Press on

By Mark Buckets

The anticipation for the NCAA Tournament reaches a fever pitch during the week leading up to the start of games on Thursday. And what better way to feed one's craving for tournament talk, than the official NCAA press conferences. Interesting soundbites are hard to come by, but when they do come to fruition, boy, are they memorable. The setup is flat-out brilliant. A moderator, who refers to the players as "student-athletes," sits on a stoop to the side of the main stage and blindly points to a mass of humanity that is the sports media. From there, the cannibalism begins. Reporters, who, just a few minutes ago were mingling and sharing glorious stories from their fraternity days, are tripping over one another to get a question in. And when a question actually gets in, it's usually stale and mind-numbingly obvious. Coach "X," as we'll call him, distrbutes the most cliche and boring response that one can give. For example, media member "Y" will quiery wheither or not his team is peaking at the right time, and if he forsees a long run in the tourney. Coach "X" will respond with the always reliable "Our kids are on the same wavelength, and to answer your question, yes, we are gelling." Indeed, these press conferences make Super Bowl Media Day sound like the State of the Union address.