Column: The Best Waste Of My Time

Don't tell me championship week is a waste, that it's the blemish on the pristine face of college basketball.

I know it renders an entire 30-game season essentially obsolete for over a dozen small conferences, shouting "Screw you!" to the team who proved to be the best over the course of four months if it can't win three games in three days.

But how can a performance like Montana's Anthony Johnson's 42 points, including the final 21 for the Grizzlies in the Big Sky championship, not be considered one of the most unbelievable of the year? He rallied his team from a 22-point deficit, scored a downright ridiculous 34 second-half points, and hit the game-winning shot with 10 seconds left to send Montana, which finished fourth in the Big Sky, to the Big Dance.

Montana in, regular-season champ Weber State (six hours before brackets were printed, I made the bold prediction) out. That never happens without the advent of the conference tournament.

I know it's a huge marketing ploy for ESPN, CBS, and ABC to suck budding bracketologists and overeager office pool participants in to worshipping their television an entire week before March Madness even begins. Maybe, just maybe, if I watch every mid-major's championship game (starting with the Atlantic Sun's on March 6 … clutch win by East Tennessee State, by the way! Go Buccaneers!), I'll have a shot at competing with the receptionist who fills out her bracket based on uniform color schemes.

Sure, it's annoying to comprehend that you physically can't tear yourself away from your couch during championship week, but it's the most entertaining and suspenseful annoyance I've ever experienced. Besides, I've always been a sucker for marketing ploys (proud owner of the ShamWow).

And I know conference tournaments do nothing but tire out good teams that are already in the NCAA tournament, and do nothing but potentially improve their seeding by one ranking when the Selection Committee finally has a say.

Strategically, it makes no sense for Ohio State to keep fighting Illinois into two overtimes just so the Buckeyes can grab a seven-point win and advance to the Big Ten tournament final. Likewise, West Virginia left everything it had in Madison Square Garden to hold off a late charge from Georgetown, both of which are unquestionably headed to some obscure city in a few days for the first round.

Smart head coaches, like the maniacal Jim Boeheim, would tell their team to lay a Carrier Dome-sized egg in the first game of the conference tournament to save energy. After all, Syracuse is guaranteed a top seed in March Madness anyway, so what's the difference?

The difference could be seen on Hoya Chris Wright's face, as he lay on the ground in exhausted agony after his sprinting layup couldn't find the bottom of the net. It could be seen in the sheer euphoria that every Mountaineer player and fan displayed as the buzzer sounded, giving West Virginia its first-ever Big East tournament title.

The difference is that championship week brings back one element to the end of the college basketball season that's lost among the vast majority of teams when the final game or two arrives in early March: belief.

Sure, Boston College didn't believe they could beat anyone (and convincingly proved it), but 10 other teams did. Ten mid-major conference tournaments were won by a team that did not finish atop the standings when the regular season ended. And for those 10 squads that were best in the regular season but won't be in the 65-team field, it's a very tough pill to swallow.

But it's the seventh-seeded Houston Cougars, running around the court in joyous disbelief after they took down top-seed UTEP to earn a berth into the NCAA tournament, that makes the week before March Madness arguably better than the Tournament itself. It's the bubble teams like Minnesota, which stunned two ranked teams on its way to the Big Ten final, buying itself a pair of dancing shoes, that remind you of what could be next year if your team was on the outside looking in this year.

Don't tell me championship week is a waste.