March Sports.

So it's March Madness time again - you know what that means.. everyone acting like they really really care about college basketball.. and gambling being widely condoned by society at large for the only time all year. The trade-off college basketball made was mortgaging the regular season for 3 weeks of awesomeness at the end of the year. College basketball's regular season literally means nothing, if you're in a "power"/"big 6"/BCS conference, and you win 2/3rds of your games, you will be in the field of 64. Considering most "big" schools have at least 10 home games against typically lesser opponents at the open of every season, if you win the bulk of these and go over .500 in your conference, you're in the tournament. Conference tournaments have allowed everyone to have a shot at getting in, but for small "mid-major" conferences like the MAC, they've created a situation in which the regular season means literally nothing, because a MAC team basically has to win the conference tourney to get the automatic bid. This is literally the exact opposite of college football, where regular season games are of the utmost importance and there is the complete opposite of any playoff, this is a situation where the playoff has entirely rendered the regular season moot. Does it now matter that Ohio State lost to West Virginia? Does it matter that North Carolina beat Michigan State? No. Not at all. If you are a "power" conference team: read: the only teams with realistic chances to win the national title, and you win 2/3rds of your games, you are in the tourney. Don't get me wrong, March Madness is a fun spectacle, maybe the best several weeks in sports, but it's exactly that, a spectacle, that cheapens the value of the rest of the season. If you're having conference tournaments, what's the point of regular-season titles? Is it just so we can act like coddling parents and give out more ribbons? At this point, aren't we just approaching that celebration of mediocrity known as the Olympics (more on that later) and handing out ribbons for doing "well"? Several annoying things happen during "March Madness", and I'll discuss them in turn.

* First is the "Super Bowl" effect, where people act like huge fans of teams they've never even shown a passing interest in before just because they're in the Final Four or on TV at the bar. I understand, it's fun to root for a team, but C'mon Son.. root for the team you've been rooting for all year, OR, if you don't even like college basketball, don't act like a huge fan when the tourney comes around... you poser, you.

* Second is the "everyone's an expert" effect, where because people entered into some office pool at school or work, everyone thinks we all need to know about their prognosis for what's going to happen. Listen, if there were a science to picking the bracket, it wouldn't be fun to do office challenges, so it's pretty much random. You don't need to lament Kansas' downfall or talk about how you picked Kentucky. Let me tell you how picking brackets work. 99% of people just pick all the #1s and maybe a #2 or two in the final four, unless you're a big fan of a team in the 3-6 range, at which point you advance the team you really like. Sounds pretty straight forward and boring to me.. so why does everyone go ga-ga over how well/poorly their bracket is doing? The lowest seed to ever win the championship was an 8... (Villanova - and they were out of the Big East) so right there, you can throw exactly half of the bracket out the window when it comes to picking your championship game, as they are also the lowest team to ever reach the title game. It's not THAT "crazy", for every UNI over Kansas, there are 10 UK over Cornells. I get really annoyed when every person in a pool becomes an amateur bracketologist.. "I picked _______ upset". Cool, dude. I said Lindsay Lohan was going to become an alcoholic whore in '05. I'm not some sage of hollywood careers over here, I just made an educated guess. It's not an indication of any "wisdom", it's a single elimination tournament, and it's not as random as the folks at CBS would like you to believe.

* Third is Verne Lundquist. I'm not sure how this idiot still has a job. He's completely inept and the absolute worst thing about CBS sports, whether we're talking about the NFL, SEC Football or NCAA basketball. How old is he nowadays? 97? He looks like Willard Scott. How many names can he fumble? Where's Tim Tebow so he can gush over the greatest man to ever walk across water? Sure Verne, you've been doing it forever, you're iconic, blah blah blah, but at some point doesn't someone have to step in and tell the Emperor he has no clothes? Why is sportscasting one of those jobs you're allowed to have as long as you want no matter how awful you are at it? Someone needs to take a stand on this one, start a letter writing campaign or something. He can become Tebow's PR man if he'd like - just get off of my TV.. please.

* The single most obnoxious thing is how CBS is not equipped at all to handle the first few rounds of the NCAA tournament. It's 2010, not 1990, why do we still have to put up with this nonsense of arbitrarily assigning games based on viewing era or being forced to watch high seeds stomp overmatched squads? Look at what ABC/ESPN do with college football and what NBC does with the Olympics, it is more than possible to air everything you have to offer if you have the proper infastructure in place. If CBS isn't going to step up and invest in some additional channels, the NCAA should drop CBS like a bad habit for failing to invest in their most profitable product. In this day and age, there's no reason you should have to go to a bar to watch the entirety of your teams' first round games or buy an expensive satellite package. If NBC can show curling on at 9 AM on CNBC, CBS can show Michigan State/Maryland SOMEWHERE. Another complaint - how does the technology not yet exist in the age of DVR and digital cable that you pick which game you want to watch when you turn it to CBS and multiple games are showing? It seems like it'd be so straight forward and obviously customer friendly. Well screw me for having a good idea.

One thing that's NOT overrated/lame about the NCAA tournament, and that's Gus "I get Buckets" Johnson, the single best sports broadcaster working today. (http://www.gusjohnsongetsbuckets.com/ for at least 15 minutes of fun) He brings just the right level of informed commentary, genuine excitement and passion for the game. You can tell that Gus Johnson just straight up loves basketball, the way many fans do, and that makes him endearing in a way a lot of broadcasters just can't pull off. Youtube some videos (here's a fun one)

Of Johnson at his best, and you'll see what I mean. I want this dude to broadcast my life... spice it up a bit.

Well, that was fun to whine and complain for a while... all that being said - Go Bucks.