NCAA tourney is geographically challenged

Don’t get me wrong, I love the NCAA basketball tournament. It’s my favorite sports event of the year. More excitement, more heartbreak, more euphoria, more unpredictable outcomes than any other sports event ever. I will admit the tournament was even better before the NBA ruined it by stealing talent way too early, but how can you complain that much when, on the first day of the tournament, five games are decided by two points or less.

However, the NCAA must — absolutely must — do a better job of identifying its regional matches. Today I watched a West Regional game played in Charlotte, N.C.; an East Regional played in Cleveland and two Southwest Regional games in Chicago. This wouldn’t be so bad except this is the NCAA and the “C” in that quartet of letters stands for “Collegiate.” These are institutes of higher learning playing in these games. I found this geographical mangling in this context embarrassing.

What the NCAA men’s tourney must do is adopt the same nomenclature as the women’s tournament so that the regional is named after he location of the regional finals. Thus in the men’s tournament this year we should have had the Anaheim Regional, the Newark Regional, the San Antonio Regional and the New Orleans Regional. It’s too late, of course, to do this renaming this year, but it should be on table for the 2012 tournament.