SCOTT on:

   Just Madness

"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

We've all heard that old adage which essentially means, "until you're perfect, leave me alone."

I'd like to remind college basketball fans of that saying as they get set to watch their sacred tournament, the brackets of which have just been released. College basketball fans have all become experts at lecturing college football fans regarding the inadequacies and inherit prejudices of the Bowl Championship Series, while lauding their tournament as the shining example of fairness in determining a champion.

"Everyone has a chance!"

"We give the little guy a chance!"

"We play it on the field!"

These are the mantras you'll hear college basketball fans repeat ad nauseam as they try to shame the college football world into adopting a playoff to crown its king.

Last time I checked, Florida didn't play Ohio State in an arcade to take home the championship and a team from the WAC has about the same chance winning a national title in football as it does in basketball, but this is not an argument about facts, it's an argument about perception, and the perception is that the BCS is wholly unjust while the NCAA basketball tournament is perfectly equitable and sanctified.

Total nonsense.

Turn on a radio the Monday following Selection Sunday and what do you hear?

"Syracuse got screwed!"

"Arkansas is a joke!"

"What happened to Drexel and Air Force; how about the little guy?"

"How can Duke be a #5 seed?"

"What was the Selection Committee thinking; it makes no sense!"

"It's unfair!"

Sounds to me like that tournament you all love so much isn't as clean and orderly as you claim.

It sounds to me like the selection process for the NCAA basketball tournament is every bit as controversial, arbitrary and chaotic as the BCS rankings.

Raise your hand if you think the Selection Committee did even a good job bracketing this tournament, let alone an exceptional one. I'd guess there aren't a lot of hands shooting up right now. Funny thing though, no one is screaming for the NCAA Tournament selection process to be blown up like we hear from the BCS detractors each December.

In actuality, the BCS standings are a better way to determine a champion than college basketball's tournament for one main reason: transparency.

With the BCS standings, you know just where your team stands each and every week. Syracuse fans meanwhile had no inclination, nor could they, that they would be left out of "March Madness."

College football has a system to determine its championship game in the BCS that is based on a formula all the conferences agreed to, it has defined criteria, it has a vote that is released publicly after it is cast and there are mathematical calculations anyone with the know-how to figure out can do to predict or double check the results.

Transparency. The process is open. There are no secrets. You and I can follow the numbers, put them into the formula and see how they came out and understand why they did.

College basketball has a group of guys that meets behind closed doors with only a loose set of justifications that seem to change every year and then, like Moses, they hand their tablets down to us in the form of a bracket that we're all supposed to accept as the word of god and obey.

No media is invited behind the curtain to report on the process, the biases, the bickering or how any of this came to be. What were the arguments? Who was last in? Who was last out? Why? We'll never know because the entire selection process is a closely guarded mystery with the group choosing just one spokesman to answer for all the inconsistencies.

The NCAA Selection Committee uses no formula. Some years, the Ratings Percentage Index seems to matter most. Other years it's strength of schedule. Sometimes, your record in the last 10 games is crucial while other times the strength of your conference seems to matter most. What's most frustrating is that the Committee seems to not only apply these standards differently from year to year, it often applies them with no consistency to different teams in the same year.

How can you explain Air Force being left out of the tournament with an RPI of 30 while Stanford got in on an at-large berth with an RPI of 65?

Perhaps you'll point to Stanford's impressive 32nd ranked strength of schedule compared to Air Force's which was 80th. Fine, then how do you explain Syracuse with the 46th toughest schedule being left out while Indiana with the 52nd toughest got in. By the way, Indiana was 5-5 in its last 10 games while Syracuse went 7-3.

The NCAA secretly and arbitrarily selects and places teams into its basketball tournament. There is no opportunity for observation of the process by the media. Committee members are discouraged from talking publicly about the process, the discussions or how the bracket came to be. There is no formula or defined criteria the Committee uses year in and year out select teams, it instead bends the criteria to fit the decisions after the fact.

There is no transparency. It is a process only a Communist dictator could love.

Yet, all we ever hear from college basketball fans is how great and enlightened their tournament is and how shady and foul our BCS is. No one ever remembers the rancor of the Monday following Selection Sunday when it comes time to take a hack at college football.

The BCS is open. It is predictable. It has a formula.

The NCAA Selection Committee is closed, unpredictable and capricious.

You tell me which is better.

The BCS isn't perfect, but neither is the selection process for the NCAA tournament, I just wonder why one system gets ridiculed and excoriated while the other is exalted when they're both equally flawed?