“I only know one thing for certain right now. No one wants to hear me talk. Let ’em know what’s going on.”
These were the first words out of Seth Davis’ mouth to Greg Gumbel before going straight to the bracket reveal during the Selection Show on Sunday night. He is absolutely correct after what the Selection Show has put us through the last few years.
Ever since the show’s format changed, I have not been the same person I had always been. It created a real dark point in my life. One of my favorite TV events of the year had always come on a Sunday in mid-March after a lengthy couch session filled with pizza and an incredible lack of movement all weekend long.
The format was simple, and the routine was flawless and executed perfectly for years.
Once the Big Ten Tournament is over, I see the beautiful face of Greg Gumbel on my television screen ready to provide me with the bracket we had been waiting for all season long. It should also be noted that Gumbel has not aged one bit in the past quarter century and looks to be anywhere from 35-65 years old.
Some things in the Selection Show must be constants every year. Gumbel delivers the bracket. Teams wait awkwardly with the satellite delay. Davis picks every game to be an upset. Doug Gottlieb may tell a joke that isn’t received well by his fellow coworkers but in the end, we got what we wanted out of the Selection Show in under an hour.
It was simple, and we were all happy and ready to fill out a bracket.
Then disaster struck. The show went to the TNT group, and it took 90 minutes to complete with Charles Barkley providing his expert analysis on college hoops and is asked to break down Middle Tennessee. Also, the bracket was leaked online during the show.
Everybody thought this was a bad idea. Surely they’d go back to the regular system, right? Well in 2018, the Selection Show braintrust got together and decided to lengthen it to two hours and list the teams alphabetically. I nearly vomited thinking back to what we were put through.
Finally, the Selection Show folks went back to the regular format this season, and this was the highest rated Selection Show since 2014.
I can understand sometimes change is good but if we ever see another drastic alteration in the Selection Show format, we must stand together and fight back as a college basketball community. We cannot and will not let this happen again.
The people spoke, and the decision makers listened. Take a bow, college basketball fans. The Selection Show, and the world for that matter, has been made great again.
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