Sunday, March 15, 2015

March Madness: A double edged sword for NCAA Basketball

With the NFL season over, Baseball players getting ready in Florida and Arizona, and the NBA season not having reached the playoff stage yet, March is dedicated to College Basketball. The frenzy surrounding “March Madness” takes over the country and attracts a large demographic of the public, even those who are completely clueless about the sport and don’t follow it on regular basis. Extensive media coverage, added with everyone making their “bracket” and the money of Corporate America behind NCAA, college basketball has now turned into a one month sport.


Attendance for division I men’s games is down for the seventh straight season according to the Associated Press, TV ratings for CBS and ESPN are down as well. A lot of this has to do with the current format of the regular season. Unlike any other sport, No regular season college basketball is really must-win. Every team can afford to have a bad night, and second, third and fourth chances come regularly to teams. A horrible team during the regular season can put a string of wins together in the conference tournament and make it to the big dance. Combine that with the recent shuffling of the conferences, lower scoring games and an uncanny number of timeouts and fouls called at the end of the games and regular season games for college basketballs have taken away from the fun and importance of regular season games.

College Basketball is still a big deal, and as we all root for a Cinderella team or debate about Kentucky’s chances of running the table, it will be a wicked few weeks but it still doesn't take away us from asking ourselves, what’s the point of having a regular season. 

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