By Vince Nairn
Ohio plays Winthrop Saturday evening in the ninth-annual ESPNU BracketBuster Weekend. Will anybody outside of the fan bases care about this game? Better yet, do either of the two fan bases even care about this game?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say no. Overwhelmingly no.
When ESPNU first started the BracketBuster idea, I loved it. The top mid-major teams played each other, and most of the teams needed to win that particular game to make their at-large resume for the NCAA Tournament look better. It was a fresh plan: a one-day event that gave fans a chance to see quality teams they normally wouldn’t. It worked. It was quality basketball.
But, as is the case with just about everything in the sports world, BracketBuster has now expanded and is incredibly watered-down. It went from an all-day Saturday event (which was fine) to a three-day, all-weekend-long saga. The field has expanded to 57 games and 114 teams. 114. That’s one-third of all the teams in Division I college basketball. Highly unnecessary.
Even worse: Only 11 of the 57 games are televised. Wasn’t the whole point of this to get teams national exposure? Then again, looking at some of these matchups, I can see why more aren’t televised (which is my point, but I guess I’m beating that enough into the ground by now).
The 4-22 Toledo Rockets will play 8-18 Eastern Illinois. Towson, another 4-22 team, hosts 13-13 Loyola (Maryland). I just don’t understand the point of some of these games.
I am excited to see some of the games, though. I love the Cleveland State/Old Dominion matchup. If either team wants to keep its slim at-large hopes alive, it must win. Wichita State and Virginia Commonwealth is another great matchup. Same thing with Utah State and St. Mary’s. There are some gems.
But they should all be gems. In 2004, BracketBuster had only 48 participants. Why not go back to that? Why not let teams in the middle of the pack in one-bid conferences focus more on getting ready for their conference tournaments — their only real chance to make the NCAA Tournament — instead of traveling a few hundred miles to play games that don’t result in any exposure or have any postseason benefits.
But then again, that would make entirely too much sense. And we all know how the NCAA feels about making sense.
