LJWorld.com

On the morning of March 15, there were 64 NCAA Division I teams eligible to win the men's basketball tournament. Today there are four.

The field of 64 included five teams from Texas, and five teams representing schools beginning with the letter V, and four teams whose names were a derivative of either "George" or "Washington." In a span of 250 hours, the lilies of the field were systematically uprooted - here's looking at you, Niagara, Albany, Holy Cross and Old Dominion - and the survivors were pared to a quartet.

The Texas teams didn't make it, and neither did the V's, but Georgetown will go to Atlanta on behalf of the other Washington.

It's easy to knock the NCAA suits in Indianapolis for their bureaucratic bumbling and tone-deaf obliviousness to the real world, which doesn't particularly care if somebody at a postgame interview session violates a sacrosanct policy by taking a sip of water out of a cup that's not adorned with the official NCAA logo.

But facts are facts: The NCAA's men's basketball tournament has evolved into the sports-world model for how to determine a champion. It's close to perfect.

Not everybody is on board with that analysis. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, taking a cue from none other than John Wooden, has long campaigned for scrapping the selection committee and opening up the tournament to the masses. Boeheim's premise is steeped in the belief that while an expanded format might require another week or two of games, subjective opinions about who belongs and who doesn't would be removed from the equation.

Dumb idea. A tournament open to all would diminish the significance of the regular season so it'd be nothing more than a three-month seeding process.

Fans enjoy the intrigue that always precedes Selection Sunday, and besides, why perform radical repairs on the most efficient, precisely conceived operation in organized sports?

But there is a tweak I'd make to the NCAA tournament rule book: I'd put an embargo on announcements of coaching firings and hirings during the 22 days between Selection Sunday and the Tuesday morning after the champions cut the nets.

Enough, already, with revolving-door coaches. Since the end of the regular season, jobs have opened on both coasts and several states in between. The reverberations have been significant.

Why, the Florida Gators barely had a moment to change into their street clothes Sunday when rumors had coach Billy Donovan deliberating about the Kentucky job opening created when Tubby Smith was hired at Minnesota.

The dots connect: Kentucky boasts a college basketball tradition second to none, and Donovan, a Providence College product schooled in fastbreak philosophy by ex-Wildcats coach Rick Pitino, returns Florida to the Final Four as the defending champion. Kentucky has the prestige, wherewithal and muscle to woo the best coach money can buy.

That'd be Donovan.

Again, though, the question persists:

Couldn't the news of Smith's change of coaching scenery have been put on hold for a few days?

Major League Baseball is not often cited as a beacon of wisdom, especially when the discussion pertains to marketing. But baseball has developed a policy that seems to work: No major job-related announcements during the playoffs or World Series. The emphasis, as baseball sees it, ought to be on the games and the players.

Could Billy Donovan succeed at Kentucky? Wrong question at the wrong time.

He coaches Florida.