From drothman1@juno.com  Tue Mar 16 18:10:46 2004
Subject: Commentary

	After we've explained for years why the field for NCAA
	Division I basketball championships is inflated beyond
	any rhyme or reason, there's little value in repeating
	the litany.  The alternative we've proposed is to have
	a triple elimination playoff among the top four teams.
	The top four this year are the top four seeds from the
	tournament, Kentucky, Duke, Stanford, & St. Joe's, but
	not in that order (FACT has Duke first).  A tournament
	with three losses for elimination would have between 9
	and 11 games, all of which would attract big audiences
	and huge TV revenue, and would be games worth watching
	(unlike many of the games involving teams which got in
	by automatic nonentity qualification).  And the winner
	would have a big chance of being truly the "best" team
	in college basketball.  Right now we have a tournament
	which doesn't tolerate even one poor evening which any
	top team just might have on occasion.

	The coaches ended up the regular season with one awful
	ranking of Utah State, a team not even in that bloated
	field for March Madness!  Their poll had Utah State at
	22nd, where the sportswriters had the team 25th (tied)
	and FACT had them 48th.  And coaches did much worse on
	Arizona and Michigan State than the writers.  Is their
	relative incompetence to become a permanent fixture of
	college basketball?

     Dave, 310-676-4032
     David Rothman
     14125 Doty Avenue, #23
     Hawthorne, CA 90250-8042