As the NCAA college basketball tournament starts, much has been written about the NCAA possibly expanding from 64 to 96 teams. Some of the objections highlight what's supposedly a weaker field this year (though yesterday's very entertaining games suggest otherwise), but basing long-term policy on short-term conditions is foolish. The reactions of Times' sports columnists helps reveal who they are: George Vecsey, that lover of folly, wit, great irony and great games, calls it as it is, saying the expansion would be done purely for the NCAA to make more money on its TV contract, while "the math just does not work with a possible glut of 96 teams" -- to say nothing of "the poetry, the panache, the pizazz" that would evaporate. William Rhoden, who writes most vociferously for including social justice in sports, counters by arguing an expanded tournament would give more unsung teams a chance to shine.
Rhoden's interpretation is naive. With more slots, who is the NCAA going to invite: The equivalent of the University of Northern Iowa, St. Mary's or Morgan State (his alma mater), aka the little-known upstarts whose only moment in the sun comes in the tournament's first weekend? Or Clemson, Arizona State, and their ilk, aka major universities with major but mediocre sports programs that have tens of thousands of fans who will travel to first-round games? Of course, the answer is the latter. Unfortunately, money trumps charm, more often than not.
What's beautiful about the tournament is the element of risk: Maybe the No. 15 seed Robert Morris will improbably upset No. 2 seed Villanova, as almost happened last night. Maybe UNI's guard will hit a 28-foot jumper with less than a second in the game to defeat UNLV, as what happened last night. The first two days of the tournament, when there are games galore happening all of the time, are unrivaled -- each possession weighted with such importance; a rollicking up-and-down game whose energy more than compensates for its sloppy nerve; love and passion. With 96 teams, there will be lots with records barely above .500 but large, wealthy fan bases and power conferences' institutional powers playing pedestrian games, usurping the chance for an underdog to create something wonderful, sweaty and inimitable.
More importantly when it comes to college sports, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan suggested recently that teams that don't graduate at least 40 percent of their players shouldn't be allowed to play in "March Madness." Actually: Why not make it 100 percent, minus those who leave for the NBA early and are drafted? If a university can't provide its students, including its athletes, with a collegiate education, it's not fulfilling its core mission. Why then should it get to enjoy the lucrative but peripheral benefits of sports?
My fiancee's stepfather and I were talking earlier today about this. He suggested all players should have to go to college for four years before graduating. I initially disagreed, saying that blocking NBA-caliber players from entering the NBA early is unfair. They're stopped from earning millions of dollars during their prime, in a career whose earning years are hyper-compressed and whose dollars are rarely guaranteed. But now that I think about it, as much fun as college basketball is, why not truly commit to the idea that universities exist to educate? This way, when even the successful NBA players retire at 35 years old, they have other marketable skills and continue to earn money through their adult lives, to say nothing of the players who stop playing ball when they're 22 and don't have anything else to fall back on.
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