How to Improve March Madness

Maryland won at Boston College, avoiding a bad loss, so the Terrapins' resume improves a bit (or at least doesn't fall). There were only five other games tonight, so no need for a recap. I think tonight would be a good night to talk about some ways to improve March Madness. I am simply not much for tradition. If there's a change that we can make to make next year better, implement it. Now. So here are the four most important easy fixes that we could implement fairly easily.

1. Make the First Four games all at-large teams---no automatic qualifiers in Dayton.

The teams who participate in the First Four are correct to note that their games never really feel like a part of the Big Dance. The NCAA has done everything it can to not make them feel excluded, but let's be honest, no matter how many times the NCAA tries to get us to call the Round of 64 the "second round," it just won't stick.

That said, it just is not fair to make the low major teams who win their conference play in the First Four. These teams earned trips to the tournament though victory, not through simply having a better resume. It severely cheapens the NCAA experience for the low-major conferences.

Plus, the First Four should be more exciting with eight teams whose names are typically recognizable to casual basketball fans rather than Directional Lowly-Populated State U. In my bracket this week, for example, we would have additional games involving Tennessee, Marquette, Illinois, and BYU. Wouldn't you watch that rather than Quinnipiac/Southern and Northern Colorado/Winthrop?

While I'm here, why don't we open up some other locations to hosting the First Four. Dayton has been great for the tournament these last few years, there's no doubt of that. But why can't lunch or dinner be somewhere else?

2. Open the selection committee up to ex-coaches, ex-players, and maybe even fans.

The committee is made up only of athletic directors and conference commissioners. The problem here is that the basketball committee is made up, largely, of people who have never played basketball at such a high level. The CEOs of college sports are essentially deciding who gets to participate in the NCAA's greatest event. And while the committee does not do a bad job, that does not mean that it does the best job.

An ex-coach or an ex-player is likely to have more time on his hands than an athletic director who has to run what is often a university's most valuable department. And they have valuable knowledge unavailable to most ADs. I'm not saying we should get rid of the ADs altogether, but there needs to be a mix. After all, the media seems to do well when it gets a crack at predicting the bracket each year.

3. Push more for the use of tempo-free stats than continued use of the RPI.

The NCAA's manual for picking teams list a number of different factors available to the committee for its evaluation, including computer rankings and polls. There is only one, though, that the NCAA identifies by name and devotes a section to, and that is the RPI. It doesn't say that it has to be considered by a member, but it is curious that it is the only factor named.

The RPI is an attempt to take a team's wins, losses, and schedules, to rank teams based solely on those factors. But the RPI was from a time where advanced statistical analysis was not popular. There are now better ways to attempt computer rankings based on the way a team has played. The most important, perhaps, are the tempo-free stats, compiled best by Ken Pomeroy but in other ways by other statisticians. ESPN's BPI looks heavily at wins, losses, location, and the margin of victory. RPI simply cannot complete with these better ranking systems, and it should be scrapped for the more sophisticated systems.

4. No more domes.

NBA arenas range in size from 17,003 to 22,076. If basketball was meant to be played in larger arenas, don't you think that the NBA would have increased stadium sizes? The NBA isn't going to pass up chances at squeezing more money out of its fans. But the fact is that if you are in a stadium that is larger than these NBA behemoths, you might as well have just stayed home rather than sit in a seat absurdly far from the court.

Playing basketball games in football domes brings a number of negatives into college basketball including terrible shooting. The courts have to be elevated just so that people in the flat first rows of NFL stadiums can see. And nothing is really gained. Jack up the price of the tickets in the NBA arena if you're worried about revenue. You don't need to gouge a college student out of his Ramen money just so he can see hundreds of feet away from the action.