March Madness? More like March Sadness, at least, as far as Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt sees it.
The former college football player and lead color analyst for college football at Fox swerved outside of his lane, in a way, to take a shot at the 68-team March Madness tournament that crowns college basketball’s national champion, by calling it a “joke.”
“In fact, hot take, I mean like the hottest of all takes that I’ve ever had in my entire life, the NCAA basketball tournament is a joke,” Klatt said during an appearance on The Next Round. “It’s the dumbest tournament and the least fair tournament in all of sports. We go, and we put teams at odd times on neutral sites in a one-game affair. That doesn’t crown a true champion. We’re not doing anything that tells us who’s the best team over the course of the entire season.”
Klatt’s proposed remedy to the tournament would have the higher-seeded teams play home games against other teams in the group stages, with teams playing multiple games.
In a sense, Klatt’s proposed format would be more similar to the World Cup format than the NCAA format.
The most significant result of this change, if it were to happen, which it won’t, would be the elimination of the “Cinderella” teams in college basketball. The #2 seeds upsetting the #15 seeds, and threes over 14s, and so on.
When the hosts reminded Klatt of this, and how the current format works well for CBS, Klatt responded, “I guess, but it sucks for the fans.”
Klatt’s point may not be popular with college basketball fans, but it’s gaining popularity with football fans.
The discussion about Cinderellas began while the group was discussing the inclusion of the Group of Five teams Tulane and James Madison in this year’s 12-team College Football Playoff (CFP).
Both teams are at or near three-touchdown underdogs heading into their games this weekend, and the head coaches of both teams have one foot out the door, in the sense that they have new jobs with different teams once the season is over.
This obviously isn’t sitting well with Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and Texas fans, all of whom had strong cases for inclusion in the 12-team bracket but were ultimately excluded, at least in part, to make room for the G5 qualifiers.
However, as Klatt points out, the G5 teams aren’t necessarily there to be “Cinderellas,” because no one believes they will actually win. Instead, they are included because the CFP is trying to stay out of court.
“It would help in the sentiment, you know, the public sentiment, but it will be determined by finances and litigation,” Klatt said. “And the reason the Group of Five is included in this playoff is to avoid antitrust litigation — that’s it, guys. We’re not looking for a Cinderella. Nobody cares in football about James Madison, or the equivalent of George Mason going to the Final Four. Nobody cares in football about that. We don’t want Cinderellas. We want the best teams playing each other at the end.”
The need to include the G5 teams and exclude teams like Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and Texas is one of the primary arguments used to increase the number of playoff teams from 12 to 16.
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