NCAA tourney changes effective

By Kurt Wagner

When the NCAA announced a few changes for this year's NCAA Tournament, I acted like any rational college basketball fan would: I became instantly cynical. In my eyes, you don't fix what ain't broken, especially when the thing that ain't broken happens to be the most exciting and highly anticipated sporting event of the entire year.

Officials announced that the games would be televised on four separate channels this year, a change from the traditional coverage previously held solely by CBS. Included in the new channels was an unfamiliar station, truTV, that I had never heard of and obviously assumed would cost me megabucks to order. How dare they stray from tradition?

Wrong. The move was a slam dunk, with games averaging 8.4 million viewers apiece the first weekend, an increase in 14 percent from last year. All four of the channels were already included in my basic cable package meaning I saw every game I wanted to, whenever I wanted to, at the click of a button. It was the ultimate fan experience and a terrific opportunity to witness every basket, pass, turnover and foul the tournament had to offer.

Okay, I thought, so the television changes worked out, but that doesn't excuse the NCAA's decision to expand the tournament field from 65 to 68 teams. Adding three teams not only took away from the significant honor that comes with making the tournament, but it created more games with more teams that no one cared about anyway. It was a ploy; a way for the NCAA to sucker networks into paying more coverage costs and fans to pay for more tickets and travel. Right?

Wrong again. Sure the NCAA profited from the addition of three more first round games, but so too did the college basketball world.

11-seed Virginia Commonwealth was a team not expected to make the tournament when they snuck in as one of the final teams. They were not expected to knock off the USC Trojans in their first game, and especially not expected to then continue on a tear through the bracket sending home Georgetown, Purdue, Florida State and Kansas on their way to an improbable Final Four appearance.

But they did. And therein lies the beauty of the most beautiful post-season tournament in American sports – anything can happen and the NCAA's decision to expand the tournament now looks ingenious.

This year's March Madness was still bittersweet – I ceremoniously ripped up my bracket on day three (thanks a lot, Pittsburgh) – but at least it was bittersweet on four separate channels.

After such a wonderful success, I can't wait to see what the NCAA rolls out next year. It's nice to see that at least someone can put some method to the Madness.