Ron Kantowski on how NCAA tournament could be more interesting if teams were kept in their geographic regions

Thursday, March 15, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

It's a good thing there wasn't any bracket busting during the 1850s or Horace Greeley, the old newspaper editor, might have thought twice about advising the young men of his day to go west.

But based on the number of teams in this year's NCAA tournament from the spurs and saddle conferences, and another group still shaking sand from its high-tops, perhaps the perceived East Coast bias of the tournament selection committee isn't all it is made out to be by us frontier folk.

If you count Texas Tech as part of the West - and having been to Lubbock, which looks just like New Mexico in the rear view mirror, I do - there are 14 teams still dribbling tumbleweeds.

We still need two more for a bracket.

Because Dallas seems to have flunked geography - explain to me again why the Cowboys play in the NFC East - and Denton, home of North Texas State, or U., or whatever it is calling itself while waiting to be swallowed whole by the Texas A&M system, is situated about 30 miles north of South Fork Ranch, we'll take the Mean Green. Or Eagles. Or whatever nickname they are using this week.

That would make 15 teams. Give us Arkansas, since it was the last team in - or better yet, we'll take Air Force instead of the Pork Bellies - and we've got a bracket. Sixteen teams playing for one shining moment, or at least a chance to screw up somebody's office pool beyond repair.

If only the NCAA would let it be. But when was the last time that crew was charged with speaking words of wisdom?

In the 1980s, when the tournament was expanded to prolong the seasons of marginal Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East teams, the NCAA began moving tournament qualifiers around the map like push pins for Motel 6 franchises. Only they didn't leave the light on. Instead of a Final Four that represented all parts of the country, the brackets were stacked in such a way that it could be composed solely of ACC or Big East teams.

I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. If you don't think UNLV's chances to advance past the first weekend of this year's tournament would be better as a No. 4 seed in the West, rather than a seven in the Midwest, then you must be related to Billy Packer. A Wake Forest guy.

Even with a 64-team field, most years the teams would fit pretty nicely into brackets representing their geographic regions. Using this year's field, at first blush you have 11 teams from the East, 17 from the Midwest, 21 from the South and 15 from the West.

But if you move the four Virginia schools from the South to the East, you're almost there - full brackets for each of the regions where fans wouldn't have to buy programs, because these are the players they have been watching since Midnight Madness.

Here's some of what you get by using the old-school brackets:

Before the committee starting moving the teams around like checkers, it was a lot easier for midmajor teams to crash the Final Four. During the 1970s, 10 teams from today's midmajor ranks made it to center stage of the college basketball universe, including three in 1970 alone - Jacksonville, New Mexico State and St. Bonaventure.

In the 16 years since UNLV last appeared in the Final Four, only four similar-sized programs - Cincinnati in 1992, UMass in 1996, Utah in 1998 and George Mason last year - have made it that far.

In addition, the longer his team stayed alive, the bigger chunk of change it would get from the NCAA's bazillion-dollar TV contract. Applying the NCAA's "unit" system, the Big East received $14.85 million based on its teams' performance over the past six NCAA tournaments. Contrast that to the eight conferences that did not win a tournament game over that period, which received slightly more than $1 million each.

This is why the rich get richer in college basketball. And why Colorado State and Wyoming and New Mexico and Utah are looking for new coaches.