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March, the greatest month of the year. This is the season where
I return to bachelorhood, lock myself into the TV room and tell
my wife that I'll see her sometime in April. Oh, and by the way,
keep those three crying kids out of my hair for the next three weeks.
Unfortunately,
the greatest 96 consecutive hours of sports is now over. For me,
the rest of the NCAA hoops tournament is always an anti-climax after
the first roller-coaster weekend, when the little guys like Kent
State and Southern Illinois rock the worlds of the USCs and Georgias
of the overrated major conferences. Of course, the single most joyful
moment of every tournament is watching Duke lose. (PLEASE, someone
beat Duke!!)
But something
is different this year. Social engineers are tinkering with a system
that isn't broken. The magic of March madness is being ruined by
reformers. Here's my list of the annoying new features of the tournament
that are simply un-American and must be stopped. I also add some
thoughts on other ways to improve the tournament.
1. No Women. How outrageous is this? This year they allowed
a woman ref a men's NCAA game. Liberals celebrate this breakthrough
as a triumph for gender equity. The NCAA has been touting this as
example of how progressive they are. I see it as an obscenity. Is
there no area in life where men can take vacation from women? What's
next? Women invited to bachelor parties? Women in combat? (Oh yeah,
they've done that already.) Why can't women ref he women's games
and men the men's games.
I can't wait to see the first lady ref have a run in with Bobby
Knight.
This speaks
to a bigger and more serious social problem in America: the feminization
of basketball generally. Turn on ESPN or even the networks these
days and you're as likely to see women playing as men. USA Today
devotes nearly half its basketball coverage to the gals: Stephen
F. Austin beat Mary Washington 65-62. Do I have to shout in on a
mountaintop? I don't care!
No one does. We are being force fed lady hoops. I have never in
my life met anyone who actually liked watching women's basketball.
I don't even know any women who like women's basketball. There's
no such thing (I hope) of an office pool for the women's NCAA tournament.
And while I'm venting on the subject, here's another travesty: in
playground games and rec leagues these days, women now feel free
to play with the men — uninvited in almost every case. Look,
I acknowledge that some of the girls these days are half decent.
They can shoot the rock. But that's not the point. When I play basketball,
I push, I hack, I elbow, I bite, and I swear like a sailor. It can
get pretty competitive and, well, vulgar. I think I speak for almost
all men when I respectfully tell the ladies that we don't want you
anywhere around during these precious moments of male bonding.
There's no joy in dunking over a girl. Never mind that I can't dunk
(except on the eight-foot baskets). If I could, I wouldn't celebrate
dunking over someone named Tina. I can't see myself staring her
down and roaring: "In your face, sucka!!" And the girls
are always trying to fast break. Look, I'm 42 years old, if I try
to get out on the break, I'm likely to pull a hamstring.
But I digress. Back to the NCAAs. Here's the rule change I propose:
No more women refs, no women announcers, no women beer venders,
no women anything. There is, of course, an exception to this rule.
Women are permitted to participate, if and only if, they look like
Bonnie Bernstein. The fact that Bonnie knows nothing about basketball
is entirely irrelevant.
2. Bonnie Bernstein should wear a halter top. This is a
no-brainer, CBS. What in the world are you waiting for? To quote
the immortal Wayne of Wayne's World, "If Bonnie were
president of the United States, she'd be Babe-raham Lincoln.
3. No more home cooking. The tournament was changed this
year to allow teams to play closer to home. I love this excuse:
cut down on travel expenses. Oh yes, the tournament only makes $2
billion a year for the NCAAs and the schools and they can't afford
to charter a plane to Boise, Idaho? If sites can't fill the seats
without home teams, hold the games somewhere where fans will come.
This year, four teams got outrageous advantages: Illinois (playing
in Chicago), Maryland (playing in D.C. — I think the Twerps
took the Metro to the game), Texas (playing in Dallas), and Pittsburgh
(playing in Pittsburgh). Big surprise: They all won and advanced.
If the idea of the NCAAs is to pick a national champ, how is giving
teams a home-court advantage fair? (I usually hate that word, by
the way.)
Here's the rule change: No team may play in its home state or within
20 miles of its campus. How hard is that. By the way: I suspect
that if each of these four schools had been playing on neutral courts,
they all might have been bitten by the upset bug.
4. Adopt the NBA rule that you can't take a charge standing under
the basket. Duke would have lost to Notre Dame had it not been
for an absurd charging call in the last minute of a tied game.
5. Split screens for twice as much action and switch away from
blowouts more quickly. Are the CBS sports execs morons? Maryland
is up by 25 points over Wisconsin with three minutes to go and Southern
Illinois is up by 2 against Georgia with three minutes to go in
a tense nail biter. But CBS sticks with the Maryland blowout and
we have to listen to Billy Packer say inane things like: "Wisconsin's
going to have to throw up some 3s if they hope to get back into
this game." Yeah, throw up 3s until 2 in the morning.
6. Get neutral refs for the Duke games. I laughed when people
complained about the bias of the Eastern European judges during
the Olympic skating. The Ukrainians and Russians couldn't hold a
candle to the NCAA refs during a Duke game. Excuse me, you inadvertently
touched Jason Williams — brushed against his uniform. That's
a foul. To beat Duke you better bring you're A game. You have to
outplay eight high-school all-Americans and three prejudiced refs.
7. More probing interviews by Bonnie Bernstein. Did I say
this already? I welcome readers' ideas about further reforms in
this sacred institution.
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