It'd Be Crazy To Mess With Madness

When Maryland and Virginia Tech meet tonight in Blacksburg, the game will be crucial for both teams. The Terrapins played impressively throughout most of their nonconference schedule, losing only to Notre Dame, but are off to a shaky 1-3 start in ACC play. The Hokies were decidedly mediocre during the nonconference portion of their schedule but began conference play on a tear with a win at Duke and a stunning upset of North Carolina. But after a loss at Florida State on Wednesday, they need a win at home tonight.

Why is a mid-January game so important?

Because seven weeks from today, the Terrapins, Hokies and basketball teams around the country will gather around television sets to find out if they are one of the 65 teams anointed by the NCAA men's basketball tournament selection committee to play in this year's event. For teams that play in the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-10 and Southeastern Conference -- the so-called BCS leagues -- no bid leads to serious grumbling among fans, alumni, reporters and most indoor pets.

That is why Maryland Coach Gary Williams thinks the system should be changed.

"Look at our league this year," he said earlier this week. "[North] Carolina is probably the best team, a really, really good team, and then there are seven, eight, maybe nine of us who are good -- not great -- but good. But because of numbers and the way the system works, I guarantee we'll get no more than six bids. That means at least one or two good teams will be left out.

"That's why the tournament needs to be expanded. There should be more than 65 teams."

With all due respect to Williams, he could not be more wrong on this one. To be fair, he isn't the only coach or basketball person who feels this way. In fact, last spring the basketball committee looked at possible expansion before wisely rejecting the notion.

The NCAA has a remarkable knack for getting things wrong. It has hidden under a rock for years and watched the BCS presidents create football's god-awful current system. Its response to the embarrassing graduation rates for Division I football and men's basketball players has been to change the way the rates are calculated to try to make the numbers look better. It creates silly, arcane rules that often hurt good kids while allowing big-time cheaters to get away with wrist slaps on the occasions they're caught at all.

But the one thing the NCAA has managed to get right is the basketball tournament. In fact, the only thing about the current format that should be changed is the existence of the silly and embarrassing play-in game, created seven years ago because the BCS schools couldn't bear giving up an at-large bid after a 31st conference (the Mountain West) became eligible for an automatic bid. Sixty-four is the perfect number for the basketball tournament because it means making the tournament really means something. You have to beat real teams in real games to qualify.

Unlike football, in which more than half the schools that play Division I-A qualify for bowl games, making the NCAA basketball tournament has real meaning. The fact that schools such as North Carolina, Maryland, Georgetown, Connecticut and UCLA have missed the tournament very recently is testimony to why the system works. You can't go to sleep at the wheel and still proclaim your season a success by saying, "Yeah, but we made the tournament."

One of the most emotional moments in George Mason's magical run last spring was the moment when the Patriots, sitting in Coach Jim Larranaga's basement, learned they had made the field despite losing to Hofstra in the CAA tournament a week earlier.

"I remember telling the players that we still had a lot more work to do, that making the field wasn't enough," Larranaga said. "But the feeling of pride and accomplishment in that room that night isn't something I'll forget anytime soon."

You can't have that with a 96- or 128-team field (both have been proposed) or with an open tournament, as some have suggested. Not only would you take away the suspense of Selection Sunday for anyone who has pieced together even a mediocre season in a major conference, but making the field would no longer have the meaning it does now.

Let's just say the tournament had 96 teams the last two years and Maryland had been selected and lost in the first round. Is that so satisfying? The flip side of the argument is that the Terrapins might have gotten hot and won a couple of games and saved their season. But they had the chance to save their season the night they played Boston College in the ACC tournament and failed miserably.

This is not meant to pick on Maryland or Williams. Lots of coaches have campaigned for more teams in the tournament for a lot of years for the simple reason that they believe making the tournament breeds job security. But an expanded tournament wouldn't really do that. Look at the 6-5 football coaches who get fired after their teams lose in a bowl game everyone knows is meaningless.

Years ago, Bobby Cremins, then coaching at Georgia Tech, complained during an ACC coaches meeting that coaching football was much easier than basketball because you could go 6-5, make a bowl and be considered a success. Gene Corrigan, then the conference commissioner, said, "Bobby, 64 bids is a lot."

Cremins pointed out there were about 300 Division I basketball teams and turned to Dean Smith and said, "Dean, you're the math major, what percentage is 64 into 300?"

"A little more than 21 percent," Smith answered.

"How many football teams make bowls?" Cremins asked Corrigan.

"Thirty-eight," Corrigan said. "Out of about 100 Division 1-A football teams."

Cremins turned to Smith. "Thirty-eight into 100, what percentage is that?"

His lack of math skills aside, Cremins's point was that making the tournament in basketball is considerably harder than making the postseason in football. Not fair, he insisted.

But it is fair. If you play well enough and win a couple of tough games, you get a bid that you can be proud to receive and that your players and fans know you had to work for. Succeeding in the tournament is that much sweeter when you know you earned your place.

What's more, it makes Virginia Tech-Maryland tonight must-see TV if you care about college basketball. And it means almost every game played by many, if not most, teams over the next seven weeks will be critical. Each victory will take them a step closer to being part of the Anointed Sixty-Five.

Because being anointed means something. Being mediocre and being handed something anyway means nothing.