The NCAA Tournament Leaves No Question About Who Should Be Named Champion

I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to sports. I realize that not many would agree with me, but I don't think there should be any judged sports in the Olympics. I think that in order to be an Olympic champion, you should have to run, ski, or skate the fastest, jump the farthest, lift the most weight...well, you get the picture. As long as you have accomplished any of these tasks, there is no doubt that you are the clear winner. Figure skating is difficult and beautiful, and a pleasure to watch, but when politically motivated judges are making the decisions, there is no way that a clear winner can ever be established.

College football has a similar problem when trying to name a champion. The NCAA's methods are certainly more advanced that they used to be, with the development of the Bowl Champion Series beginning back in 1998, but the process still leaves room for doubt as to which team is clearly the best. I realize that, unlike a basketball season, there are limitations about how many football games can be played in a year, and that this minimizes the ability to match up all of the possible champions before the season's end. But, when the ranking system is based on some calculation using two national polls, a bank of computer generated numbers, and the average hat size of Americans who grow their own tomatoes, there's no way that the two absolute best teams will always end up in the final bowl game. There will frequently be at least one runner-up who had the talent, but didn't have the prestige to get into the big game.

But here comes March Madness, the NCAA's sixty-four team basketball tournament that provides enough games in a three week period to test the endurance of a real championship ball club. The winner of the tournament has to succeed six times in order to gain their title, running the risk of facing both proven powerhouses and the lesser known college basketball teams that just happen to be "hot" at the time. It's not perfect. There have been national basketball champions who barely won 60 percent of their regular season outings. Generally, however, the cream that was seen during the regular season usually proves itself, and rises to the top in the later rounds of this yearly basketball spectacular.

With so many basketball teams in the first round of the tournament, many of the second-guessing problems are eliminated. Those who would claim that "Small Town State University could have beaten Notre Dame's basketball team this year, if only they'd had the chance to play them," will often have an opportunity to prove their point. With the invitation list being so large from the start, sixty-three basketball teams will be able to leave the court stating that while they were not totally successful, they at least had a chance to show the nation what they were made of. With so many basketball teams in the first round brackets, it is difficult for rankings, prestige, and politics to shut out the lesser-known squads who may have the talent to knock off the traditional favorites. I suppose someone could argue that the sixty-fifth team could have been this year's Cinderella story, but that possibility is quite slim in a field this large.

For those of us who appreciate the absence of politics in sports, the NCAA's basketball championship tournament is a breath of fresh air. Basketball fans everywhere should pray that no one ever tries to fix a system that is working so well.