COLUMN: ‘Bracket Buster’ games still a bust for Utah State
The biggest problem with college sports is that the big schools throw their weight around and do not let the little schools get their chance. The Bracket Buster event in college basketball is designed to fight the system by exposing smaller schools to the national spotlight. Ironically, after announcing its major expansion from 18 to 46 schools, the Bracket Buster event has become just another elitist organization.
The goal of every smaller school is to make it to the NCAA tournament at the end of the year. The winner of this tournament is the national champion. While winning the tournament would be wonderful, smaller schools know that just making the tournament is a victory in and of itself. The NCAA tournament consists of 65 teams. The winner of every conference (31 teams in all) receives an automatic bid, and then a committee selects 34 at-large teams.
The easiest way for schools like Utah State to make the tournament is to win the conference tournament like the Aggies did last year. The reason is because each year 30 to 32 of the at-large positions are taken by schools from the biggest six or seven conferences.
That leaves only two to four at-large positions for smaller schools like Utah State. This is because they can’t schedule big schools during the season (for various reasons) and they are not in the national spotlight.
The Bracket Buster event, in theory, is a very good idea. It gives smaller schools a chance to play other schools that could potentially be playing in the NCAA tournament and thus strengthening their schedule and giving them national exposure.
However, despite the expansion to 46 teams, many schools are still being left out, while many undeserving teams will be playing.
Utah State won 23 games last year. Only 12 of the 46 teams involved can match that total. Five of the teams didn’t even win 10 games.
This is because the event decided to take every school from the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) and all but one school from the Horizon League. These conferences are three of the biggest not considered being “big” conferences like the Southeastern Conference or the Big XII. At the same time, the Big West Conference will only have one representative – UC Irvine. Four other conferences will also only have one school representing them as well.
This shows, although some smaller schools will be represented, it has become another elitist organization – the same system that these smaller schools are fighting. These schools argue that just because a team is affiliated with a major conference doesn’t mean they are NCAA-tournament qualified. But now these smaller schools are doing the same thing the bigger schools are – leaving deserving teams out in order to make themselves look better. That’s why schools like Buffalo University, who is in the MAC but finished with a 5-23 record last year, will be participating in the Bracket Buster event and Utah State will not.
There are a few ways to fix this problem. The event could only take up to three schools from each conference, which would keep conferences like the MAC and MVC from taking up all the positions. This would make sure all conferences are equally represented, but wouldn’t guarantee that the best teams in each conference would be playing.
The event could also simply choose its schools in the middle of the season, after it sees which teams are doing well and which ones aren’t. Most likely, all conferences will not be equally represented with this system, but with 46 positions, every smaller school in contention for the NCAA tournament will be playing.
Regardless of its flaws, the Bracket Buster event took a large step forward by adding so many teams. But in order to make the system better, it needs to look at the bigger picture and realize why it is there in the first place – to give all smaller schools a chance to be in the national spotlight.
Bryan Hinton is a junior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to bhhinton@cc.usu.edu.