NCAA Basketball: 3 reasons to bring back BracketBusters

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CHARLOTTE, NC – MARCH 16: Kenny Cooper #21 of the Lipscomb Bisons reacts after a score against the North Carolina Tar Heels during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) /

BracketBusters no longer exist. But it’s time for the NCAA Basketball community to embrace an event ahead of its time.

In 2003, the greatest college basketball competition since the advent of the NCAA Tournament was born: BracketBusters.

The event – officially known as “ESPN BracketBusters” thanks to the network of record – aimed to put more mid-major teams on television during the final weeks of the season, with a goal to get more “Cinderellas” up in front of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee.

Whether or not it succeeded in its quest is one question. But it was certainly very popular, a chance for fans to see prominent college basketball teams playing in conferences that didn’t get a lot of airtime each February, especially before every game in the country was available in one way or another, as it is now.

Sadly, a decade was all the world got out of the competition. ESPN sent it to the dustbin of history in 2013, never to return again.

Maybe it should, though. The average college basketball fan has become accustomed to the spinning wheels of conference season. They watch Kansas play the late game on Monday nights, mediocre Pac-12 teams battle it out on Thursday nights and almost nothing on Friday nights.

There’s an appetite for something to break the occasional monotony that sweeps into the college basketball season as fans wait to fill out their brackets come Selection Sunday.

Here are three reasons ESPN or Fox Sports or CBS should bring back BracketBusters as soon as possible.

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