After the uproar from the 2003 NCAA Tournament when Arizona and Kentucky (the teams most everyone thought were #1 & 2) were bracketed to meet in the national semifinals, the NCAA has made some changes. From ESPN.com:

Changes for NCAA Tournament

It sounds like a step in the right direction. But, of course, now that the committee will decide who they think are numbers 1 and 2, there will be more controversy to add to the bubble teams that didn't make it. Most of the time though, the number 1 and 2 teams don't both make it, so we can still have the first and third best teams play each other and the twentieth and fortieth best teams play each other in the semifinals. I guess the NCAA Selection Committee isn't ready to mess up the bracket pools just yet.

I may be a minority of one,but I don't like the idea.I like the way things have always panned out with the rotating brackets.It's certainly more fair than arbitrarily deciding that 2 teams "deserve" a supposedly easier path to the championship game.Not only was I not disappointed that Kentucky and Arizona did not meet for the championship,I was ecstatic that neither of these overrated "media-darlings" even got to the Final 4.
:cool:

We have reached the age of parity in college hoops.There aren't really better teams when you get to the tournament-just teams that match up better and are able to perform better than their opponent.The polls are a nice guidestick,but they are no means indicative of which teams would emerge victorious in a head to head battle.I'd say about half of the 64 team field are basically equal calibre teams,with a realistic shot of winning the title.There were some VASTLY overrated conferences (no offense SEC fans ) last year,which meant teams from those conferences were given preferential seedings and advantages they may not have deserved.Why the rush to make it even easier for often overrated teams to get to the championship? The number 1 seeds already have a huge inherent advantage. eek! :confused: If a team truly is the best team,they'll more than likely find a way to make it to the title game. :cool:

Bravo Tim! -- and for the record you most assuredly are NOT "a minority of one" as far as this issue is concerned....I heard this announcement this morning on ESPN radio and thought it was a joke from minute one for the precise reasons that you so eloquently stated....the NCAA can sugar-coat it as much as they want but make no mistake about it -- this is driven solely by money, money and more money (do you suppose CBS had some input into this decision considering the multi-billion contract they signed to televise March Madness? :confused: ) with the NCAA hoping that this will result in more "top teams" reaching the Final Four.

To echo Tim's sentiments, I was thrilled that neither Arizona nor Kentucky reached the Final Four this year, as all the "experts" were certain they would -- in fact, after the brackets were announced on Selection Sunday and Dickie V, Andy Katz, Digger Phelps and all the prognosticators on ESPN were bemoaning over and over again about how terrible it was that 'Zona and UK would not be able to meet in the championship game, my immediate reaction was who's to say they'll both even make it to the Final Four anyway, which they seemed to view as a foregone conclusion.

I even think the renaming of the brackets for the cities where the regional finals are being held (which will now change every year, further adding to the confusion) instead of keeping the existing geographical names is absolutely ridiculous, too -- didn't anyone with the NCAA ever hear of the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

Oh well, maybe I'm just an old fashioned sports fan who doesn't like change ....but in my view this is just another step by the NCAA to make it more difficult for the "little guy" to succeed -- all under the not so subtle disguise of maximizing their revenue and television dollar....not surprisingly, these ridiculous policies have become much more prevalent since Miles Brand took office last year -- didn't he do enough harm and demonstrate his inept managerial skills during his tenure at IU? :confused:

As far as keeping the 1-2 teams in different halves of the bracket I'm all for it ... sure it was sweet for Zona and UK to get knocked out before the final 4, but remember Kentucky-UMass in the 90's, or the uproar that would've ensued had Duke-UConn been a national semi game in '99 instead of title ... now the city naming regionals, I give that one a big "buzzer"

This might be the mighty Arizona and Kentucky alumni(and the like) of the world, twisting many NCAA committee arms their way!! Being a huge college basketball fan, I don't like the sound of this at all.

[ July 08, 2003, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: SmoothRon ]

I'm not so sure that trying to arrange a potential #1 vs. #2 in the national championship game (should those teams advance, whoever they may be) is a change for the worse. In theory, anyway, it sounds like an logical extension of what the selection committee allegedly tries to do each year, by slotting the four "best" teams as #1 seeds, then the next four as #2 seeds, and so on. It's certainly better than the mess college football has in trying to crown a national champion, but I guess that's beside the point. And before Tim calls me out as a "pigf**ker" again :mad: , I admit I'm an alum of UK. I don't see how Arizona or UK alumni twisting arms could play into it, since there's no way to change what happened back in March, and also no guarantee if/when either school will be back in the Final Four. Hypothetically, say the top two teams in the polls at the end of the season are Florida and Oregon by a wide margin over #3, and say it's a year where the formerly-known-as-West played the formerly-known-as-South in the semis. I would expect a big fuss to be made, not just by alumni and fans of those two schools, but fans of the sport everywhere, if they both advanced and had to play each other before the champoinship game. But there's no perfect way to do much of anything...at least they don't still play the first two rounds at the home court of the top seeds, like the women's tourney still does.

As for changing the directional labels, well, IMHO that's just stupid. I can see me calling my mom to get her picks in my personal hoops pool next March and saying, "OK, who do you like in the East Rutherford New Jersey region?" Aside from the top seeds, and a few others who won their conference or had a good year, the dircetions mean nothing and everybody seems to know this. I had to try to explain this concept to my ex back when he was my boyfriend, since he didn't care much about sports at all, and he couldn't get past why Old Dominion was in the West region (I'm guessing, but it was something like that). I finally gave up and just said, "because that's the way they do it, OK?" It would be pretty easy to keep that relatively meaningless direction on each region, if for no other reason than just simplifying life for all of us who fill out our brackets.

homr33- I agree with you. I would like for one of the committee members to give a thorough explanation for the directional label change. After thinking about all of this and the impact it has on the tourney, I can somewhat understand the #1 and #2 seed format changes, but am completely dumbfounded by the directional label change.

[ July 09, 2003, 06:44 AM: Message edited by: SmoothRon ]

Given the number of upsets every year in the NCAA "madness" I don't think making the change to attempt to get the #1 and #2 teams to potentially meet in the final will have that much an impact on the overall tournament. But I don't see any reason for the change either, it seems like a lot of work for nothing. As I understand it, basketball rankings are basically the opinions of sports writers, and basketball is only slightly better than college football at this task because there are more games, and therefore experience, to go on. But we have all heard the controversies about whether a loss to a "good" team should count for less than a loss to a "bad" team and whether certain schedules are harder or not. IMHO the top 10 teams are about equal.

As for the directional name change - WTF?! Sure, the regions mean nothing, but it is an easy way to remember the pools. If they really want to get away from regions, how about Bracket A, B, C and D?

Dang homr-was that you? :confused: :confused: I had forgotten that you were a dreaded UK fan. wink I think the quality of your posts has so far exceeded what I would expect from a UK grad,that I actually thought you were from a real school.

I think gamecock makes some excellent points, especially about this decision being money driven. I think the people crying wolf the loudest about the tragedy of the 2 Cats not being able to face each other for the title were the commentators-not the fans.It was nauseating the way they kept fawning over those teams,as if everyone else was essentially crashing their party.I thought it was insulting to the rest of us,because I thought those teams were so overrated and I basically posted so all season long. Obviously they weren't the 2 best teams-UK couldn't even take advantage of the fact that they were gifted with the top seed in the "weakest" regional. eek!

I didn't see any team as superior last year- everybody won and lost games that defied logic.I did have Kansas and Syracuse slated for the title game (in my Outsports brackets),but that was based on the individual bracket lineups and who would face who.It just strikes me as another unfair advantage in favor of the number 1 seeds-they already have the supposedly "easiest" path to the crown.And make no mistake about it,what they are eventually looking for is to be able to re-seed the Final 4.Again,a move that distinctly favors the higher seeded teams,and makes it harder for the underdog to win.It ain't broke-so why this rush to "fix" it. :confused:

What I don't understand is the timing of this decision. If the change had been announced before both 'Cats had been knocked out, I would understand it. But the NCAA officials saw what happened. The media darlings both lost. This new change would have been irrelevant.

As for the name change - utterly moronic. Not only will the regions have stupid-sounding names, but they will change every time the venue moves. Are these people smoking crack or what?

Here's a thought. Imagine how the banners will look when NCAA teams hang them from the rafters in 2004. Just think: Iowa State: Atlanta Regional Champions, or Florida State: East Rutherford Regional Finalist. Ok, I know they're far fetched (hey, I gotta give my schools props), but it's gonna look utterly stupid!

Uhhhhh.....thanks? It almost sounds like a compliment buried in there somewhere, so I'll take it that way wink . Seriously, though, I appreciate the kind words. Your posts are consistently on-point and obviously well researched. I could add "impressive for a hoosier!" but -- oh wait I just did, didn't I?

Speaking of on-point, my knowledge of (and interest in) college hoops only dates back to about the mid-70s. I know this isn't the first time the NCAA has tinkered with the tournament. Personally I think they should not bother with the play-in game at all, but one of these years...nahhh, it'll never happen. I think the change to 64 teams happened about 20 years ago, but can anybody confirm if the men's tournament did in fact play the first few rounds on the home court of the top seeds, and if so when they discontinued this? Also, did they used to re-seed after certain rounds? I like the mapped out approach to it that they currently use, since at least that gives the illusion of fairness. Also, they're pretty smart trying to distance conference foes as much as possible from the powerhouses (SEC, Pac 10, Big 10...oh yeah, if the Big 10 is so smart, how come they can't count to 11?) Sorry. couldn't resist that one. If anybody knows the answers to these questions, I'd be grateful.

They should just give the regional brackets names like the NHL used to name their conferences. Why settle for city names when you could have the Smith, Krzyzewski, Knight, and Petino regionals. Those are just examples mind you.