You Can't Have It Both Ways

Sometimes the media completely baffles me.

A couple of years ago when the NCAA Tournament featured exactly zero top seeds in the final four, the media complained that while it was great to see a story like 11th seed George Mason reaching the Final Four, it would be better to see the heavyweights play against each other in the National Semifinals and the National Championship.

They complained that the competition isn't as great, that without the North Carolinas and Dukes and Connecticuts of the world the product is diluted.

This weekend we enter the Sweet 16 and most of the teams remaining are the top seeds.  With the exception of 12th-seed Arizona playing top seed Louisville in the Midwest Region or the 5th-seed Purdue playing top seed Connecticut in the West Region, the chalk has advanced to the sweet 16.  All I've heard on television and radio the last twenty four hours is this notion that the tournament has been "boring" and a "snore" and all we've seen is chalk.

Isn't this what everyone wanted just two short years ago?  We're likely going to get some heavyweight match ups in the Final Four.  Isn't that what the George Mason haters desired?

Some qualify this argument by saying they like the upsets the first weekend but ultimately hope that the heavyweights prevail.  They'll say they love seeing 13-seed Cleveland State wipe out 4th-seed Wake Forest in the first round, but hope that the North Carolinas of the tournament ultimately prevail.  

Well I'd like to have my cake and eat it too.  In a perfect world we'd have the heavyweights and the underdogs battling it out the whole way through.  

But you can't have it both ways.  

Would it be nice?  Sure.  But is the tournament somehow bad if we don't see Duke and UConn battle it out in the Final Four?  No.  Is it bad if we don't have a cinderella team dance all the way to the final weekend?  No.

Last year it was all chalk in the Final Four.  It was great drama.  The year before we were treated to a George Mason team in the Final Four and that was equally great.  

The tournament is great, period.  

It's great because you never know what will happen and whether the underdog or the heavyweight wins.  It's great because of the atmosphere, the excitement, the passion and the heroics.  It's great because it gives so many teams a shot at the prize, and teams from every conference and ever corner of America get to play on a grand stage.

Let's quit the crying.  The tournament is great.  Just enjoying for what it is.