Columnist Ron Kantowski: Elite reap big benefits in NCAAs

Thursday, March 27, 2003 | 9:37 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@ lasvegassun .com or(702) 259-4088.

It's a good thing -- or is it? -- that the NCAA tournament isn't run like NASCAR. If it were, Kentucky might have to spot Wisconsin 10 points tonight, or put a restrictor plate on its fastbreak.

In stock car racing and other sports, rules are made to level the playing field between competitors. That's why in NASCAR, if a Ford wins three consecutive races, chances are the Chevys will be allowed to run rocket fuel instead of gasoline in the fourth one.

That's an exaggeration, of course, but it has been proven that parity is good for business in NASCAR and other sports. Sometimes, it would appear the NFL's ultimate goal is to have every team finish 8-8 and let everybody in the playoffs.

The NCAA tournament is the exact opposite. The way it is set up, it's all but guaranteed that the rich will get richer. And that the poor will continue to grovel at Dick Vitale's high-tops for a little attention.

The biggest culprit is the seeding system that supposedly is designed to have the two best teams meet in the championship game. But 9 times out of 10, a tournament that lasts three weeks and six rounds is going to achieve that result on its own.

Just ask anybody who plays softball.

One of these days, somebody at the NCAA, speaking off the record of course, will admit that the real reason behind seeding the teams is that it handicaps the tournament for the casual fan and gives him or her an idea of how to fill out an office pool bracket.

Do you really think March Madness would generate significant prime time television ratings without secretaries and errand boys tuning it to follow their $10 investment?

If a scrimmage between Kentucky and IUPUI is the only alternative to what's on Fox, it probably only would be a matter of time before I switched channels to see some handsome lug who got laid off at the car wash try to seduce an unwitting gold-digging bimbo. Unless the WB was airing a Seinfeld rerun.

One argument for having seeds is that it makes the regular season more compelling. Even most pro sports use a variation of the seeding system when it comes to playoffs, but then that is offset by the draft. The teams that win the most games get to pick after the ones that didn't, which in theory, were George Steinbrenner not around, would close the gap between the haves and have-nots over time.

It doesn't work that way in college basketball. Kentucky, Duke and Kansas win most of the games and still get most of the McDonald's All-Americans. They have the tradition and the resources -- resources that are bolstered by a hefty check every time they win an NCAA tournament game -- that helps them stay on top year after year after year.

Although the seeding system didn't go into effect until 1979, you have to go back to 1966, when Texas-Western (now UTEP) beat Kentucky, to mark the last time a school considered a "mid-major" by today's standards won the championship.

As I said, if you eliminated the seeds and/or moving teams around the country, it wouldn't change the end result. But it would make it easier for schools such as Cal State Fullerton, North Carolina-Charlotte, Idaho State, VMI, San Francisco, Oral Roberts, Western Kentucky, Jacksonville, St. Bonaventure, Drake, New Mexico State and Utah State -- all of which made it to the Elite 8 between 1970-78 -- to share in the wealth.

And I think we'd all agree there would be no harm in having Gonzaga and Butler around for an extra weekend.