A letter to the NCAA

By Piet Van Leer Sports Central Columnist

To the NCAA Selection Committee:

I understand that this is a time for jubilation. You got the national championship you so desperately craved, Kansas vs. Syracuse. You had two of the sports' best coaches, neither with an NCAA title, so one of them would finally drop the mantle of best coach without a title, yada, yada, yada. On top of that, you had the story that wouldn't go away -- will Roy Williams go home to North Carolina?

But even with all of that just completed, it's never too early to start thinking about next year, particularly if you happen to be a Bluegrass sympathizer. So here are some improvements that could be made for next year's tournament:

1. Eliminate the pods. It's too confusing. The South is playing in Spokane, Washington, the East is in Oklahoma, cats and dogs living in harmony, etc. It's way too confusing. I understand you wanted to cut down on travel expenses, but instead of using pods to alleviate expensive airfares, why don't you take some of the billions CBS is paying you and use that towards the school's travel budget. And it's not like when I say a billion, I'm grossly exaggerating a large sum of money -- CBS has literally paid you more than one billion dollars for television rights.

2. No more preferential seeding. Texas should not have been a one. I know that, you know that, Terry Bradshaw knows that. Kansas had the superior resume, and thus should have received the last top-seed. But because the South regional was in the Alamodome, you wanted Texas there to ensure sellouts for both days. Odds are, you're going to sellout anyway, so you shouldn't have to manipulate the seeding process.

3. Keep the giants apart. Granted, Arizona and Kentucky fell short of the Final Four, but if they hadn't, everyone would have been screaming even more than the night the draw was unveiled. When you have two teams who have been No. 1 and No. 2 all year, do what you have to do in order to ensure they won't meet in the semifinals?

4. Make the play-in game the last two at-large berths. Alabama vs. BYU should have been the one this year, not two schools that won their small conferences. The small schools are going to be slated to play a No. 1 seed anyway, so why not make the play-in worthwhile? Plus, it allows the small schools the chance to be a part of the tournament, instead of the NCAA's version of Tuesday Night Fights.

All in all, however, at least there is a tournament. Just think, we could be frustrated into watching a BCS-type selection process that would have pitted Arizona and Kentucky in the final, thereby eliminating any chance of the drama that was exhibited in the tourney. So thank you for three weeks of fun and see you next year on Selection Sunday.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.