FINISH LINE: Wofford is shining example of why the NCAA Tournament shouldn’t expand

Barking up the wrong tree

Miami Herald columnist Greg Cote thinks the NCAA Tournament is going to the dogs, especially if it expands. Let him explain:

“Congratulations to the Wofford Terriers. Tag, you’re it. You are the Cinderella-designate of this year’s NCAA Tournament in men’s basketball — the annual charming underdog that embodies why so many find March Madness so fascinating.

“Here’s what else you are, Wofford:

“The latest example of why even 65 teams are too many, a bloated bracket, and why the plainly money-driven plan to increase the field to 96 by as soon as next year is lunacy.

“First, a word about Wofford, of Spartanburg, S.C., celebrating the school’s first time in the Tournament preparatory to its 53-point opening-round loss. Its enrollment is 1,450, or roughly the size of a University of Miami keg party. Wofford’s chances of winning a game in the Big Dance approximate the likelihood Sudan would have won Winter Olympic gold in men’s halfpipe snowboarding.

“‘Oh but that’s not the point!” cry the champions of the downtrodden little guy.’

“Well it should be, say I.

“The NCAA Tournament should be streamlined to include only teams that have proved themselves worthy of a bona fide national championship shot — not expanded by nearly 50 percent to include even more unqualified dreamers in on pity passes and trotted out as turkeys on a parade to Thanksgiving.

“The Cinderella Fallacy cannot be emphasized enough.

“The Woffords have no chance. The charmed media always pretends as if they do. They do not. In real life, a grinning Goliath effortlessly squashes poor David under his enormous sandal and casually uses the slingshot as a toothpick.

“In real life, a regional No. 16 seed has never beaten a No. 1 seed. Not once. Together, the Nos. 15-16 seeds have a Tournament record of 4-192. A team seeded 14th has reached even as far as the Sweet 16 only twice, and not since 1997.

“Villanova won the championship in 1985 as a No. 8, the lowest seed ever to reign. But that’s a pedigreed program from a major basketball conference. That isn’t Wofford.

“The point is that truly shocking upsets rarely happen, and probably say as much about the overestimation of the choking shock-ee as about the validated might of the shock-er.

“So many automatic bids go to small conferences (such as Wofford’s) and so many invites go to midpack teams from major conferences that the early part of the Tournament essentially is little more than a weeding-out process until the real, quality event begins about the round of 32.

“Further diluting the overall quality with an increase to 96 teams would mean 28 percent of the 346 Division 1 men’s basketball teams would get in.

“Why stop there! Why not 128 teams! Or 256! How about we invite 345 teams (including the ever-essential “play-in game”) and hold an annual national festival mocking the one team not invited.

“Or at the very least, the number of teams should be flexible every year, capped off as soon as the Miami Hurricanes sneak in — one step ahead of the sad, snapping jaws of the dreaded National Invitation Tournament.

“This week’s Selection Sunday is one of the good days in sports because we get to debate all the close calls, the teams that maybe should have gotten in but didn’t. An increase to 96 teams would flip-flop that, with Selection Sunday instead producing a resigned consensus on all of the teams that should not have gotten in but did.

“That 28 percent overall figure actually is not out of whack with most professional leagues, but the significant difference is that pro sports do not see the raging disparity we see reflected in the NCAA Tournament.

“Lowest-seeded NFL teams occasionally reach the Super Bowl.

“Lowest-seeded NCAA Tournament teams are oh-for-forever.

“The chance of Wofford cutting down the nets to cap March Madness is only infinitesimally better than the chance of a really good Little League team marching through the MLB playoffs to a World Series title.

“There are quite enough Wofford Terriers, East Tennessee State Buccaneers, Murray State Racers and Northern Iowa Panthers in the Tournament as is without plumbing the fringes even further to glut the field to 96.

“Can you imagine? The bracket, physically, would become as large as a world map. National productivity in March-into-April would decline even more sharply as workers spent hours laboring in the expanded office pool.

“The top 32 teams would have a first-round bye as a 64-team dregs division fought to see who advanced though the morass of mediocrity. As if the current play-in game is not exciting enough to see which team ekes in 64th, imagine the excitement of a 96-team first round as schools seeded 51st and 78th overall dueled to see which would better atone for a generally disappointing season.

“March Madness still is one of the great national stages in all of sports.

“But making it bigger and bigger serves no purpose if that expanding stage is ever more crowded with pretenders acting as if they belong. And not very convincingly at that.”

PARTING SHOT

“He weighs about one dog less than he used to.”

— Kelly Williams

Telling the Anchorage Daily News about the success of an offseason diet undertaken by his partner and five-time Iditarod champ Rick Swenson.

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