It is time once again for the best two and a half weeks in all of sports — the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

As usual, I am baffled by some of the decisions made by the Men’s Basketball Committee. I am even more so with two of the four play-in games.

If N.C. State, Xavier are good enough to be 12th seeds, and Iowa and Tennessee are good enough to be 11th seeds, then why are they not already in the tournament?

And as usual, I am appalled by several of the teams that get into the tournament via the automatic berth.

Let’s get real for a minute.

While I am all in favor of the small conferences and mid-majors getting their due, I am not in favor of giving teams with .500 records or worse making the field while good teams like SMU get the boot over to the NIT.

Even though Mt. St. Mary’s (16-16) and Cal Poly (13-19) are in the play-in games, one or both of them could make the field.

No team with a losing record, and I mean no team, should get to play in the NCAA tournament even if they win their conference tournament for the automatic bid. Those team should have to play in the NIT while teams who have had outstanding seasons like SMU should be in the “Big Dance.”

With those complaints out of the way, I think that this year’s tournament could be as wide open as any I have ever seen.

There is no one great team out there this year. There are a bunch of really good teams and a lot of pretty good teams in the field.

I have no problem with Florida earning the overall No. 1 seed. I don’t think Wichita State should be the No. 2 overall top seed since they really haven’t played anybody this season.

I do feel for the Shockers, however.

They were put in one of the toughest regions I have ever seen with the likes of Louisville, Kentucky, Duke and Michigan in the Midwest bracket with them.

Florida got no favors from the committee either with Kansas, Syracuse, Ohio State and UCLA in their bracket.

The weakest bracket probably is the East, which gives me hope that Michigan State can put together another tournament run and end up in the Final Four.

It would be great to see Michigan also make another run and make it to Texas where it would meet the Spartans for the fourth time in the national semifinal.

It was great to see Western Michigan win the Mid-American Conference tournament title and make it to the “Dance.” Unfortunately for the Broncos, Syracuse will be on a mission to prove it is still one of the best teams in the country.

So now is the time to fire up those office pools and get ready for March Madness.

With a wide open field, there could be more madness than ever!

 

Scott Novak is sports editor for Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com.