Tournament Needs a Touch-Up

CHARLOTTE

Everyone knows why the NCAA men's basketball tournament is a must-watch event. We all love the unveiling of the brackets; we all love San Diego and Western Kentucky and we really love Davidson. We all agree Tennessee's band should get a bid every year if only to play "Rocky Top" at least a dozen times a game, and there are few things better than being in a building when a major upset is brewing and all the so-called neutral fans start screaming for a group of kids none of them could have picked out of a lineup two hours earlier.

That's all good. But the NCAA tournament is far from perfect, in large part because the NCAA, in spite of all its yammering about doing what's best for the "student-athlete," sold its soul years ago and continues to put it up for resale to make a few extra bucks every year.

So, today, as a public service, we bring you all the things we can't stand about the NCAA tournament.

¿ The hypocrisy of the news conferences. It's just sickening to listen to the moderators who are under strict orders from the basketball committee to always refer to the players as "student-athletes." (It is literally in the handbook given to those who work at tournament sites.) They welcome the "student-athletes"; ask for questions for the "student-athletes"; thank the "student-athletes" for coming and note that the "student-athletes" will be available for a few more minutes in the locker room.

Let's not even get into the fact that men's basketball players graduate at a rate of about 44 percent. Here's the question: What's wrong with being a called a player? The reason these guys are sitting where they are is because they play basketball, not because of their accomplishments (or, in many cases, non-accomplishments) in the classroom.

¿ TV timeouts. First, can we please stop having the PA drones call them "official timeouts" or "media timeouts"? No one has ever once granted me a timeout, even on deadline. They exist so TV can show commercials. Everyone knows it. Just say so.

What's worse, though, is how many there now are and how long they take. There are now five in each half of every game, and each lasts at least three minutes. Technically, there are four, but these days the first timeout called by a team in each half, even though it is technically a 30-second timeout, "becomes" a full timeout.

Frequently this leads to six minutes of timeouts with about 15 seconds of basketball in between. On Thursday, Louisville Coach Rick Pitino called a timeout early in the second half. Everyone sat for three minutes. The ball was inbounded, deflected out of bounds -- the play took three seconds -- and then everyone sat for another three minutes because a TV timeout was due.