While I'm generally not a big fan of lawsuits, I'd like you to imagine this scenario. You buy tickets for a concert. You have assigned seating and you show up well before the concert is scheduled to start. The arena where the concert is being held, however, doesn't open the gates until just a few minutes before the band takes the stage, and then tries to hustle 13,000 concertgoers through just 12 turnstiles, all the while halting people occassionally to check their purses and backpacks. Meanwhile, the band takes the stage and the majority of ticketholders miss the first three or four songs.

This is what happens every year, across the nation during NCAA's March Madness, and it happened to me yesterday. The first two days of the tournament, four games are held at each location. These four games are divided into two "sessions" of two games each. In between sessions one and two (games two and three) the arena is cleared and then ticketholders, many of whom have tickets for both sessions, are let back in. Meanwhile the NCAA dictate of 25 minutes between games ticks away like clockwork. There is no possible way for a 13,000-seat arena to be cleared and then re-filled in a mere 25 minutes. By the time I got back to my seat in San Diego's Cox Arena (with no sidetrips to the facilities or snackbar), there was 11:25 left in the first half of the Illinois/Air Force game -- and I wasn't the last one through the turnstiles.

It would be one thing if this were a rare problem, but the same thing happened last time Cox Arena hosted the NCAA's first round games and I'd be surprised if the same thing wasn't happening at other locations.

There's got to be some basis for suing the NCAA for fraud or breach of contract or something similar (lawyers are clever, figure it out) by selling a ticket to the general public with the knowledge that there is no way most fans can see the entire game. I don't really want money from this lawsuit, I want the NCAA to allow enough time between games two and three for people who paid good money for tickets (although I wouldn't be opposed to the money too).

A couple of related notes: On the whole, the first round games at Cox Arena weren't as good as the matchups when it was here last (2002?). The best game was the Alabama/Marquette game. Belmont, Utah State and to a lesser extent Air Force, were all pushovers. Hopefully the second-round games will be better.

Having seen that Air Force couldn't keep up with Illinois, and that Utah State couldn't sink a bucket if they were in a boat in the middle of Lake Superior, I stood outside on the Cox Arena concourse to watch the SDSU/Indiana game that was on one of the televisions at a concession stand. Well over 100 people were crowded around that TV, and the stand wasn't doing too much selling. At one point an older gentleman asked out loud why the line he'd been waiting in for 20 minutes wasn't moving -- there was no line, everyone was watching the TV.

Needless to say, without my alma mater, Cal Poly SLO, in the tourney, I was rooting for the hometown Aztecs. Unfortunately, the Aztecs have never failed before to miss an opportunity, and this was no different as they let a 10-point second-half lead slip away at the end and lost by four. I could recount the effects of the curse of the Aztec -- three missed field goals many years ago that would've given the football team a victory over No. 1 Miami, close-but-no-cigar losses to Ohio State in football, etc. -- but there's got to be something about a team that can never win the big one. The Aztecs are now 0-5 all-time in NCAA tournament games.

There's always next year.