As the calendar swings from February to March, I'm reminded of Aesop's famous fable "The tortoise and the hare." The hare, so fast he makes Rickey Henderson look like he's running with a refrigerator on his back, races the tortoise, so slow he makes a snail look like, well, Rickey Henderson. Even though the hare sprints out to the lead, hubris gets the better of him, and while he naps and snacks, the tortoise keeps on keepin' on and wins the race.
The month of March and "The tortoise and the hare" may not seem to bear much in common, but as we draw ever closer to March Madness, it would be wise for the NCAA selection committee to re-read the childhood classic.
As you may know, the winners of the 31 end-of-season conference tournaments receive automatic entry into March Madness. To the selection committee, the grueling regular season conference schedule means nothing. One weekend in early March reigns supreme. The hare has dominated the tortoise.
This might make sense to you. By giving teams that performed poorly in the regular season one last chance to make the dance, it creates a buzz throughout February and early March for all schools. But what about the regular season?
Let's take our own RedHawks for example. There are 34 teams that receive "at-large" bids into the tournament, and I can guarantee you Miami won't get one. In fact, no Mid-American Conference team will get one. This isn't an indictment against Miami or the MAC in general. It is simply the life of a mid-majorconference school.
Currently, the RedHawks are battling the University of Akron and the University at Buffalo for the top spot in the MAC East, but come tournament time, this doesn't matter. For mid-major conferences, the regular season is meaningless.
Sure, it's nice to hang conference title banners from the rafters, but the ultimate goal of every team should be to make it to March Madness. And aside from a school like Gonzaga University, mid-majors just don't get at-large bids.
Because of this, attendance lags. When students go to a game, they want to feel like what they are watching matters-that every game counts. Hockey hands out its automatic bids in the same manner, yet we fill the Goggin because we know even if the RedHawks don't win the conference championship they have a very good shot at getting an at-large berth, and we want to feel like we are a part of that.
In Millett Hall, you are part of one game, in a series of games, which mean next to nothing.
Imagine, if you will, that the regular season champion received the automatic berth. Before last night's game against Ohio University, the RedHawks were 15-10 overall and 8-4 in MAC play, just one game behind Buffalo. The RedHawks make the trip up to Buffalo to finish the season.
In the meantime, Miami has two home games remaining against Kent State University and Bowling Green State University. If winning the MAC meant getting an automatic berth to the tournament, those next two games would be extremely meaningful games.
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Yet the way it stands now, the only Miami students who are able to watch any meaningful games are the (un)fortunate few who live close enough to the City by the Burning River to bop into the "Q" for the MAC Tournament. Everyone else who would rather spend spring break with their feet in the sand rather than their boots in the snow will be left out...in the cold.
Conference tournaments can be very exciting if they are put in their proper place. They should be used to help determine seeding, not to determine placement. As it stands, the selection committee takes exciting regular season play and makes it irrelevant.
Until the system changes, that cocky little hare will always win-slow and steady will not win the race.
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