The Players Era Refusing To Have A Bracket, Not Rewarding Teams For Winning Games Is So Goddamn Stupid And Took The Juice Out Of Feast Week

There's been a lot of talk about the Player's Era over the last couple days. I feel strongly about it because I'm 1) way too addicted to college basketball and 2) old, so I remember the juice of Feast Week. It became lost this year. Don't get me wrong, there's been really good games at The Player's Era and Maui has been unbelievable despite not having the field everyone is used to. But look at this, Iowa State is 2-0 with wins over Creighton and St. John's and they are playing for absolutely nothing because of stupidity. The stupidity of the fact that the Player's Era is set up on random draw and the tiebreaker is point differential. 

So Iowa State is +19 and stuck playing for nothing because they finished 5th. Tennessee and Kansas move onto the 3rd place game because Tennessee got to play Rutgers and Kansas got to play Notre Dame. Games don't matter because you're not looking at a bracket. It's the easiest fix in the world and for some reason they refuse to do it

There's no world where teams go undefeated and have zero chance to win a tournament. I played AAU basketball, I'm now a dad with a kid in sports. You can do this for group stage, but then it goes to a bracket. There's at least some formula where you play a round robin in a group stage and then the two winners of the groups go to a final. This? This makes no sense. Two games vs random teams that can just make no sense determines who has a chance to win a ton of money. 

I don't think this guy knows that even the most casual fan thinks of brackets when it comes to college basketball. It's the one thing that brings America together every year. You fill out a bracket, you talk about brackets, you see a bracket reveal. At the minimum a bracket here at least gives you a chance to see the matchups and makes sense to reward teams for winning. Again, the games have been awesome. I wish we were talking about the games and how a team is moving on in a bracket but instead it's become this media talking about how it's a good tournament vs fans complaining how it makes no sense. I don't even care about the crowd or the fact it's in Vegas. It's whatever, but the worst part is easily the fact that teams are playing for nothing. 

I think it's simple with expansion to 32. Group stage, winners advance to a bracket. Losers can do their own bracket too if you want. Make sure Maui keeps a decent field. Atlantis can get the 3rd dibs here. Then make the other Feast Week events a bracket busters setup. We need that back in our lives. You keep the magic of this week alive since it's everyone's real start to college hoops because right now it just feels like neutral court games that are one-offs. We already have those the first couple weeks of the season. I get the money involved is good for programs, but fans don't care about that. We just want to see games that matter and a bracket.