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Joel Klatt: The NCAA basketball tournament is the "dumbest tournament in all of sports"
Posted on 12/16/25 at 9:52 am
Posted on 12/16/25 at 9:52 am
Joel coming in with the scorching hot take.
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"The NCAA basketball tournament is a joke,” Klatt said during an appearance on The Next Round. “It’s the dumbest tournament and the least fair tournament in all of sports. We go, and we put teams at odd times on neutral sites in a one-game affair. That doesn’t crown a true champion. We’re not doing anything that tells us who’s the best team over the course of the entire season.”
quote:
We’re not looking for a Cinderella. Nobody cares in football about James Madison, or the equivalent of George Mason going to the Final Four. Nobody cares in football about that. We don’t want Cinderellas. We want the best teams playing each other at the end.”
Posted on 12/16/25 at 9:57 am to Kinderman
Scorching retarded take maybe.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 9:57 am to Kinderman
quote:
Nobody cares in football about James Madison, or the equivalent of George Mason going to the Final Four.
No one cares about the team you can still name check as a Cinderella 20 years later. Ok guy.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 9:58 am to Kinderman
March madness is about entertainment and money, not being the most fair way to crown a champion.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:00 am to ProjectP2294
only thing I don't like is automatic qualifiers from winning a conference tourney
you disregard the whole regular season to give the tourney champ a bid and sometimes eliminating the best team from that particular conference doesn't make a whole lot of sense
all the talk about expanding the NCAA tourney would be great and you could eliminate conference tourneys and making teams play a lot of back to back games that for the most part are meaningless while risking injury to those teams players
you disregard the whole regular season to give the tourney champ a bid and sometimes eliminating the best team from that particular conference doesn't make a whole lot of sense
all the talk about expanding the NCAA tourney would be great and you could eliminate conference tourneys and making teams play a lot of back to back games that for the most part are meaningless while risking injury to those teams players
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:01 am to Kinderman
quote:
Joel Klatt: The NCAA basketball tournament is the "dumbest tournament in all of sports"
In some ways he's right. In other ways he's dead wrong.
I think people love Cinderella the first 4 days of the tourney. However, that often paves the way for 30 point wins by 1 seeds over some random 13 seed who makes it through and everyone loves the first weekend.
So everyone loves a 13 beating a 4 and then knocking off a 5, but that often leads to terrible blowouts later in the tournament making the 16/8 not as good as it could be
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:03 am to LSUBoo
quote:
March madness is about entertainment and money, not being the most fair way to crown a champion.
Same as CFP at this point
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:06 am to Kinderman
hes 100% right.
March Madness is entertaining for casuals or those who just want to watch games and pull for upsets because it’s fun and they have brackets/money on the line.
If you actually are a fan of a basketball team and care about it and the season, its one of the most frustrating/dumbest things about the sport
as a fan you invest all this time and energy into a team over the course of 4 months…yo through a conference slate…then a conference tournament…then await your seeding.
then you get shipped to god knows where and play a single elimination tournament in a sport where refs suck arse and any random game can see your best player get in foul trouble or the underdog team gets key free throws to keep them in a game and your season is over in the blink of an eye.
and the structure itself is wonky…you get a week to prepare for first team in your bracket, then one day to prepare for team 2, then a week for team 3, one day for team four
basketball is not a sport that should be played as a single game.
but again, everything above is great as a casual fan who just wants to take off work drink beer and watch the chaos and carnage
March Madness is entertaining for casuals or those who just want to watch games and pull for upsets because it’s fun and they have brackets/money on the line.
If you actually are a fan of a basketball team and care about it and the season, its one of the most frustrating/dumbest things about the sport
as a fan you invest all this time and energy into a team over the course of 4 months…yo through a conference slate…then a conference tournament…then await your seeding.
then you get shipped to god knows where and play a single elimination tournament in a sport where refs suck arse and any random game can see your best player get in foul trouble or the underdog team gets key free throws to keep them in a game and your season is over in the blink of an eye.
and the structure itself is wonky…you get a week to prepare for first team in your bracket, then one day to prepare for team 2, then a week for team 3, one day for team four
basketball is not a sport that should be played as a single game.
but again, everything above is great as a casual fan who just wants to take off work drink beer and watch the chaos and carnage
This post was edited on 12/16/25 at 10:10 am
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:06 am to Kinderman
the tourney is successful BECAUSE of the cinderellas.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:09 am to Kinderman
quote:
We go, and we put teams at odd times on neutral sites in a one-game affair. That doesn’t crown a true champion. We’re not doing anything that tells us who’s the best team over the course of the entire season.”
I DON'T care.
That's the rub, Joel! Especially to college football -- I do not care about the "true" champion.
Because there isn't one. Ever. If we were crowning "true" champions, the 2007 Patriots would have a ring. The 2014-2015 Kentucky basketball team would have cut down the nets.
Sports are fun because they are a game, and the game has a built in system that every team goes through. Some games and systems are more fun than others. The NCAA college basketball system is one of the most fun postseasons in all of sports. If you want to complete the game, win the game, hoist the trophy, you have to win that system.
College football pretty much used to ignore the idea of a champion. You played your rivalry teams, competed for your conference, and were rewarded with a nice trip for a bowl game. Some of the bowl games had deep traditional meaning with cultural impact. Those were the games you really wanted to get into! But as we're seeing, trying to crown a "true" champion doesn't work. There are always holes in the arguments and always kinks in the system.
You might say the NBA and MLB have the best systems for crowning a "true" champion with having to win a best of seven.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:10 am to Kinderman
He’s loading up on the awful takes lately. His PR team must be asking him to generate clicks.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:10 am to Kinderman
What an embarrassment for the Big Ten to be deeply associated with such a dumbfrick. I had always liked JK, but anyone this short sighted needs exiled to the ACC games.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:12 am to Kinderman
I legitimately wouldn’t watch a single second of the ncaa basketball tournament if it was just the power programs.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:12 am to nicholastiger
quote:
only thing I don't like is automatic qualifiers from winning a conference tourney
you disregard the whole regular season to give the tourney champ a bid and sometimes eliminating the best team from that particular conference doesn't make a whole lot of sense
This is entirely up to the conferences... they can auto-bid the regular season champ if they want. I think one (Ivy League maybe?) does it this way.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:12 am to Kinderman
I won’t watch a single college basketball all season, but I’ll tune into a couple tournament games. Especially early rounds.
Joel Klatt can suck on a hairy one.
Joel Klatt can suck on a hairy one.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:15 am to Kinderman
While it'd be more "fair" for the tournament to be set up like the baseball tournament is (double elimination regionals, best of 3 supers, repeat) we are just in too deep now with the current bracket and the amount of money involved.
Also, the best teams usually end up winning the tournament anyways. Using final KenPom ratings for the last ten tourneys + 1:
2025: #3 Florida
2024: #1 UConn
2023: #1 UConn
2022: #3 Kansas
2021: #2 Baylor
2019: #1 Virginia
2018: #1 Villanova
2017: #3 North Carolina
2016: #1 Villanova
2015: #3 Duke
2014: #15 UConn
Also, the best teams usually end up winning the tournament anyways. Using final KenPom ratings for the last ten tourneys + 1:
2025: #3 Florida
2024: #1 UConn
2023: #1 UConn
2022: #3 Kansas
2021: #2 Baylor
2019: #1 Virginia
2018: #1 Villanova
2017: #3 North Carolina
2016: #1 Villanova
2015: #3 Duke
2014: #15 UConn
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:21 am to Kinderman
This feels like it’s being said in jest relative to the CFB playoffs, but I think he’s serious.
The tournament has at least the 40 best teams in it every year & somehow we usually get the top 4-8 playing in the end. What a retarded take
The tournament has at least the 40 best teams in it every year & somehow we usually get the top 4-8 playing in the end. What a retarded take
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:29 am to nicholastiger
quote:
only thing I don't like is automatic qualifiers from winning a conference tourney you disregard the whole regular season to give the tourney champ a bid and sometimes eliminating the best team from that particular conference doesn't make a whole lot of sense
Every league should have 2 guaranteed slots, regular season champ and tourney champ.
If you win both, you should get a very high seed to incentivize teams to not quit in the tourney
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:31 am to Oilfieldbiology
quote:There are 31 conferences in D1, so that'd be 62 AQ's (at most) which would be a bit ridiculous. I don't hate it in theory, but it'd just never happen especially with how logjammed the P4 conferences are now.
Every league should have 2 guaranteed slots, regular season champ and tourney champ.
Posted on 12/16/25 at 10:40 am to Harry Caray
I was going to say that UCONN was the only real surprise national champ in a long time. (not counting an upset of a heavy favorite)
Then before that maybe NC State or Nova in the mid 80s were teams nobody thought had a chance to win it all going into the tournament.
Then before that maybe NC State or Nova in the mid 80s were teams nobody thought had a chance to win it all going into the tournament.
This post was edited on 12/16/25 at 10:41 am
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