The NCAA Cheated (moved from my family blog - April 2014)

I know that most of this has been discussed ad nauseum, but I haven't seen much discussion of the two topics being tied together. I feel compelled to add my 2 cents, so here goes.

When the bracket were released on March 16th, a LOT of people were shocked. The least offensive  were the  most common thing normally debated - the bubble teams.

BYU got in (with a 10 seed!) despite losing 11 games out of the West Coast Conference. Their signature win was evidently over Gonzaga, to whom they lost the other two times they met this year. Gonzaga was the only other WCC school to make the dance (they lost to #1 seed Arizona by 23 in the 2nd round after taking Marcus Smart and Oklahoma St. out 85-77 in the first). BYU lost to 7-seed Oregon by 19 in the first round.

SMU on the other hand did not get into the tournament even though they finished 23-9 in the American Athletic Conference - arguably a much stronger conference with 4 other teams getting in (Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and UConn). SMU went 4-4 against those teams during conference play. They were a 1 seed in the NIT, winning 4 games before losing to Minnesota by 2 in the final.

Bubble teams are a perennial point of discussion however, and there will always be teams that got lucky and others that feel slighted.

The true travesty in this year's tournament was the Midwest bracket. More specifically, the upper half of that bracket, which contained:

• The first team to finish a perfect regular season over 30 wins, Wichita State, as the 1 seed. Wichita did not play a difficult schedule, but they did defeat 3 NCAA tourney at-large teams, and they returned essentially the same team that reached the 2013 Final Four where they lost to eventual champ U of L in the Cardinals' most difficult game of the tournament.
• The defending National Champion Louisville Cardinals also show up in this half of the Midwest bracket, coming in winning 12 of their last 13. They went 29-5 overall and a held the #5 spot in the AP poll, which earned them a ponderous 4 seed.
• The 2012 National Champion Kentucky Wildcats, who finished the season at a disappointing 24-10. Despite going 1-3 against ranked teams out of conference (their only really good win during the year was over #6 Louisville), UK seemed to have turned the corner during the SEC conference tournament. They rolled through their first 2 games before losing to AP#1 Florida (for the third time) by 1 in the conference championship game. It would be pointless to argue that there was another team in the country that had more talent or potential than this UK team. Certainly this seeding brings into question the NCAA's decision to slot UMass at a 6 with their 24-8 record in the Atlantic 10. UMass's signature win was against #19 New Mexico, having lost their only other game against a ranked opponent in their season finale against St. Louis.

So Wichita State's reward for not losing a game in 34 attempts was to potentially meet the most talented team in the bracket (at least the one with the most future NBA players) in the second round, followed by the team that put them out the previous year just to get to the regional final.

Where they would most likely meet Michigan, the #2 seed in the Midwest (Duke was the #3, but as is often the case with Duke they lost in the first round, this year to the #14 seed Mercer). Michigan is coming off of a national final loss in 2013, finishing the season at 25-8 in a very solid Big 10.

So why would the NCAA put these teams through this kind of gauntlet? The answer lies in the following statistics:

• South Regional Final (Memphis/ Pyramid) - attendance 15,443
• East Regional Final (New York/ MSG) - attendance 19,499
• West Regional Final (Anaheim/ Honda Center) - attendance 17,814
• Midwest Regional Final (Indianapolis/ Lucas Oil) - attendance 35,551

For those of you who do math, there were approximately twice as many tickets sold for the one regional that was being held in a dome - the Midwest. How do you guarantee to sell tickets? Put teams there that people care about and make the matchups interesting. I would bet that the TV ratings were similar.

When the selection committee was putting the brackets together, you know the scenarios below were considered:

• Wichita vs U of L? Rematch of last year's final four game - great! U of L is perennially top 3 in attendance, and Wichita travels incredibly well (39th in home attendance, 19th overall in 2013).
• UK vs. U of L? Even better! UK ranks first in home attendance, and the Dream Game is always interesting!
• U of L vs. Michigan would then be a rematch of last year's national final.
• UK vs. Duke to go to the Final Four? I think that would make CBS happy.

Skeptical? Consider two articles published in Sunday's New York Times.

This article discusses the corporate sponsorship from at least 19 major partners and how the players get no benefit. But my takeaway - one that I first heard mentioned on local talk radio - was security telling a Wisconsin player that he couldn't  bring his bottle of Nestle Pure Life water into a closed shootaround before the Baylor game because it was "against NCAA rules (Powerade/ Coca-Cola would have been OK). The anecdote I heard on the radio was the same rule for a radio broadcaster - nowhere near the sidelines.

The second article starts with quotes from a few fans that watched the final four games at AT&T Stadium (the 105,000 seat stadium hosting the event). They all say essentially the same thing: The seats suck. What's driving this idiotic trend? What else? Profit.

Clark Kellogg, a CBS basketball analyst, nailed it when he said, “The game of basketball is meant to be played in an intimate setting, but we’ve obviously squeezed all of the toothpaste out of that tube.”

You would have a hard time convincing me that the seedings - and thus the results - would have been the same had money not been a factor. UK beat 3 Final Four-caliber teams just to get into the Final Four. Wisconsin beat one (maybe) in Arizona. Florida beat zero (UCLA and then Dayton). Connecticut easily had the second-hardest path going through a very weak #2 seed Villanova and #3 Iowa St. before beating the popular pick to win it all, Michigan St.


The NCAA cheated deserving teams out of an opportunity to play in a regional final in order to maximize their profit, and winning those games are what elite teams are ultimately remembered for and judged on.

Along the tortuous path, UK lost their defensive anchor Willie Cauley-Stein and had worrisome injuries to Aaron Harrison, Julius Randle and Alex Poythress. Everyone appeared healthy (other than WCS) for the championship game, but they didn't have enough to complete the comeback one last time and UConn won 60-54. I think it was more the freshman vs. seniors angle than the injuries, and I think UConn would have won the game 7 times out of 10. UConn deserved this championship, and UK deserved to be in the game. My hat's off to both of them for a stellar March run.

But as I watch the nets being cut down, I can't help but notice they are standing on a Werner ladder.