NCAA Basketball: 3 reasons to bring back BracketBusters

1. Fans deserve BracketBusters

The college basketball season is full of random competitions that draw a ton of interest. Early season tournaments. Home-and-homes scheduled years in advance. Non-conference rivalry games. Inter-conference challenges.

Mid-majors always seem to get the short end of the stick in these events.

There used to be another event that featured mid-majors more prominently, this one taking place at the very beginning of the season. ESPN would air college basketball games for 24 straight hours, with mid-majors often playing those games at 4 AM that nobody would be awake to watch. Nevertheless, the gimmick brought some attention to these programs.

It was also a ton of fun.

For most college basketball fans, it’s not a ton of fun to watch conference play among the mid-majors if they don’t have a rooting interest. There are only one or two teams in these conferences with a legitimate shot to win, or even be competitive in an NCAA Tournament game.

But they can put on a heck of a show against one another in what ultimately boils down to a play-in game for the postseason.

Mid-major programs are replete with talent and skill that never gets enough publicity. They’re also full of opportunities for fans to discover new players, coaches, and gameplans that they aren’t exposed to with the usual nightly exploits of the major conference teams.

BracketBusters will bring these programs to light, give the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee more to look at, and simply be fun for the whole college basketball family.

Why not bring it back?