Let the madness begin

By Piet Van Leer Sports Central Columnist

I was driving in the Bronx Thursday morning and I saw that the 3rd Ave. Bridge will be under construction until 2005. If it takes New York City three years to build a bridge, then how do they expect to host the Olympics? If you can't get cross-town now, how will it be when there are two billion more people around? How in the world did New York beat out San Francisco? Is the committee which appoints the U.S. bid run by the BCS?

What does any of this have to do with college hoops? Nothing, except that the only instability I like is during March Madness. I like the experimentation college basketball tries year after year. They realized that like the NBA, the college game was drawing stagnant. So to combat dull, repetitive play, college hoops will expand the lane and push back the three point arc, allowing for more movement inside, while simultaneously making the three-point shot more valuable.

The single most penultimate event in sports is the 64-team tournament college basketball puts forth yearly. Guaranteed rim-romping, uproarious games, which usually culminate with a fantastic climax... it is what every sport is out to try to become, especially college football.

Football kids itself in preserving the regular season. True, the college basketball regular season doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to, but there is some point to it. North Carolina not too long ago was on the verge of missing the tournament, snuck in with an eighth seed, and went to the Final Four. But a far more important point is, you want the teams playing their best to be in the last game of the year.

The problem in football is the BCS is so worried every year, hoping only two major programs go through the year undefeated to make the title game without controversy. Oregon had a legitimate shot last year of being cheated, as did Miami the year before them. In hoops, Oregon got to play Kansas in the Elite Eight, and lost. But at least they weren't shut out of the contest altogether.

Basketball eliminates the controversy, only adding intrigue, which is something every fan agrees is better. Duke/Indiana was a classic, which no one is bound to forget. But does anyone remember the Miami/Nebraska game with the same fondness? The only thing said about that game is if you give up 60+ points the game before, it seems that you probably shouldn't be invited to play in the title game.

Maybe the NBA would be more interesting if they adopted a one-and-done format? And nobody can possibly dispute a college football playoff is needed. So maybe if those two would like to increase their viewership, they could hop on-board with the rest of the educated sporting society, and adjust to the times, not the other way around. But it seems more likely that IOC will resemble the BCS than anything else.

So who's the preseason No. 1? Who cares? The real champion will be crowned at the end of the year, sans controversy.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.