The 2023 NCAA tournament bracket was revealed on Sunday, and Doug Gottlieb said the excitement behind presenting the field of 68 was a little dull.
On The Doug Gottlieb Show on FOX Sports Radio on Monday, Gottlieb – who had been an analyst on the CBS Selection Sunday show for four years prior – said he would’ve done more to spark more lively discussion about some of the seeding.
“I think the volume would be a little bit different, and there’s some things that I would’ve pushed back on like why is UCLA a 2-seed?” Gottlieb said. “Like, they’re a 2-seed, but they lost Jaylen Clark for the year.”
Gottlieb added that ultimately it came down to CBS featuring analysts on the selection show that might have wanted to tread lightly and not stir controversy.
“I thought that a lot of a lack of volume was because of the personnel that they have at the dais,” Gottlieb said. “I think Jay Wright’s very good. He’s a good addition. But it’s definitely interesting that they’re not seeing as many controversies I think one reason is because a lot of people don’t watch the regular season college basketball. So they don’t want to offer up an opinion that could be proven to be false if there’s something egregious they missed.”
Gottlieb later said that he wished CBS stuck with an extended selection show so that people on the broadcast could break down the matchups further.
“I believe that that show could be an incredible show. The two hours were perfect – the execution of it,” he said. “I was on the year they did the two hours. They had Kenny and Barkley breaking down games which was suboptimal considering they didn’t know any of the teams. So they take Kenny and Charles off, you should still have that gigantic window to break down the games, you know? Break them down as they come. Teach us something about it.”
Thought this year’s show was perfect. Just give us the damn brackets. Funny how when they made it into a human rain delay then the brackets got leaked.