My 10 Commandments For Improving March Madness

Welcome to my March Madness manifesto.  The following is a list of rules that, if implemented,  will increase the overall quality and entertainment value of the March Madness tournament.  Please read and help spread the word so that we can all enjoy a better March Madness!

Rule 1.* During the first round of the March Madness tournament, players on the bench must not link arms in solidarity.  By linking arms in solidarity on the bench, teams are showing unity.  They are demonstrating hope and confidence.  They are embodying the Bon Jovi song, “Livin’ on a Prayer.”  They are saying, “We really think we can go all the way this year.  We just need to hit this free throw and we could be on our way to a championship!”  

I’m all for the linking of arms.  But not in the first round.  If you can’t win your first round matchup in a relatively nonchalant fashion, then you’re probably not that good.  You’re probably not on your way to any championship.  Please, no linking arms in the first round.

Rule 2.*  At no point in time shall assistant coaches join players in linking arms in solidarity on the bench.  Granted, assistant coaches want to feel part of the team.  Most assistant coaches are former players and they have a sense of camaraderie with the current players.  

But I’m sorry, assistant coaches, the tournament is not your one shining moment.  You are at the Big Dance, but you are not dancing.  Only the players are dancing.  

Assistant coaches, you are the chaperones.  Just stay out of the way and let the players enjoy themselves.  You have no reason to be linking arms in solidarity with them on the bench.  

You can give out high fives to anyone who wants one.  You can distribute towels and beverages.  You can clap and cheer.  But linking arms with the players on the bench—that’s just a bit too much.  Please refrain from that.

Rule 3.  Each team must have a “style guy.”  The “style” can be anything unique.  Wild hair, goggles, facial hair, an unconventional headband, an especially memorable name, a wacky personality, or an unusual body type for a basketball player.  Better yet, a combination of all of the above.  

 These are the players that keep us watching.  Sometimes we love them and sometimes they drive us crazy.  But we can’t look away.  Announcers can’t stop talking about them.  Every team should be required to have a “style guy.”  

Partial list of “style guys” in no particular order:

·     Jake Voskuhl, UConn, late 90’s.  Highly gelled hair, memorable name, tough inside player.  

·     Khalid El Amin, UConn, late 90’s.  Sub-six footer, bowling-ball body, memorable name, very good at finishing in the paint.

·     Przemek Karnowski, Gonzaga, 2017.  Built like an offensive tackle in football, bushy facial hair, lefty.

·     Matt Haarms, Purdue, 2019.  Very tall, very skinny, and very high-lofted hair. Charismatic personality.  He’s sure to get a lot of on-camera time this year.

·     Purvis Ellison, Louisville, mid-80’s. Memorable name and nickname (“Never Nervous”), unstoppable player.

·     Grant Hill and Thomas Hill, Duke, early 90’s.  The high-top fade haircuts, the same last name (but they’re not related).  These guys did the dirty work that allowed to Christian Laettner to gather the accolades (and a spot on the Dream Team. How in the world did that happen?).

·     Moritz Wagner, Michigan, 2018.  The ever-present mouthguard hanging out, the screaming and yelling after a basket.  Very enthusiastic guy.  Now he’s on a team with Lebron.  That’ll take away your enthusiasm pretty quickly!  

·     Rumeal Robinson, Michigan, late 80’s-early 90’s. Memorable name, the consummate floor general, and a clutch free throw guy.  

·     Steph Curry, Davidson, late 00’s. Unusually skinny, looked like a little kid out there.  Prolific scorer from outside with a strong handle and an uncanny passing ability. What ever happened to him?

·     JR Reid, North Carolina, 80’s.  Very high hair, like Kid from Kid ‘N Play. 

·     Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson,and Chris Webber, Michigan, early 90’s. These guys had a collective style. A great group nickname (I can’t seem to remember it, though), the baggy shorts, the Air Max shoes, the black socks, the recruiting scandal that surfaced after they left.  It was like the movie Blue Chips in real life.  Come to think of it, all those guys should be getting royalties from Blue Chips.

·     Thomas Walkup, Stephen F. Austin State, 2016. The hair, the Amish beard, the name, the clutch shooting.  

·     David Rivers, Notre Dame, mid-80’s.  He was a one-man team and he had style.  The mini-Afro said it all.  Just fluffy enough to make a statement, just compact enough to keep the powers that be at Notre Dame happy.

·     God Shammgod, Providence, early 00’s.**  

·     Robert “Tractor” Traylor, Michigan, mid-90’s. You cannot beat those names. 

Rule 4.  Re-legalize the “falling out of bounds timeout call.”  Remember, before they outlawed it in 2006, how everybody was always hustling to grab the ball, jumping into the air while going out of bounds, and quickly calling timeout before landing out of bounds?  

The refs would grant the timeout, everyone would high five and head back to the huddle to draw up the next play, and we would have a three minute break in the action!  And this would happen over and over and over again.

Don’t get me wrong, banning the “falling out of bounds timeout call” was one of the best rule changes in recent memory.  But I think we should re-legalize it for one year, just to show the kids who weren’t around pre-2006 what they’ve been missing.  A little bit of throwback basketball!  

Plus, the TV networks will get their advertising revenue way up with all those extra commercial breaks.

Rule 5.  New restrictions shall be placed upon intentional fouling at the end of games.  Many teams must resort to fouling in the final minutes so that they can conserve the clock while trying to mount a comeback.  

Sometimes, though, the fouling is just ridiculous.  You’re down by 9, there are 7 seconds to play, and you’re fouling their 94 percent free throw shooter?  

Knowing when to throw in the towel is very important.  That’s why I am providing the following guidelines.

·     If you’re down by 4 or fewer, just go ahead and foul whenever.  Don’t worry about it.

·     Down 5 or 6—No fouling with under 5 seconds left.

·     Down 7 or 8-- No fouling with under 15 seconds left.

·     Down 9—No fouling with under 1 minute left.

·     Down by 10 or more—No intentional fouling ever.  Unless the other team has a sub-50 percent foul shooter.  Then you can foul that guy over and over.  It’s rarely a winning strategy, but you can try it.

Rule 6.  All head coaches shall carry a towel at all times, a la Jerry Tarkanian and John Thompson.

A towel is a very useful prop for a coach.  It makes it look like he’s part of the action.  He can wipe his sweaty brow with it, bite it or twist it up when he’s nervous or frustrated, and wave it around in celebration like Larry Bird did.  

Also encouraged, but not required: coaches should keep a bottle of Maalox under their seat.  During tense moments, they should stand on the sideline and take swigs straight out of the bottle.  

Coaches get paid a lot. They should always make it look like they’re working really hard for that money.  A towel and a bottle of Maalox will go a long way toward building that perception.

Rule 7.  No drinks of Gatorade shall be handed out during timeouts if the time elapsed since the previous timeout has been less than one minute.  

Here’s an example: sometimes a team calls a timeout to draw up a play, then after the timeout they have trouble inbounding the ball, and they end up calling another timeout.  

 In cases like these, no beverages should be distributed at the second timeout.  They just had a chance to re-hydrate at the first timeout and they’ve done nothing since then, besides walking out onto the court and then walking back to the bench.  

No one needs a drink at that point.  Just put the beverages away until the guys have run up and down the court a time or two.

Rule 8.  During every free throw sequence, the TV producers must cut to the parent or parents of the free throw shooter at least once. 

Everyone knows that parents worry about free throws.  Free throws are the part of the game that reflects on them as parents the most.  

When a kid misses a free throw, everyone glares at the parents and wonders, “Didn’t they make Johnny practice his free throws?  Didn’t they have him shooting 100 free throws every day before school since second grade?  And look, now we’re going to lose the game because he can’t make a free throw!”  

This is why parents worry about their child’s free throws.  And this is why we should always get a look at the parents during free throws. All the drama and raw emotion makes for riveting TV.    

Rule 9.  Who’s in favor of equality?  We all are, aren’t we?  This is why we shall require TV stations to always divvy up commercial breaks equally among four entities.

Every commercial break shall feature an equal measure of:

·     Fast food—for the teenagers

·     Credit cards—for the adults

·     Sporty vehicles—for the teenagers and adults

·     Cell phone plans—for the teenagers and adults.

This ad-time equality is very important.  I am always very disappointed when I don’t get my full fix of fast food, credit card, sporty vehicle, and cell phone commercials.  

Let’s get this right, March Madness!  Don’t let me down!

Rule 10.  The tenth and final commandment is the most March Madness-y mandate yet.  This one is in regards to the floor slap.  A floor slap is when a defensive player squats down and slaps the floor mightily with both palms.  

The floor slap says, “I am ready to play defense.  Show me what you’ve got.  Go ahead and dribble the ball across half court, but after that, you’re in my world. I am going to be on you like a cheap suit with my suffocating defense.  You might pass the ball to a teammate, but after that I’ll face guard you so there is no possible way for you to receive the ball back.  And if you do get the ball back, I’ll just slap the floor and we’ll start this whole thing again from the beginning.”

My mandate is that a floor slap must occur at least once in the last two minutes of a game.  The last two minutes is crunch time.  It’s floor slap time. Any team that is trailing by five points or fewer in the last two minutes must do a floor slap.  

If a team is trailing by six or more points in the final two minutes, a floor slap is encouraged but not required.  

Finally, at any point in the game, if a team goes on an 8-0 run or better, they must execute a floor slap on the next defensive possession.  What this shows is, “We’re scoring like crazy right now, but we’re still dedicated to executing on the defensive end as well.”   

Enjoy your March Madness!  Please be sure to comment on/like/share this post.  In addition, I highly recommend you print out this blog post and mail it to the NCAA so that they will adopt all of my March Madness mandates and improve the tournament for the better! 

Thanks for reading!

*Acknowledgement: Rules 1 and 2 on this list belong to my wife Stephanie, whose brilliant ideas and astute observations got the ball rolling for me with this blog post. Let’s hear it for Stephanie!

**  Think about it for a second. God Shammgod went to school at Providence. Could he have picked a more perfect school? Did the Providence coach point out the irony when he was making his recruiting pitch?