March Madness vs. the BCS

Lot of funny Tweets last night about the horrible national championship game between Butler and UConn.  Anyone but a UConn grad has to agree that there were NO shining moments in last night's game (that was one of my tweets).  

Of course, for me one recurring thought was 'Carolina would have waxed both of these squads.' But forget Carolina, how did Kentucky lose to UConn and how did VCU lose to Butler?  Odd to see how nervous and tight Butler was considering they were in the Final Four a year ago and feature lots of seniors in their rotation.  

But I don't want to spend a lot of time analyzing last night's game.

The most provocative Tweet of the night was from Jason Whitlock, who basically said: "two mediocre teams battling for the national championship; this kind of game would never happen in the BCS."

The one-and-done format is exciting and produces a fair number of upsets every year, but the BCS defenders do have a point.  The NCAA tournament does not always produce a national champion that is the best team in country.  

Sometimes that does happen. Carolina was the best team in the country in 2005 and 2009; ditto Florida the two years they won, UConn in 2004, Duke in 2001.  But the last two national champs have been mediocre at best.

Of course, the BCS does not always produce a national champion who is clearly the best college football team in the country either; just ask TCU.

That's why some of the proposed, modified BCS-tournament seems to be the best system.  A scenario put forth by Sports Illustrated and others would feature a tournament of the top 16 teams. 

That would work in football, but I imagine most college basketball fans would rather see teams like Butler, VCU and George Mason have a chance to make the Final Four than shrink the size of the tournament so there are fewer upsets.  Fewer upsets mean the best teams are more likely to win the national championship, and I personally would support shrinking the size of the tournament to facilitate that possibility.

But shrinking the size of the NCAA tournament - to favor power teams and conferences - is as likely as a playoff system in college football.  So when looking back at this NCAA tournament fans should remember the runs made by VCU and Butler and not a championship game that was so bad it should come with an asterisk.