My System for Fixing a March Madness Deficiency

(this was the only ncaa basketball pic I could find in my folder of already-used blog photos. It's Miami University coach Charlie Coles. Who still needs to endorse a line of charcoal called CHARlieCoals.)

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, AndyDisco on Twitter


I am not trying to pick on this particular sports figure, but he's the only "pro" whose final four picks I have in front of me, and he successfully predicted 0 of them, having only two of his final four teams make the Elite 8. It also helps that I just saw him on tv telling me who would win on Monday. His advice wound up in my mental garbage can.

His Final Four? Kansas, Kentucky, Kansas State, Villanova.

The pro? Dick Vitale. I wrote a column a few years ago where I said I kinda like Dick Vitale now. Sure he screams and adores the ACC, but I can think of worse attributes a commentator can have. The ACC has been the most entertaining conference for the past 20 years and we all know it. I don't mind Vitale's love of Duke either: everyone loves Mark Few and Gonzaga, and the Butler story is great too. But what is Duke, if not a program that started off exactly like those programs, yet rose to be a college powerhouse right alongside the most storied programs in the history of college basketball like Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA and Indiana. So we are all happy for Butler, but we'd hate them if they did this 10 times in the next 20? Why? At point did their winning become burdensome to the viewer? Plus Coach K. is a West Point grad.

Anyway, my point is that ESPN and other sports media should do something to curtail the talking heads who clearly had no idea what would happen in this tournament. What makes Vitale worth listening to when I had one final four team and he had none? They need to do a better job of "riding the hot hand" and letting another talking head who didn't get the game wrong talk his piece. Conversely, what if you knew there was some 26 year old forklift operator in Missouri who successfully picked all either Elite 8 teams in his office pool. Wouldn't you rather listen to his final four analysis than someone with Vitale's bracket?

Much like March Madness itself, I wish the NCAA commentary were elimination-based as well. Say maybe ESPN takes all their college guys- Vitale, Digger, Gotlieb, Hubert Davis, Bilas, Jay Williams, Andy Katz and the other college basketball talking heads I am forgetting, and once the tourney is down to the Elite 8 have them fill out the bracket from there. If you incorrectly pick a game wrong (say for instance I'm an ESPN panelist and I selected Baylor to beat Duke) I should be disallowed from commenting on the advancing team (in this case, Duke) for the remainder of the tourney. If I saw Duke's first three tourney wins and still don't know them enough to be able to pick them correctly in their 4th, I obviously don't know them too well. I must either not know their true capabilities, or worse, have no valuable predictive knowledge of them. Wouldn't their incorrect prediction PROVE that?

IF someone had Northern Iowa over Kansas (and I don't blame anyone for getting it wrong), wouldn't they be the only person you would want to hear assess their chances in their next game against Michigan State? Dick Vitale thought Kansas would be in the final game, how are you expected to care about what Vitale assumes will be their chances against MSU?

Now you read that and you're saying, "Your idea is stupid because if that were the case, by your own admission, the Northern Iowa/MSU game would have no pre-game analysis." Wrong. That was before the Elite 8. Crazy things make March Madness great and they happen, ideally, every year. But few truly inexplicable things happen after the Elite 8. And, on the rare chance when a George Mason does beat a UConn to go to the Final Four and everyone is wrong, then everyone gets a do-over, since no one has proven to be any more or less adept at knowing that surprising team. But if there are 10 panelists, and only two get it right, how can I listen to the other 8 tell me about this team? I just want to hear the two correct guys talk the whole time.

It isn't that I hold ESPN talking heads to a higher standard of sports clairvoyance than I hold myself, but that's also how life works. If you and I are deciding where to get dinner, and I let you pick the place and we both find band aids in our food and we get mugged in the parking lot, guess what I am going to say if you try to recommend the next restaurant? Maybe you let me pick the restaurant this time. Or if I ask someone to be my wingman and that results in him getting wasted, and telling women a series of embarrassing stories about me that get drinks thrown in my face, I will ask someone else to by wingman next time. Someone who has an idea what's going on. That is how the world works. You may have heard this theory before under the name "Natural selection".

That system would be very true to March Madness. Just as teams ride the player with the hot hand, so should ESPN, and, just like how in March Madness, the weak teams are eliminated, so too should ESPN.







That's how I roll.