I guess there is a reason they call it March Madness. The Final Four was set this past weekend and everyone’s brackets were ruined with VCU and Butler advancing to the Final Four and heavyweights Ohio State and Kansas missing out on a trip to Houston. Is this seriously what we want for the national semifinals and the title tilt? UConn, who was ninth in the Big East entering the conference tournament, losers of seven down the stretch before winning five games in five days to claim a No. 3 seed? Is this really what we want in Virginia Commonwealth University, a team that finished fourth in the Colonial Athletic Association during the regular season and was one of the First Four?
The Official Visit co-hosts Scott Janovitz and Fletcher Proctor (That’s me) have gone on the record before saying that the NCAA men’s basketball championship should NOT be determined by a 64 (or 68) team single-elimination tournament that merely rewards the hottest team over six games spread over three weeks. You are throwing away November, December, January, and February to simply crown a March champion.
680 The Fan’s Perry Laurentino seems to agree. The day after VCU knocked off Kansas to earn a ticket to the Final Four, Perry made a great point: VCU and Butler are nice stories, but they just got hot at the end of the season. Perhaps he said it with tongue-in-cheek, but he was right. Upsets are “fun” and all but at the end of the day we want to see the best teams competing for a national title, not cute stories. Perry’s co-host Sandra Golden said that after the title game won by whomever, she will remember VCU’s run to the Final Four. That reminds me of the ending of Tin Cup and what Jalen Rose said in the recent Fab Five documentary. Rene Russo said that no one will remember the champion of the US Open but people would remember Roy’s shot. Rose said you can name the Fab Five but you cannot name anyone on that 1993 UNC title team. Actually, if VCU DOESN’T win the title, people will forget their run in a hurry. I had nearly forgotten about George Mason until CBS reminded me about their being an 11-seed making the Final Four in 2006. Perry wished for the Goliaths to be able to meet in the finals, and he wished that the two main Goliaths, Ohio State and Kansas could still be playing and I agree with him.
A majority of people watching “March Madness” don’t care about college basketball this time of year; they simply care about their bracket and winning money in an office pool. Those of us that have watched basketball all season long should be rewarded with a REAL title game, not one where a team that needed a buzzer beater over a team from the CAA followed by a foul 93 feet away from its own basket then later Florida enduring a brain cramp to advance to the Final Four. With all due respect to VCU, according to the standings the Rams were the fourth best team in the CAA this year. Now they may be the fourth best team in the country? Really? No. Knock the BCS all you want to, but the fans are rewarded at the end of the season with the two best teams from the regular season playing for a national title. Basketball rewards the best teams of March with a title.
Hello Friends, as the very busy Jim Nantz would say. After Nantz polishes off the Final Four and the championship game this Monday, he’ll be on a plane to Augusta for the PGA’s first major, The Masters, “A tradition unlike any other.” Nantz does come off a little cheesy sometimes with the obviously prewritten lines he spouts out during the round in big moments, but isn’t that what you sort of look forward to during the weekend coverage? I know I sort of enjoy the semi-cheesy Nantz coming up with eye-rolling proclamations like “One for the Family!” after Mickelson’s final putt last year. While attending the Masters is amazing, for my money, there is nothing better than camping out on your couch, watching Sunday’s round on HDTV. So you have to endure a bit of Nantz, that’s OK.
Finally, it is interesting how one local coach impacts another in the Atlanta area. Georgia Tech hired former Dayton coach Brian Gregory and while that wasn’t necessarily the sexy pick (like Richmond’s Chris Mooney or VCU’s Shaka Smart would have been), several writers in the area seem fine with that, almost excited even. Georgia’s Mark Fox is to thank for that, I do believe. At the time, Fox was Georgia’s fourth(?) option for coach, but he took the gig and in year two had Georgia Big Dancin’. Now the AJC’s Mark Bradley says of Gregory, “Tech didn’t need a hot coach. It needed a competent one. It found him.”Bradley would go on to say Tech fans may be disappointed with the choice, but once they see him play, they will change their minds. “Gregory’s guys are going to get after it good.”
Doug Roberson of the AJC was quick to bring up Gregory’s record against teams from the Big Six conferences over the last four years and his seven wins against ranked teams during his Dayton tenure.
And Jeff Schultz declared of Gregory, “Does he get a lot of people excited? Judging by the reaction when his name leaked out on Twitter a few days ago, no….But that doesn’t mean Gregory can’t win everybody over.” Schultz admitted that Georgia Tech whiffed by not securing Mooney. He also went on to once again throw out there that Georgia has passed Tech in terms of balance of power within the Peach State. Some may think that is unfair but Fox has taken his team to the tournament already. Perhaps the jury will be out until after Gregory’s second season. Needless to say, the pressure is already on.
Can You Believe He Said That
“You’re gonna like the way he talks.”
That was the hard-hitting analysis from David Pollack in regards to Georgia Tech’s new basketball coach Brian Gregory. Several years back Pollack & Bell interviewed the former Dayton coach and both remarked that he sounded like Joe Pesci. I guess the voice is all Pollack remembered. Perhaps next year you should go to the Cheetah and watch the basketball games instead of hanging out in your “sin-free environment,” so you can tell Yellow Jacket fans more than just he sounds like the bad guy from Home Alone.
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