Dear NCAA,

The first round of the tournament begins on Thursday, not Tuesday. It always has, it always will. Calling the play-in games the first round is confusing to the millions that fill in their brackets each year. Most bracket commissioners in offices do not even concern themselves with the play-in games. They’re just there, and they are ignored by the public at large. Just look in the stands for these games and you know this to be true, the contests are being played in front of a couple dozen basketball junkies, some cheerleaders and the pep bands. Any actual cheering that is being done is completely drowned out by second rate versions of “Hey Baby.”

In Harvard’s school newspaper on Friday it said that the Crimson had been eliminated in the second round. That makes it sound like they had advanced a round before being knocked out. It is misleading to call it the second round. The Crimson, God love them the rest of the field will be employed by them later on, lost their first game to Vanderbilt. Let’s call it what it actually was, a first round loss.

Call your “first round” what it is, preliminary games or play-in games. That’s what they are. Those teams are not in the field of 64, they have to earn their way in to the actual tournament.

You cannot call these prelims a separate round because they are not a part of an actual round. A round in tournament is participated in by the entire field, not just a part of it.

And while I’m on my soap box, thanks so much for making it more difficult to follow the games from our cubicles NCAA. You make billions, with a ‘B’, off of the tournament each year. It is your cash cow, so thanks for bleeding us for another $4 to watch the games this year rather than allowing the boss-evading minions at their depressing desks from being able to stream the games for free anymore. Nothing makes your fan base more excited than an obvious cash grab by the 1-percent to us lowly 99-percenters that just want to see a buzzer-beater while putting off an annoying task.

Signed,

Rich Maclone … and countless others

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2012 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.