Last April, the NCAA decided to expand the men’s basketball tournament by a few more teams.
At first, it seemed a trivial change, but there’s a chance it will make all the difference to Bruin fans.
March Madness is the most important event of the year, eclipsing presidential elections, the Olympics and your final exams in objective measures of how much I think you should care about it.
So, when the NCAA and its various financial dependents were trying to sneak an extra 31 teams into the tournament, increasing its population from 65 to 96 and diluting the excitement of the regular season, you were rightfully outraged.
This was obviously a ploy by the powers that be to increase the amount of time you were forced to shirk all of your societal responsibilities and glue yourself to the nearest television for mandatory basketball viewing during the month of March. I have a theory that Tostitos and the avocado corporations are in on this too, but will save that for a more extensive forum.
In the end, good found a compromise with evil and tabled the massive expansion for future discussions and instead opted for just a three-team increase in the tournament.
Starting in this year’s event, there will be 68 teams with the inception of the “First Four.” This is a small pre-tournament tournament in Dayton, Ohio, that will include four games, two featuring the worst-seeded teams, usually small schools who won their conference’s automatic bid, and two featuring the final at-large qualifiers, usually those affectionately called “bubble teams.”
Your reaction to this was probably, well, not any reaction at all. You already didn’t watch its antecedent, the “Opening Round Game” in Dayton that hosts the 64th- and 65th-seeded teams (last year’s game was a thrilling 17-point victory by Arkansas-Pine Bluff over Winthrop).
Are you really going to watch these expansion games? Keep in mind that this will be the Tuesday or Wednesday of this quarter’s finals week.
However, as of press time, the two giants of the sports media world, ESPN and Sports Illustrated, both predicted that your UCLA Bruins would be selected as one of these extra teams.
Joe Lunardi, Bracketologist and sciencey-name inventor for the Worldwide Leader in Sports, has the Bruins going to Ohio with the chance that they could be ousted before even making what used to be called “the first round.”
SI.com college basketball analyst Andy Glockner had UCLA in the same position.
Maybe it’s time we rethink our aversion to this expansion thing, huh?
OK, so it’s two months before this whole mess gets sorted out officially, and you’re wondering if these prognostications can even mean anything this far in advance.
But if you look at UCLA’s remaining schedule, it is very probable that even if the Bruins finish off the season well, they could still be perched on the bubble come Selection Sunday. That means a bid to the new First Four, as Lunardi and Glockner suggest, would be better than nothing.
The Pac-10 does not have too many teams held in high regard on the national scale, meaning that opportunities for UCLA to increase its standing are limited.
In fact, the only two schools that either of these analysts has in their bracket predictions are Washington, who has already beaten UCLA at home, and Arizona, the Bruins’ next opponent.
Of course, this adds huge implications to Thursday night’s showdown in Tucson, Ariz.
Just as UCLA’s December win over BYU ““ still the Cougars’ only loss ““ cemented the Bruins with a non-conference win they could hang their hat on, a win on the road against Arizona would give credence to the Pac-10 side of their resume as well.
The Bruins are now sporting a four-game win streak, and have won 10 of their last 12, so spirits are high in the program.
In the grand scheme of things though, UCLA is teetering on the brink of inclusion to the all-important NCAA Tournament and probably will be for the remainder of the season. So, until we are subject to the launch of an 128-team January-through-March Madness event, the Bruins can be sure that each of their regular season games holds a good deal of weight.
And if it does come down to it, don’t be afraid to hold up a sign at Pauley Pavilion that reads “Dayton or Bust.”
Smukler co-hosts Overtime with Daily Bruin Sports, which airs every Monday at 6:30 p.m. on uclaradio.com. E-mail Smukler at esmukler@media.ucla.edu.