By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Let me go ahead and begin by stating that I am not a fan of the NCAA, specifically it’s governing board.

Besides the whole student athlete model being a bit archaic, and truthfully a sham, most of the decisions made by the board in regards to the student athletes, they claim to care so much about, is a complete contradiction to what is actually in the athlete’s best interest.

Now that you’ve been privy to my inner Jay Bilas, it should come as little surprise I think the NCAA has squandered a perfect opportunity make this upcoming basketball season memorable, not because of Covid, but in spite of it.

Before the NCAA announced the basketball season would begin on Nov. 25, the ACC coaches (unanimously, I believe) proposed to expand the NCAA tournament and allow all 351 Division I teams to participate.

The main idea behind it was that a team wouldn’t have to worry about their tournament chances being diminished due to games being cancelled because of covid.

As we are seeing with football, it’s almost a given that games will be cancelled.

In a year as unorthodox as this year has been, it was an interesting, outside the box idea, that had the potential to be a lot of fun; can you imagine a single elimination tournament featuring 351 teams? Obviously, the NCAA didn’t see it that way.

There were two particular issues the NCAA had when asked about the proposal- making the tournament is a special achievement and allowing everyone in would take away from that honor, and the extra 2-3 rounds it would take to include everyone would be too taxing on the athletes.

On one hand I understand the first line of thinking, if you’re looking at it strictly from the viewpoint of conference tournaments; for all the mid-major teams the regular season doesn’t mean anything in terms of making the tournament.

In a way, their regular season has always been diminished because they’re only making the tournament if they win their conference.

I know the conference tournaments wouldn’t have as much at stake in this scenario, but personally, I’d be ok with that for one season.

Where the NCAA loses me though, is arguing that the longer season would be detrimental to the athletes.

They ask students to play on holidays, spring break, during exams, as well as a myriad of other things that take them away from their studies/families, but adding what amounts to an extra week of games is too much?

I’m sure if you were to ask the players how they felt about allowing all teams into the tournament and playing an extra week of game most of them wouldn’t mind.

Then again, the NCAA and most coaches don’t seem to want to listen to what the players have to say, except for when it supports their own agendas.

I say all this realizing it may come across as an “everyone gets a trophy” argument, which may or may not rub you the wrong way.

However, with all the metaphorical garbage we have to wade through on a daily basis it would actually be nice to see something that even fits everyone.

Unfortunately, with all the changes and adjustment we’ve had to endure over the past six months, when it comes to the betterment of the NCAA athlete you can always count on the NCAA to take a look, and then do the opposite.