{Editor's note: Say Hello to a new voice for SportyMcBloggin, Mr. Ty Capron.  We brought him in as a ringer since he's an experienced professional sportswriter.  Look forward to more of his well grammercized views.  It will be a welcome change from the nonsense normally espoused from W.H. and B.K.K.}

by Ty Capron

Think back over tournaments passed. What indelible images have been burned forever into your sports memory? Was it Duke’s magical run to another national championship last season? How about North Carolina cutting down the nets after defeating Michigan State two seasons ago? What about the legendary ’08 tourney where all four No. 1 seeds reached the final four? Remember who won it all that year? Chances are, unless you’re a Kansas fan, you had no idea.

And why is that? It’s because what people remember are the upsets. What college basketball fan doesn’t remember Bryce Drew’s full-body slide across the floor after drilling the game-winner to lift 13^th-seeded Valparaiso past 4^th-seeded Ole Miss in the first round of the ’98 tournament? What about Princeton connecting on backdoor cut after backdoor cut to knock off defending national champion UCLA in the opening round of the ’96 tourney? How about George Mason’s improbable run to the Final Four in 2006? Did you remember that was the same year Florida won the first of its back-to-back national titles? Unless you’re a Gator fan, it’s doubtful.

That’s because – unless you have a dog in the fight – your dog is the underdog. We love to watch the big boys fall. That’s why it’s Madness. It’s Madness to think that Stephen Curry and little Davidson could knock off perennial powers Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin to reach the Elite 8, falling just 2 points shy of a trip to the Final Four with a loss to Kansas. But it happened and you remember it.

So why is it that the NCAA can’t seem to wrap its head around that concept?

The “first round” as its been embarrassingly dubbed by the NCAA opened Tuesday with a couple of real barn burners, pitting a pair of conference tournament champions Arkansas-Little Rock and UNC-Asheville against each other in one game, and a pair of marginal bubble teams in UAB and Clemson against each other in the other. Admittedly, that first match-up doesn’t have much sex appeal and the second one hardly more. The NCAA will look at these match-ups – and the TV ratings (on TruTV no less) and come to the conclusion that small teams don’t draw. People don’t care. But they are missing the point completely. They make the same elitist-informed mistake that the BCS seems to make most years in college football, pitting Boise State against TCU, etc. They use low viewership in these games to justify snubbing these teams down the line. But the problem isn’t letting them in. It’s the pairings. Look at last bowl season. TCU’s Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin was one of the most watched – and most compelling – games of the bowl season. Why? Because the little guy got a chance to knock off the big guy.

Don’t pretend not to understand, NCAA. You know the score. The play-in game in the NCAA tournament has always been a sham and, when given a chance to correct it this season, you have once again dropped the ball. You set up strict parameters for letting small schools into the tournament – win your conference postseason tournament and you’re in, lose and you’re out – no matter how successful you were in the regular season. So Arkansas-Little Rock and UNC-Asheville did what you asked. They won their conference tournaments. And they are rewarded by being forced to play yet another, single-game tournament to even make the “real” tournament that starts Thursday. Why? Because you deemed that some marginal team from the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, SEC or Pac-10 is more compelling. But even that argument – that most people want to see big conference teams playing – is antithetical to how these pairings are put together.

 
Ex. Antithetical Pairing

If you don’t respect the little teams, make these play-in games between the final 8 at-large teams selected for the tournament. That’s what people want to see, right? Let the teams that didn’t do what you asked fight it out for the chance to compete on the big stage Thursday and Friday and – since they would largely be from major conference, you can milk their supposed larger followings for ratings for an additional game. Let the little schools take their place in the tournament, even if they are in most cases sacrificial lambs for your precious Duke or North Carolina or Kansas. They have earned it based on the parameters you have established. And who knows when the next Hampton will come around, lurking in the weeds to knock off a no. 2 seed? Maybe it won’t be this year. Maybe it won’t be next year. But what if it happens? What a scene that would be, to see Arkansas-Little Rock’s fans streaming onto the court as they become the first 16 seed to knock off a no. 1. And instead, if, as expected, Duke or some other team rolls over that 16 seed, what will happen? Nothing. Nobody will remember. And that’s the point.