In its threat to expand the men's basketball tournament from 65 to 96 teams, the NCAA comes off as the Wizard looking for an escape from Oz.
Once the Wizard's hot-air balloon is airborne, Oz's fate, and that of the Wizard, is irreversible.
"I can't come back," the Wizard shouts. "I don't know how it works."
In a bit of madness, the NCAA seems prepared to launch an expanded bracket and (sob) toy with America's most cuddly sporting spectacle, the Cinderella Invitational.
If they only had a brain.
Tinkering with the Big Dance's symmetrical perfection fulfills the NCAA's fundamental urge to re-do its basketball TV contract and thereby generate so much money that it can pay for its Division II women's lacrosse championships, and 87 others, without worrying about the per diem.
Can't they hold a yard sale instead?
Can you imagine the excitement for next year's first-round games, the No. 19 seed vs. No. 14?
I can think of a dozen fix-up jobs necessary in college basketball, but none of them are remotely connected to the nearly flawless system of identifying a basketball champion. You want to make the game better? Try these changes instead:
-- Shorten the shot clock to 30 seconds. The women's game has a 30-second clock and nobody has worn out their sneakers or demanded extra oxygen.
This would be known as the Herb Sendek rule, for the current Arizona State and former N.C. State coach. It would put more pace in the game and perhaps avoid those dreadful, walk-it-up, all-shoulders-and-beef games that have become prevalent, especially in the Pac-10.
Do you know there hasn't been an NCAA championship game in which both teams scored at least 80 points since 1978? I admire defense and teamwork as much as the next guy, but how about a fast break every half? Remember those?
-- Require all ESPN and CBS analysts to sign, in blood, preferably, a contract that forbids them to ever again say a team needs to "score the basketball." What else are they going to score?
And while we're at it, how about a moratorium on "going forward" as well? What happened to "future?" But I'd forget about "going forward" if any broadcaster using the term "charity stripe" was suspended for the next 50 games.
-- Shorten the games. College hoops used to fit into those tidy two-hour windows. Now, especially in the NCAA tournament, they're 2:30 and sometimes 2:50. They can make a mid-July Astros-Pirates game seem speedy.
In a televised game (what game isn't televised?) there are eight media timeouts. In addition, each team is allotted a single 60-second timeout and four 30-second timeouts. If each team uses all available timeouts (and in close games, who doesn't?) that's 18 timeouts. Spontaneity is lost.
If the czar of rules-making decreed that each team would be limited to one timeout in the final minute, I'd nominate that person for the next round of "Dancing With the Stars" and pair him up with Jennifer Aniston.
-- Forbid all coaches, managers, directors-of-operation and others not in uniform to wear suits while on the bench.
As much as I feel a lack of admiration for the unhuggable Bob Huggins of West Virginia, his golf-type wind shirt seems more appropriate for a sweaty game of basketball than the designer suits worn by millionaire coaches.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski looked sharp and sporty while coaching in his Team USA golf shirt. At Duke, in his all-black, go-to-meeting threads, he comes off as a minister.
The best-dressed coach in the Pac-10 is Oregon State's Craig Robinson, who doesn't wear a tie. It's a game, not a banquet.
-- Resist all attempts to legislate, in cooperation with the NBA, those one-and-done, look-Ma-I'm-off-to-the-pros exodus.
Because Kentucky, UConn, Kansas, North Carolina and UCLA can't keep their best players on campus for more than a few months, the game has never been more compelling. My favorite term in college basketball is "testing the waters."
Hey, let 'em swim.
There are no more dynasties. Anybody can win. The beauty of the NCAA tournament is that it is front-loaded with chatter about bubble teams and that, inevitably, someone like Butler, George Mason, Xavier and St. Mary's roars to the Sweet 16 or beyond.
The Little Shaver has made this tournament a Big Hit.
-- Restore some sanity to recruiting by establishing a universal letter-of-intent date. Let's say Sept. 1.
That way, college coaches can coach instead of spending the winter months nibbling on their fingernails, worried about a hot shot who keeps the dot.com boys in business by flirting with five schools.
I don't like the message sent by those unsigned schoolboys at the McDonald's All-American game. They have all the leverage. Some of them invariably have a posse with hands out. When recruiting is extended to that extreme, it invites some shady deals. Much of that could be avoided by taking care of all recruiting business, visits and signings, in the summer.
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