When Syracuse got in last year and made an immediate run to the Final Four, people viewed their inclusion as justified and warranted after the fact. This year, you could possibly say that a team like Wake Forest or USC has a greater chance of getting hot and running through their chunk of the bracket than a team like Illinois State, but which would you rather see afforded the chance on a consistent yearly basis?
Tradition is what makes college basketball, and college sports in general, so appealing to the majority of sports fans. We take in so much personnel-drama in the NFL, so many player feuds over snapchat in the NBA, and the storylines get weird in the dog days of the MLB, so for most fans, the NCAA is a chance to see raw underdog stories and passionate dive-on-the-floor play. Typically, fans want to see Illinois State over Wake Forest. George Mason's Final Four adventure is a lot more memorable than Oklahoma's last year.
Sadly, money has killed tradition in the NCAA. It's time to face the facts of the matter at hand. The sport, and it's executives, have profited for so long they have begun to cut corners and lose sight of what fans actually want to see. Jonas Knox and Dan Beyer explain in the audio below.
You can hear Beyer and Knox every weekday from 3-6 pm est. on Fox Sports Radio. For more of their stories, check here.