You can slap the NCAA logo on the floor, bring in Jim Nantz to call the game on television and even get a dramatic overtime comeback worthy of One Shining Moment. But what happened here Tuesday night wasn’t the NCAA tournament.
It was the Louis Vuitton knockoff bag you bought on the street for $20. It was the cheeseburger with the seedless bun from McDowell’s. It was a cheap gimmick.
And it just didn’t work.
Give the NCAA credit for trying to spice up its dreaded play-in game, which had been painfully insignificant since its inception in 2001. But what we found out last night is that answer to making the play-in game relevant isn’t more of them.
If you’re UAB, which lost to Clemson, 70-52, in last night’s inaugural “First Four,” do you really feel like you played in the NCAA tournament? More likely, when the Blazers watch the beginning of the real tournament Thursday, it will seem like an entirely different event.
Because it is.
No matter how hard the NCAA tried to make Dayton look and feel like a regular first-round site — the same court, the same high-definition video boards and even the same announcing crew that will call the Final Four — you’re either in the field of 64 or you’re not. Everything else is halfway to the NIT.
Nobody will admit this, of course. For UAB coach Mike Davis, who has not been to the NCAA tournament before, halfway will do.
“If you’d have been there when our name came across the screen you’d have seen a group of guys that were so excited to be a part of it,” Davis said. “I had no problem being in this game. This is your best time of your college career to be a part of March Madness.
This wasn’t March Madness, however. It was March Mildness, no matter how the NCAA tried to dress it up.
When the NCAA expanded from 65 to 68 this year, adding three at-large teams, there was a huge debate about which teams should have to play their way into the regular bracket. Some advocated determining all the No. 16 seeds in Dayton. Others argued that the last eight at-large teams should play each other, with the four winners feeding in as No. 12 seeds.
Instead, the NCAA combined those two ideas and came up with the First Four, which includes four at-large teams playing for No. 11 or 12 seeds and four automatic qualifiers playing for No. 16 seeds.
UNC-Asheville, which beat Arkansas-Little Rock, 81-77, in overtime in the first game Tuesday, moves on to play Pittsburgh. Wednesday night, Texas-San Antonio and Alabama State will face off for the right to play Ohio State. For those teams, getting a win here before becoming No. 1 seed fodder is a nice experience. But the truth is nobody wants to get sent to Dayton — even now that the NCAA is trying to make it seem more like the regular tournament.
“When we first heard that we were going to be in the play-in game, some of the guys were kind of . . . we were obviously happy to be in the NCAA tournament,” said UNC Asheville guard Matt Dickey, whose 3-pointer with 10 seconds left sent the game to overtime. “But I think we wanted to be in the second round.”
For UAB and the loser of USC and Virginia Commonwealth on Wednesday, being here is better than the alternative. And with a doubleheader instead of just one play-in game, this event certainly came off better than previous years.
But anyone who has been to an NCAA tournament knows this was not the NCAA tournament. Though the stands were fairly full, it was mostly a local crowd — not fans of UAB or Clemson — which didn’t lend itself to much of an atmosphere. And while both games were entertaining, neither quite showcased the intensity or level of concentration teams typically play with when the lights come on last night.
Speaking of the lights, they weren’t exactly up to snuff, either.
Moments before UAB and Clemson tipped off, the University of Dayton Arena bowl went halfway dark, which made for an inauspicious debut of basketball on TruTV.
But as hokey and contrived as this whole experience was, the worst part is that it’s fundamentally unfair.
After Clemson finished with UAB, completed its media obligations and got showered, it boarded a jet for Tampa that was scheduled to arrive well after 3 a.m. EST. On Wednesday, the Tigers will practice and do a news conference before playing West Virginia at noon Thursday. With so little turnaround time, Clemson is at a serious disadvantage; the NCAA should have at least given the Tigers a few more hours to prepare with a night game.
The answer to this logistical silliness, of course, is to get rid of the First Four. The real tournament starts with 64 teams, not 68. Adding more games and more teams didn’t change that. It only sent more teams home feeling like they didn’t quite make it to the main event.
