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The Final Four Turns College Basketball's Greatest Strength Into a Glaring Weakness

If I had to point to one thing that turned me into a college basketball fan, it wouldn't be any individual player. It wouldn't be a coach, or an analyst, or even a specific season by a great team. No, there's one thing that converted me at my young age, and still keeps me coming back to the college game. It's the atmosphere. The Kennel Club hooked me on Gonzaga Basketball long before I was able to appreciate an excellent bounce pass or jump shot. The organized chants, the constant noise, the energy. It's infectious. Watching Blake Stepp and Ronny Turiaf wouldn't have been the same without the student section behind them.

Beyond the student section, though, college basketball stays a step above the NBA when it comes to regular season atmosphere. If I had to theorize, I'd bet that a significant part of it comes from the reduced schedule. Every game matters just that extra bit more when there's only 33 of them as opposed to 82. On top of that, the most you'll ever see a particular opponent is twice. Especially in the non-conference season, if you find yourself on the court with a highly-ranked team, you know that's your shot to show the country what you can do, and you might not get another one. The pressure, and therefore the energy, gets cranked up that extra level. The atmosphere in the arena gets wild. People lose their minds, and the roar of the crowd results in memories you'll never forget.

Unfortunately, the Final Four doesn't generate that same level of energy. At least not through the broadcast. And that's a damn shame.

On the sport's two biggest nights, the atmosphere can wind up sounding near tame. I watched the Virginia-Auburn game today, and when Bryce Brown hit the go-ahead three for Auburn with two minutes left, the sound went mild. Kyle Guy hit a three to cut Auburn's lead to one with ten seconds left, and the needle barely moved. The commentators never were drowned out by the crowd. It was one of the most exciting finishes we've seen in a national semifinal in a while, but the atmosphere just didn't come across on our TVs.

I don't blame the crowds themselves for this. I followed the Zags down to Phoenix in 2017, and let me tell you, the atmosphere in these stadiums is electric. You can tell the crowds know exactly how important these games are. When Killian Tillie brought down an offensive rebound and sank two free throws to put Gonzaga up by four and lock them into a spot in the national title game, I thought the roof was about to come off, and I'm sure that's exactly how anyone in the Virginia student section felt tonight. I also don't pin the problem on the neutral site. I watched the Maui championship this year, and that was one of the best crowds I can remember. You only need to type in "best of march madness" into YouTube to get some highlights of some of the most amazing college basketball moments ever, with amazing crowds, and they all take place at neutral sites.

No, the problem is with the fact that the game is in a football stadium, and that CBS is terrible at engineering the crowd audio in these spaces.

I don't write this post out of a desire for the NCAA to stop using massive football arenas. No, I like that the larger venue allows more fans to experience the awesomeness that is seeing the Final Four in-person. Rather, I write this post hoping that CBS can turn the game's biggest showcase into its best showcase. It starts by putting microphones in the actual student sections, and not just on the court.

Football stadiums are large. Sound has a lot of places to go. Which means that the further away you get from the source of your sound, the less of it you'll be able to pick up. I may be incorrect here, but I believe the only microphones CBS puts out to capture ambient noise are on the court itself. If you watch the games, you can see just how far away the court is from the first row of fans, yet alone how far it is away from the students. Students are shoved into basically the endzones of the stadium, separated from the court by their own bands, cheerleaders, and a certain amount of press. The cheerleaders come through pretty well, but the cheers and chants from the crowds themselves barely make their way into the audio feed. This could be fixed by placing more microphones near the students, who are the most reliable source of atmosphere. CBS may be concerned about profanity, but that's not something that gets newly introduced at the Final Four, and there's ways to process the sound so that any specific profanities would be garbled and unclear. Meanwhile, by capturing the sound of the student sections, the crew can bring the stadium experience to us, the viewing audience at home. Which is the whole point of the broadcast.

College basketball gets a whole month to itself to show the country, and the world, why it's worth paying attention to. The tradition and the heart of the university experience lends itself to college crowds bringing a tremendous amount of energy to the game. It's a shame that on its biggest stage, in its biggest moments, the game doesn't get the opportunity to shine like it really can. I hope it's something that CBS can seriously take a look at going forward.

This post does not reflect the views of the blog authors or SB Nation.