If all the ingredients in a recipe are excellent, then the final
product has to turn out excellent, right?
Wrong.
In essence, the NCAA is trying to combine prime rib and maple
syrup and is failing miserably.
The prime rib is the old philosophy the NCAA used to make
postseason brackets ““Â nationalization. Geography
didn’t matter at all, and teams were grouped together solely
on how good they were.
The maple syrup is the new philosophy ““ regionalization.
Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, the NCAA has made an effort to minimize
travel, placing teams near each other in the same part of the
bracket.
By themselves, each philosophy is good and fair. The national
philosophy correctly rewards teams who do well during the
season.
The regional philosophy takes into account that most college
sports lose money, so teams need to cut travel costs.
Regionalization is also appealing due to natural geographical
rivals.
Sure, regionalization isn’t the most fair system, but
it’s simple and at least teams in the West (or for weird
sports like hockey or lacrosse, the East) go into the season
knowing they’re going to get screwed.
Unfortunately, the NCAA is trying to use both philosophies at
the same time, making the brackets illogical and unfair.
In the majority of NCAA sports, the best teams are on the West
Coast. UCLA, Stanford and USC are the top three schools in the
country when it comes to NCAA championships, and California and
Arizona contend for several national titles every year.
Pure regionalization would make it much harder for these teams
to win championships, but at least the system would be
consistent.
Instead, the current system rewards some teams while completely
screwing others over.
In this year’s women’s soccer tournament, No. 1 seed
and undefeated North Carolina will have a more difficult road to
the championship than No. 2 seed Notre Dame or No. 3 seed
Florida.
Yes, I chose not to write an entire column about how UCLA got
screwed with the No. 4 seed despite the fact that the Bruins only
have one loss, and it’s to North Carolina. UCLA is ranked No.
2 in both soccer polls. Also, Notre Dame has two losses and Florida
has three. And Notre Dame’s two losses were in its last three
games.
The three west coast regionals are all on North Carolina’s
half of the bracket. Who’s in those regionals? Well, how
about No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 Santa Clara and No. 4 Portland (all
rankings courtesy of Soccer America, not the NCAA, who had them at
No. 4, 8 and 9 respectively).
Whenever the top four teams in the country are all on the same
half of the bracket ““ three on the same fourth ““
something has gone terribly wrong.
For once, UCLA didn’t get that screwed in a bracket, as in
last year’s women’s volleyball field, which
would’ve forced a good Bruin team to beat six top 10 teams to
win the championship.
But this year’s women’s soccer bracket really hurt
Santa Clara and Portland. The two College Cup finalists from a year
ago, and two of the top four teams in the country, would have to
face each other in the third round of a 64-team tournament.
The NCAA’s national and regional philosophy still makes
some teams travel a long distance too. Maryland is nowhere near
Texas A&M. Nebraska is nowhere near Portland. Texas is nowhere
near Florida. And Dartmouth is nowhere near Florida State.
The NCAA has failed.
E-mail Quiñonez at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.