Every time I try to watch college basketball, all I hear about
is brackets. Please make it stop.
This past week, a check of “bracketologists” gave me
absolutely no idea where UConn stood when it comes to the NCAA Tournament. They
were rated as high as an #8 seed by some, and not even in the tournament by
others.
What’s the point? I’m glad you asked. There is no point.
Except to get you to click on articles and share tweets on social media.
Joe Lunardi spawned the “bracketology” phenomenon in the
same way that Mel Kiper Jr spawned the “mock NFL drafts” phenomenon. The
difference is that Mel was actually pretty accurate in his early predictions,
which led to his rise. Joe Lunardi is apparently just friends with people at
ESPN.
Did you know that Lunardi has correctly predicted all 68
teams once – yes, once! – since the bracket expanded in 2011. That’s a full
decade where he is batting .100 and yet ESPN devotes endless hours of broadcast
time to him. Each network and sports site has their own “bracketologist” who
likewise are merely guessing like the rest of us.
Now if these articles and predictions were confined to the
sites and Twitter, I probably wouldn’t care. A lot of dumb stuff gets posted
online. Heck look at my site!
What is ruining the sport of college basketball is how these
bracket people have infiltrated actual telecasts of games. I just want to watch
UConn play basketball! I do not care what someone thinks of their NCAA
Tournament positioning unless there are an actual member of the NCAA Tournament
committee.
During a recent game between Alabama and Arkansas, ESPN had
the nerve to put up a quote by Joe Lunardi that said, “Alabama cannot ascend to
the 1-seed line with a win.” Who the fuck cares? It’s late February. There are
many more games to go before the bracket is filled out by the committee. Does
anyone think that this one game will decide Alabama’s seeding fate?
On Monday night, ESPN showed the “progression” of Oklahoma’s
season, starting with them being one of the first four out in early January.
First four out of what? There are better ways to say “Oklahoma improved” then referring
to fake brackets after teams played about 10 games.
It’s ruining the sport by setting all these false
expectations about things that have no basis in reality. Is Michigan State in
or out of the tournament? Ha, trick question! The season is still going on and
there is no bracket.
For the rest of the teams, we only know that they’re on the
bubble. That’s it. Joe Lunardi and Michael DeCourcy and all the
“bracketologists” do not know anything more than the average college basketball
fans does. We’re all guessing. It could be fun, and it used to be. That fun is
being sucked out of the game.
The NCAA Tournament remains one of the country’s great, if
not greatest, sporting events. It’s so great that it completely overshadows college basketball’s regular season. Already on the ropes for years, the
endless bracket talk turns the last month of the season into the worst month of
the season.
Why can’t we just watch basketball? Why can’t we just enjoy the games and evaluate the results after the game?
Every time ESPN cuts into game play to show an interview
with a guy who knows as much as me about the NCAA Tournament, I change the
channel.
The only opinions that matter come from the NCAA Tournament
committee. I love their reveal of the Top 16 seeds and think they should do
that more often, if only to blunt the impact of these paid amateur
bracketologists.
College basketball is
being stifled by forced debate on tournament brackets that literally do not
exist in reality. Please, please make it stop.
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