Madness

I'm not crazy about cliches, but Madness is such a good description of what goes on the next 3 weeks, especially this Thursday and Friday, I'll keep using it. A few thoughts:

When I retire, among the first places I want to go is Vegas for the opening weekend. Been? What's it like?

The best 2 days in sports are Thursday and Friday of this week. The best activity in sports is bellying up to the sports bar at noon with your bracket(s) and taking in 4 games at once.

Why do they have to start the title game so late (9:21)? No other sport has this late a start time. Nobody wants to stay up until almost midnight on a Monday night.

Are you with J. Boeheim in wanting more (many more) teams in the tournament? Not me. I get that more schools are D-1 than when the Madness went to 65, and parity has become a (bigger) fact of life. But let's reward due diligence between November and March. The best event in sports needs no tweaking.

The only irritant in March (not including D. Vitale and B. Raftery) is coaches control-freaking so many games by calling timeouts every 5 or 10 seconds. Here's a thought: Trust the players you recruited, signed and coach. If they're down 1 with 15 seconds to play and get a rebound, let them play. Calling a TO allows the other team to set its defense, so the advantage gained is minimal in most situations. Sometimes, their playing is better than your coaching.

Nothing kills drama in these games like excessive TO-calling. What is it, 5 TOs a team, plus the 4 TV TOs? That's potentially 18 play stoppages a half. Ridiculous. Basketball is a game of rhythm and flow. Don't ruin it by playing puppeteer.

We'll hear, if we havent already, that players should be paid. We'll hear about the NCAA's $6 billion deal with CBS while the poor players can't buy a cheeseburger or do their laundry. Just stop. They get tuition, room, board, books, tutors for zip. The best get 4 years (or however long they choose to stay) of a pro audition. If you think they should be paid, run that by a regular student working 25-30 hours a week waiting tables while taking a full course load.

Here's what the NCAA should do, though. Pay the transportation costs of parents/guardians to the Madness. That'd be a great gesture and wouldnt cost much.

Don't go nuts with the upsets. The committee knows what it's doing. It gets better at it every year.

If you must, I advise these bracket-busters: St. Joe's over Oklahoma. Davidson over Gonzaga. Either WVU in Round 2 or Xavier in Round 3 over Duke. I think the only 1 seed not in San Antonio is Memphis, which will lose either to Pitt or Texas.

If all of this happens, I will gloat until the Fourth of July. If none happens, I will disavow all knowledge.

Dah-dah-dah-dah-Dum-Dah-Dah-Dah.