Maybe I’m getting old, but what was wrong with waiting until the NCAA Tournament Selection Show to find out the top seeds and how the brackets lay out for March Madness?
It has just been announced that the NCAA selection committee will begin unveiling the seeding of some of the top tourney teams on February 11th.
“We are excited about giving the fans a glimpse to what the men’s basketball committee is thinking at this point of the season, and creating a buzz as we look towards Selection Sunday,” said Mark Hollis, chair of this year’s selection committee. “It’s important to recognize after this list has been released, there is still a significant portion of the regular season to be played and every league must stage its conference tournament. There’s potential for quite a bit of movement until we do it for real March 12, but this early peek will give everyone insight as to where the committee stands as we hit the stretch run of the regular season.”
With the College Football Playoff rankings revealing early brackets and projections, interest around the sport has increased and television ratings have seen tremendous boosts as analysts debate the merits of each squad ad nauseam: who’s in, who’s out, who’s more deserving, blah blah blah.
Now that the top-16 teams will be announced a month before the actual madness of March commences, the debates will rage all the way through Selection Sunday. It makes for great television and discussion, but seems the cheapen the experience of what made Selection Sunday so dope. Oh well, out with the old and in with the new.
Of course, as in college football, the early seeds mean nothing in terms of what the final bracket will look like, as there will be plenty of meaningful basketball and conference tournaments that will certainly shake up how teams are ultimately viewed at season’s end.
Fans should enjoy the new format and the bird’s eye view it brings of what the selection committee is thinking. Expect the buzz to ratchet up much earlier than the past, with TV ad sales and network bracketologists benefiting the most. As for me, I’ll take a wait and see approach to ascertain if it’s great for the fans.
I really liked things the way there were. But as Sam Cooke once crooned, Change is Gonna Come. So might as well get with the program.
