Stephen Tsai: Grumbling over snubs means sports has returned to normal

Mar. 19—Remember when March was fun ?

Maybe it wasn't so great for a Roman leader on a mid-March day in 44 BC. But otherwise March is the beginning of the Major League Baseball and mango seasons, the Oscars, and, most important, time to fill out those NCAA Tournament brackets.

Remember when March was fun ?

Maybe it wasn't so great for a Roman leader on a mid-March day in 44 BC. But otherwise March is the beginning of the Major League Baseball and mango seasons, the Oscars, and, most important, time to fill out those NCAA Tournament brackets. It is the end of winter, the start of spring, and a switch to daylight saving time that has little impact on Hawaii residents.

But now it appears the madness of March is more about anger and angst than one-and-done college basketball tournaments, Best Picture winners, and your Kaimuki friend's mango tree.

The Oscars used to be about Joan and Melissa Rivers' interviews on the red carpet, and movies most people actually watched winning awards. Now there are gripes about who did not receive nominations, such as zippo for "Barbie " actress Margot Robbie and director Greta Gerwig. Even Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens appeared on Hall of Fame ballots. With anticipation of omissions in the "In Memoriam " segment, a list of excluded was available at the Academy's web site.

For the NCAA men's tournament, fans of St. John's, Oklahoma, Seton Hall and Indiana State expressed anger when their bubble teams did not receive invitations.

Blame has been placed on the league tournaments. With double byes into the semifinals, both No. 1 seeds lost in the Big West tournaments, sparking the rest-versus-rust debate.

And the NCAA Tournament's selection committee has been targeted for snubbing deserving teams for at-large berths. Does it matter that committee members, like everybody else in this country, might not have a definitive answer as to how to create a perfect bracket ? After all, despite millions of brackets submitted each year, there has never been a perfect one in which someone correctly guessed the outcome of all 63 games in the tournament. What makes anyone think a committee can correctly create and seed a tournament ?

(Side note : One of the closest was in 2010. A 10-year-old kid from a suburb of Dallas needed a Michigan victory to complete the top bracket out of more than 8 millions forms entered in ESPN's Tournament Challenge. Louisville beat Michigan for the national title, and that kid—Brayden Schager—grew up to be the University of Hawaii's starting quarterback.)

Maybe it's the time of the year—between New Year's resolutions being broken and next's month's tax-filing deadline—but March brings out the grumpiness. Long Beach State officials were so fed up they fired coach Dan Monson ahead of last week's Big West Tournament. The Beach then won the tournament and earned the Big West's automatic berth in the NCAA's. When an assistant coach was asked if Monson would return if the Beach made the NCAA Tournament, he said, smirking, "Yeah, right."

Hawaii's semifinal elimination in the Big West Tournament resulted in more grumpy complaints on message boards and talk shows, despite the'Bows winning nine of 12 to earn a first-round bye. The'Bows have not reached the title game of the league tournament since 2016, when they won it all.

The thing is, there is an expiration point to complaints. By Sunday evening, the NCAA Tournament will be down to 16 teams, including a Cinderella, and few will care who was snubbed from the initial field.

The UH coaches will go on the road to recruit, sign some prospects, and the focus—and optimism—will shift to next season. It always does. Just like the NFL's draft and free-agent signings, recruiting is the panacea for fans.

Complaining about invitations and results is better than the alternative. Three years ago, NCAA basketball players practiced in masks, ate in their dorm or hotel rooms, and did not have access to locker rooms. Negative COVID-19 test results were needed to play in games, if games were played at all, and piped-in music and cardboard cutouts were used to recreate the event experience.

And even that was an improvement on the year before, when the whole tournament was canceled.

Grumbling and complaining mean sports is back to normal.