what is because they don't do anything memorable from a basketball standpoint.
Northern Iowa's win over top-seeded Kansas on Saturday proves my point perfectly. Late in the second half, Northern Iowa, with the game on the line, turned the ball over before crossing half-court on four consecutive possessions. And they won the game. Against the alleged "best" team in the country.
Okay, so here's where you make the argument that the upsets are the best part of the tournament.
(This is the part when I give you another prolonged Larry David stare.)
Really? The upsets are the best part? In what way?
Let's take a closer look at this side of the argument. What exactly is the best part of the upset victory?
In the past 10 years, double-digit seeds that advance to the Sweet 16 average losing in the round of 16 by 8 points per game.
You can argue that upsets are what makes the tournament great all you want, but the fact is more often than not, it has the reverse effect. It doesn't make the tournament great; it makes the sweet 16, the round when the action is supposed to pick up, less competitive.
For every George Mason that advances past the round of 16, there are several examples of teams that are completely outclassed and dominated in the Sweet 16. There's nothing exciting about a flash in the pan that can't catch lightning in a bottle two weekends in a row.
Then there's the less talked about, but more important pitfall of early round upsets: bracket busters. Try making the "everyone loves a good upset" argument to one of the 42.9% of people that lost out on a chance for a $500+ payday because Kansas lost a game that they would normally win 19 out of 20 times.
I'm not saying that the NCAA tournament isn't fun. I watched a good several hours of the tourney over the past four days, and enjoyed it for the most part. There were some good, competitive games. Some of the finishes were exciting as hell.
But like I said before, it was instant gratification. A year from now, six months from now, or even next week, I'm not going to remember who beat who. I'm not going to remember where I was the day Michigan State beat Maryland on a last-second three-pointer.
And chances are you won't, either.
The NCAA tournament is nothing more than a way to kill time on a weekday afternoon. It provides an excuse to make small talk at the water cooler for a day or two at work. It's a reason to gamble. But in the sports world, it is not historically relevant.
And because of that, for those of you that get overly excited about those "crazy" 5-12 games that you'll have forgotten by Memorial Day, I have one more piece of Larry David advice for you: curb your enthusiasm.
Save it for the sporting events that are about to happen that people actually remember.