The NCAA tournament is one of the greatest events in sports, which makes it all the more disappointing and peculiar that it’s preceded by one of the worst.
On Tuesday and Wednesday night in Dayton, eight college basketball teams that ostensibly made it into the NCAA tournament field will play for the right to actually make the NCAA tournament field. It’s part of a sports travesty called the First Four, a made-for-TV set of four play-in games that exist solely to give the NCAA two additional nights of faux tournament action. Those eight hours of basketball come at the expense of the four losing teams, who miss out on the real tournament experience – one of the great egalitarian meritocracies in sports.