Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The College Baskeball Blog: 2013 NCAA Tournament First Four Play-In Games Predictions



2013 NCAA Play-In Games Predictions

Once again this year I’ll be separating the first four play-in games and predicting those games first. I still don’t like doing it but there’s really no choice. There doesn’t appear to be any going back as far as the NCAA Tournament is concerned either. The first four games are here to stay. 

You may notice that even the fight against calling the first four games the “first round” and referring to the real first round as the “second round” has been lost. People have just conceded to what the NCAA wants. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that while I may be determined to ignore the NCAA, I greatly underestimated everyone else’s willingness to go along with the NCAA. You can see this in the number of websites that have changed the records to reflect NCAA sanctions, as well as those that now call the second round of the NCAA Tournament the “third round.” 

Strangely, it doesn’t seem to trouble the NCAA that absolutely no one is including the first four games in their bracket. No one is even paying attention to them as far as that goes. I really don’t know how this is working. I would think that by now there would have been enough complaining for it to at least be an issue discussed by the media, but that hasn’t happened. 

I mean, ESPN doesn’t even give the option of picking the first four games in their round-by-round pick 'em game. Nobody is picking these games or including them as part of the bracket. In other words, no one seems to be treating these games like part of the NCAA Tournament. 

People don’t seem to be making a fuss about not knowing the field of 64 until Wednesday either. I guess because technology has made filling out a bracket and running a pool so easy people don’t mind not being able to fill out their bracket until Thursday morning. My biggest problem with the current setup is that I really can’t even make myself think about the bracket as a whole until late Wednesday night because for me the field isn’t really set until then. Maybe this just isn’t a big deal for everyone else. It wouldn’t surprise me. I seem to be fairly out of touch these days. 

As for the first four games, I always watch them. I do care what happens. I know there have been good and bad games, but for some reason I only remember the bad moments. I only remember the times when it was blindingly obvious that this wasn’t the NCAA Tournament. 

As long as we’re going to have this silly “First Four” setup every year, the least the NCAA people could do is stop with the patronizing policy of having the last 4 at-large bids play along with the last 4 automatic qualifiers. It doesn’t make any sense. If we’re going to have these 4 extra games, it should be made up of the bottom 8 teams in the 68-team field. To have a pair of #11 seeds playing just isn’t fair. 

Not only that but it’s a waste of an opportunity to make the field even deeper. When you eliminate 2 of the last 4 at-large teams you take away 2 teams that could make a Sweet Sixteen or beyond run. Hell, VCU made the Final Four after playing in a play-in game. But the worst 4 automatic bid teams have almost no chance of winning a single game. They have almost no chance of coming within 10 points of winning a game. 

Publicly it seems like the NCAA is doing this to be “fair” to the little guys. Remember how this all started. An extra conference was created and that took away a spot for an at-large bid. The big boys didn’t want that so they increased the field to 65 teams and created the play-in game. That really wasn’t a good look, as it seemed unfair to single out 2 teams (usually at least 1 coming out of one of the conferences made up of historically black colleges) and force them to play a game on Tuesday night away from everyone else. So then when further expansion was ruled out, the NCAA decided to have 4 play-in games instead of just 1. That way they could add 3 more teams to the field and at the same time make the play-in game seem less unfair. 

Maybe the NCAA is chiefly concerned with being “fair” (or at least with giving the appearance of being concerned with being “fair.”), but it’s really an unnecessary concern. What’s the difference between having 2 of the weakest teams eliminated and having 4 of them eliminated? It doesn’t make sense. 

Fairness can’t be the only reason or even the main reason. I can’t help but think that the NCAA is trying to ensure that there is some interest for these games which they don’t think they would get if it were just the 8 worst teams in the field. I wonder if it isn’t all about TV ratings. 

If that is the case, that this is all about money, it would be just another sign that at some point in the future the NCAA will figure out a way to fuck this thing up. There’s just too much tinkering around nowadays, from fixing the bracket to cut down on travel and maximize attendance, to setting up matchups and potential matchups with intriguing storylines. 

Okay, that’s all for my negative introduction. Here are my picks. By the way, I have zero conviction in these picks and I’m even more annoyed about having to pick these games now than I was when I started. Another thing that is causing me a considerable amount of frustration is the fact that my male cat is doing his out and out damnedest to piss me off at the moment. Anyway, here are my picks for the play-in games. 


First Four Play-In Games


#16 North Carolina A&T over #16 Liberty 

#16 Long Island –Brooklyn over #16 James Madison 

#13 Boise State over #13 La Salle 

#11 St. Mary’s over #11 Middle Tennessee State 



No comments: