Yeah, predicting the Final Four is tough and it's definitely not a science. It taps into that part of the brain effected by cocaine and gambling (especially gambling). The analysts like Packer (not sports journalists like King) are basically tarot card readers for money. Yeah, Packer would have been right if all the MVC and CAA teams fell out in the first round, and he's wrong now that three mid-majors are in the Swt 16, but the audience has to learn to take the Vitals, Phelps, and Packers with a grain of salt. Packer should not have decried the mid-majors during the selection. He's eating crow now but what's to stop him next year if Cal State-Hayward gets in instead of Louisville?

And speaking of Packer, I like CBS's minimalist presentations but their announcers stink. The Gumbel/Marino/Sharpe/Esaison locker room gaffawing is about a sophomoric as it gets. The play by play game calling isn't much better.

I agree that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to say the mid-majors belonged because they ended up doing well. I don't really have an opinion as to whether the MVC "deserved" 4 bids -- all I can say is I'm glad they got them, because it makes for a more compelling and egalitarian event. It's a lot more fun to root for Bradley than Texas A&M (unless you're an Aggie, of course).

Clark Kellogg has done a fine job of exposing the logical fallacy of judging the selection process from the subsequent results (even though he still won't look at the camera for more than a second). In Packer's defense, at least the logical fallacy was used in service of an apology instead of a defense. Still, it reminds me of another sporting fallacy -- in baseball, we often hear that you can't judge a trade at the time it's made. This is silly, of course. Since the future is unknowable, the time of the trade is the only time you can judge it.

I know this is getting away from the NCAA Tournament thread, but since the subject has turned to CBS's commentators and another letter writer criticized the Gumbel/Marino/Sharpe/Esaiason Sunday football team, I'm going to defend them.

Frankly, the sports talking head shows almost always seem like a waste of time to me anyway, but if you're going to waste an hour of your Sunday watching four guys talk about football, I think it probably should be the CBS guys. They actually speak English rather well, usually sound like they more or less know what they're talking about, and seem to have a good rapport.

In short, they're practically the Algonquin Round Table compared to those babbling, homophobic redneck dimwits on FOX.

Just wanted to say 'Thanks' for posting your column early enough that I could read it before going to work this morning. I live in the Canadian Arctic without cable so you're providing all my Madness commentary. I have managed to get a small pool of 5 people going up here! Wichita St. killed me.

He's enthusiastic --and still a sharp, provocative observer of the games. Plus, he's an institution at this point. Like it or not, he's part of what reminds the ole' brain that it's March Madness again.

The hate-Billy-Packer bandwagon is just another of those mysterious mass hater phenomena that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me -- along with the widespread belief that the NBA and Duke games are fixed, Gigli is one of the worst movies of all time, Tom Cruise is crazy, etc...

My husband noticed that too. I would have been way more amused if Pitt had won though.

I'm with you King on the timeout thing. But I think there's actually a better solution. How about limiting teams to maybe 2 TOs per half instead of the current 851? Make the timeout precious and the players wouldn't be so fast to spend them all willy nilly. Between all of the "TV timeouts" and the other hundred or so they get now it makes the last 2 minutes of a game take what feels like 6 hours to complete.

Now that my bracket is officially busted (thanks Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio State), I found myself following the Women's tournament a little earlier than I normally would. The biggest difference I have noticed is that there is a much wider talent disparity in the women’s tournament. In the first round there were only 5 upsets including the 8/9 and 7/10 games. As upsets go they were all pretty mild. One 9 seed, three 11 seeds and one 12 seed, all of the 7 seeds won there games which are always toss ups in the men’s tourneys. The real difference can be seen by comparing the results of the opening 1/16 and 2/15 games. The victory margin for the men was 14.5 points for the 1 seeds and 13 points for the 2 seeds, which is slated because UCLA won their game by 34 points while the other three 2 seeds won by 2,8, and 8 points with each one being a nail bitter for the favorite. On the women’s side the average margin of victory being 40.5 points for both 1 and 2 seeds, with only two of the eight games being won by less than 21 points.

So much of the charm of the men’s tournament is seeing a team of guys from a school you only know from the Fiske Guide to Colleges, that would look more at home in a Wednesday night rec league beating a team of guys bound for the NBA or Europe. As a casual fan of women’s basketball there is really no reason to tune in until the sweet sixteen. There will always be that segment of the population that will never embrace women’s basketball, like ESPN Radio’s odious Colin Cowherd, but they need to close the gap between wheat and the chaff before the women’s tournament becomes a serious topic of sports conversation.

King

Totally agree with you about foul trouble strategy. I hem and haw about the timeout rule. On the plus side, having 'in media res' timeouts IS a distinctive rule among the major sports. Players are rewarded for attentiveness (or penalized for a failure in this regard: Chris Webber). And defenses are reward in that their opponents waste timeouts.

Still, the rule is certainly annoying, especially as it interrupts the flow of the game. You mentioned hockey as one of the models for a rule change, so how about the following change, which would solve the timeout problem and the poor strategy of benching players in foul trouble: penalty boxes!! Instead of clock stopping and players taking boring free-throws, you have 5 v 4 for a minute or two. Fouls would drop tremendously, and action would speed by.