Whither the conspiracy?

I am a huge March Madness junkie. I live and breathe college basketball (you sort of have to if you are born and raised in Kentucky). Hence, the three weeks of the NCAA tournament, as well as the two weeks of conference championships leading up to it, are my favorite time of the year. I take off from work and declare a holiday when the first round begins; I am that big of a junkie.

Today, I wish to point out something that I noticed last year about the tournament that I had never seen happen before and I saw it happen again this year. For the past two years, when the brackets were announced, the best non-BCS schools were paired against each other. When this happens once, it is a coincidence. When it happens two years in a row, you look around and say, "What is going on here?"

Now, I do not know if you (the reader) are a fan of the big schools or a fan of the smaller schools. My two favorite teams come from both, so I can see and argue both sides of this situation. You see, if you haven't already grasped what it means when you pair up non-BCS schools against each other and why it may be important, then I will tell you. By pairing the best non-BCS schools against each other, you insure that one of them moves to the next round - thus insuring a larger payday from the NCAA (this is the conspiracy argument of the big schools). You also insure that less really good non-BCS schools get a chance to knock out big schools early on, depriving them of larger paydays (the little school argument).

In looking at the 2005 and 2006 NCAA tournament brackets, I only found three first round games of non-BCS teams playing each other. In 2005, it was Gonzaga vs. Winthrop. In 2006, it was George Washington vs. N.C. Willmington and Gonzaga vs. Xavier. The rest of the non-BCS schools were matched up against the mid-level teams from the big conferences. Last year, there were four games that pitted some very good non-BCS teams against each other (#5 seed Butler vs. #12 Old Dominion, #8 Brigham Young vs. #9 Xavier, #7 Nevada vs. #10 Creighton and #4 Southern Illinois vs. #13 Holy Cross). Plus, the winner of the Nevada/Creighton game had to play non-BCS power Memphis in the second round, thus eliminating/moving on another non-BCS team. This year, there were four more matchups just like last year (#7 Butler vs. #10 South Alabama, #8 UNLV vs. #9 Kent St., #7 Gonzaga vs. #10 Davidson and #5 Drake vs. #12 Western Kentucky).

Folks, it is apparent that the NCAA selection committee is doing this on purpose. This just doesn't happen by accident as the committee chairman tells the nation each year that the committee works long hours examining each team and tries to make the brackets as fair as possible. My question, the one that I would dearly love to know, is why is the committee doing this?

If you argue for the little schools, then you believe that the committee wants to guarantee that less non-BCS schools can advance to the second and later rounds at the expense of the bigger schools. In looking at the eight teams listed above that had to play each other this year, it is very easy to see all of them beating a lot of the bigger schools that are in this years tournament. They may not be able to beat the elite top four or five, but the others would have been fair game. Thus, you could have had a second and third round filled with non-BCS schools (to the absolute horror of Bob Knight and the evil empire of ESPN, not to mention CBS). CBS loves a Cinderella (it is a grand story for a little while), but no one wants to watch a tournament of nothing but Cinderellas, it is bad for ratings.

If you argue for the big schools, then you believe that the committee wants to guarantee that, at least some, non-BCS schools advance to the next round to have an opportunity to become that Cinderella story that everyone talks about. You say that the committee has caved in to the desires of CBS to have a few of the "little guys" move on to spice up the bracket. You argue this because you believe that with a few days of preparation to get ready, the big schools are not going to lose very many games to the non-BCS teams as their talent is lesser than that of the big schools.

Why does this all matter, well, I will tell you why - it is money. While the NCAA is supposed to be about amateur athletics, it is truly a giant business. CBS paid over a billion dollars for the rights to broadcast the tournament, and they want a good product for that investment. The last figure that I heard claimed that each team making the tournament received one million dollars. Each round that a team advances, increases the payday. Universities have shown themselves to be very greedy when it comes to this kind of money (remember, the BCS was created so that the top conferences would not have to share television and bowl money with smaller schools) so all of the schools are looking at this situation and wondering just who is coming out the best. Frankly, I am wondering that as well.