The Soft Bubble

The above phrase appears redundant.  Actually ridiculous might be the better "r" word to describe it.   What in the world would a "hard" bubble be like?

But its self-redundancy (or "anti-oxymoron", if you will), is only part of the problem.  The bigger picture is that it represents all that has gone wrong with our approach to a 68-team field for the NCAA Tournament.  "OUR" approach?  Ok, I'm guessing the dear reader is not sitting up late at night putting their own bracketology spin on the current state of the March Madness picture.  Or giving minute by minute updates of who is in and who is out based on one game which then changes thirty minutes later when another team wins or loses.  But the problem is becoming epidemic and it threatens to further saturate an already bloated concept.  And the move to 68 teams is to blame.

Take a look at "Bracketology".  An interesting concept that started, I believe, with Mr. Joe Lunardi from the 4-letter.com.  A full blown NCAA bracket, updated twice weekly in the heat of the college basketball season that seeds and matches up everyone he thinks is in the tournament based on RPI, SOS, good wins, bad losses--essentially what the BCS would be if it were manually put together in someone's basement (like maybe one belonging to Joe's parents).  The additional tidbit Mr. Lunardi added is the "Last Four In, First Four Out", a high-level analysis of how the bubble looks at a given point of time.  Basketball nerds obsess over every little detail (read the comments if you don't believe me) as if the tournament started tomorrow (which if you are reading this on Monday, March 18th, it essentially does).  I find it a mildly entertaining tool (no pun intended) to monitor how the world sees my favorite teams, the mid-majors and the current state of the bubble. 

Enter 68 teams.

Where do I start?  Basement Joe has added a "Next Four Out" section which means he not only tells you who fell just short (which are already bad teams) but also the next four teams who fell just short of falling short.  The rest of us refer to them as the "First Eight" (under the heading of "NIT").  He even stooped low enough this past weekend to add one team under the heading of "Also Considered" after the "Next Four Out".  Why do I know this?  Because that team was Iowa.  Presumably the team that would have fallen just short had we expanded to 76 teams.  As an Iowa fan, I'm embarrassed.  Would I love to see them in the tournament?  Sure but not under those circumstances.  Losses to Virginia Tech, Purdue, Nebraska, and Minnesota with no big "ranked" wins (Minnesota should never have been ranked) is not a team that deserves to be in the tournament. 

To add to the lunacy is the concept of "byes".  As you know, the three additional teams resulted in four "play-in" games prior to Thursday's actually Madness (two games on a Tuesday night do not a Madness make).  Basement Joe has added a section entitled "Last Four Byes"--essentially the last four teams that made it to Thursday/Friday without having to play in a play-in game.  Think about this for a second.  If there are eight teams playing four games, the remaining 60 teams all have "byes".  It is at this point that we have reached absurdity.  A "bye" infers an advantage.  It infers a reward.  When 56 of the 60 teams receiving byes are playing another team with a "bye" in the "Second Round" (don't get me started), there is no advantage.  When 60 of the 68 teams have a "bye", there is no reward.  Why in the hell would I care who got the last four byes?  It is a meaningless concept.

And the "bubble" rarely has mid-majors listed.  Presumably because the elite only think that one or two teams per mid-major conference is enough.  In fact, the ones that make the list are never on the bubble-- because they need to prove themselves completely whereas weak major conference teams use the bubble as their playground.  And grumble when they are NIT-bound.  If a mid-major were just good enough to be included in the discussion, it would most likely be outside even the "Also Considered" category.  Meanwhile, the Big East sends eight.  The same conference that only sent two of ten to the Sweet Sixteen in 2011.  And five of those eight losses were to mid-majors.

In short, these examples show how bad the bubble has become under the 68-team concept.  The reason they show so many teams now is that by the time you get to the "mediocre" middle-of-the-pack, every team looks like every other team.  Better put---not a team that has any chance of making a run to the title.  VCU's run from the First Four to the Final Four in 2011 only proves that mid-majors are more than just bubble teams when given a chance.  Especially when their run was stopped by another mid-major, Butler, in the National Semifinals.

Perhaps the best part of Basement Joe's additions to his Madness version of the BCS is that it badly exposes the lunacy we have reached with March Madness.  The true "Madness" is quickly becoming the analysis of mediocrity.

Peace,
Reg