March Madness
Seven ways to make it even better.

By Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth
March 19, 2002 9:40 a.m.

h, March, the greatest month of the year. This is the season where I return to bachelorhood, lock myself into the TV room and tell my wife that I'll see her sometime in April. Oh, and by the way, keep those three crying kids out of my hair for the next three weeks.

Unfortunately, the greatest 96 consecutive hours of sports is now over. For me, the rest of the NCAA hoops tournament is always an anti-climax after the first roller-coaster weekend, when the little guys like Kent State and Southern Illinois rock the worlds of the USCs and Georgias of the overrated major conferences. Of course, the single most joyful moment of every tournament is watching Duke lose. (PLEASE, someone beat Duke!!)

But something is different this year. Social engineers are tinkering with a system that isn't broken. The magic of March madness is being ruined by reformers. Here's my list of the annoying new features of the tournament that are simply un-American and must be stopped. I also add some thoughts on other ways to improve the tournament.

1. No Women. How outrageous is this? This year they allowed a woman ref a men's NCAA game. Liberals celebrate this breakthrough as a triumph for gender equity. The NCAA has been touting this as example of how progressive they are. I see it as an obscenity. Is there no area in life where men can take vacation from women? What's next? Women invited to bachelor parties? Women in combat? (Oh yeah, they've done that already.) Why can't women ref he women's games and men the men's games.

I can't wait to see the first lady ref have a run in with Bobby Knight.

This speaks to a bigger and more serious social problem in America: the feminization of basketball generally. Turn on ESPN or even the networks these days and you're as likely to see women playing as men. USA Today devotes nearly half its basketball coverage to the gals: Stephen F. Austin beat Mary Washington 65-62. Do I have to shout in on a mountaintop? I don't care!

No one does. We are being force fed lady hoops. I have never in my life met anyone who actually liked watching women's basketball. I don't even know any women who like women's basketball. There's no such thing (I hope) of an office pool for the women's NCAA tournament.

And while I'm venting on the subject, here's another travesty: in playground games and rec leagues these days, women now feel free to play with the men — uninvited in almost every case. Look, I acknowledge that some of the girls these days are half decent. They can shoot the rock. But that's not the point. When I play basketball, I push, I hack, I elbow, I bite, and I swear like a sailor. It can get pretty competitive and, well, vulgar. I think I speak for almost all men when I respectfully tell the ladies that we don't want you anywhere around during these precious moments of male bonding.

There's no joy in dunking over a girl. Never mind that I can't dunk (except on the eight-foot baskets). If I could, I wouldn't celebrate dunking over someone named Tina. I can't see myself staring her down and roaring: "In your face, sucka!!" And the girls are always trying to fast break. Look, I'm 42 years old, if I try to get out on the break, I'm likely to pull a hamstring.

But I digress. Back to the NCAAs. Here's the rule change I propose: No more women refs, no women announcers, no women beer venders, no women anything. There is, of course, an exception to this rule. Women are permitted to participate, if and only if, they look like Bonnie Bernstein. The fact that Bonnie knows nothing about basketball is entirely irrelevant.

2. Bonnie Bernstein should wear a halter top. This is a no-brainer, CBS. What in the world are you waiting for? To quote the immortal Wayne of Wayne's World, "If Bonnie were president of the United States, she'd be Babe-raham Lincoln.

3. No more home cooking. The tournament was changed this year to allow teams to play closer to home. I love this excuse: cut down on travel expenses. Oh yes, the tournament only makes $2 billion a year for the NCAAs and the schools and they can't afford to charter a plane to Boise, Idaho? If sites can't fill the seats without home teams, hold the games somewhere where fans will come.

This year, four teams got outrageous advantages: Illinois (playing in Chicago), Maryland (playing in D.C. — I think the Twerps took the Metro to the game), Texas (playing in Dallas), and Pittsburgh (playing in Pittsburgh). Big surprise: They all won and advanced. If the idea of the NCAAs is to pick a national champ, how is giving teams a home-court advantage fair? (I usually hate that word, by the way.)

Here's the rule change: No team may play in its home state or within 20 miles of its campus. How hard is that. By the way: I suspect that if each of these four schools had been playing on neutral courts, they all might have been bitten by the upset bug.

4. Adopt the NBA rule that you can't take a charge standing under the basket. Duke would have lost to Notre Dame had it not been for an absurd charging call in the last minute of a tied game.

5. Split screens for twice as much action and switch away from blowouts more quickly. Are the CBS sports execs morons? Maryland is up by 25 points over Wisconsin with three minutes to go and Southern Illinois is up by 2 against Georgia with three minutes to go in a tense nail biter. But CBS sticks with the Maryland blowout and we have to listen to Billy Packer say inane things like: "Wisconsin's going to have to throw up some 3s if they hope to get back into this game." Yeah, throw up 3s until 2 in the morning.

6. Get neutral refs for the Duke games. I laughed when people complained about the bias of the Eastern European judges during the Olympic skating. The Ukrainians and Russians couldn't hold a candle to the NCAA refs during a Duke game. Excuse me, you inadvertently touched Jason Williams — brushed against his uniform. That's a foul. To beat Duke you better bring you're A game. You have to outplay eight high-school all-Americans and three prejudiced refs.

7. More probing interviews by Bonnie Bernstein. Did I say this already? I welcome readers' ideas about further reforms in this sacred institution.