NCAA Tournament best way to crown champion

It doesn't exist. Not on the financial side of a college basketball court. There is no equality, consistency, levelness or unity to it.

You can't compare boatloads of cash to trunk loads of coins.

Parity doesn't know dollar signs.

Kentucky coach John Calipari makes $4 million annually, and his deal includes membership to a country club of his choice with all initiation and monthly dues paid and "two late-model, quality automobiles" plus mileage, because gas prices can be tough on a guy who also must figure out how to get rid of those 20 prime-location season tickets he is allotted each year.

Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart makes a base salary of $325,000 and gets a $5,000 bonus if the Rams beat a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference, which is taking that everyone-hates-Duke thing to a new level.

Kentucky and Connecticut combine for basketball budgets of $18 million; VCU and Butler combine for ones around $4 million.

Kentucky has a practice facility that sits inside a $30 million complex spanning 102,000 square feet.

Butler has a room where a screen drops from the ceiling to watch tape, and there are closets for extra storage.

This is why the NCAA Tournament is our greatest sporting event and without question the best way to decide a national champion, an event that will culminate with this week's Final Four in Houston and semifinal matchups that couldn't be more different in financial means than the cost of a diamond ring at Tiffany or Target.

The next time someone insists using the term Bowl Championship Series outside the context of football is wrong, laugh as if you never have laughed. BCS dollars in the six major conferences have built entire athletic departments into ferocious beasts of impeccable facilities and unparalleled success.

Football is king.

At BCS schools, it is also everyone else's chief benefactor.

Don't believe it? The combined amount of athletic revenues at Connecticut and Kentucky last year was $109 million, and it didn't get that way because of tennis and baseball; the combined amount of athletic revenues at VCU and Butler was $28 million.

Which makes the NCAA runs this month of VCU and Butler all the more remarkable.

Which makes the Bulldogs advancing to a second consecutive Final Four all the more amazing.

Or does it?

"It doesn't matter where you're from or how big your football program is or how much money is in your athletic department," Butler coach Brad Stevens said. "It's about a group of kids coming together, five guys playing on a court at once and hopefully believing that you have a great shot to compete.

"We're not where we are because of dollars spent on practice facilities and those kinds of things. We're where we are because we have unbelievable people. People are greater resources than any amount of dollars. We're Butler. We're going to be Butler. We're going to be as good as we can be. We're not trying to be somebody else."

You won't find parity on the number of zeroes different programs can include on expenditure checks, but there is more and more of it during those thrilling 40 -- and sometimes additional -- minutes each time an NCAA game tips off.

Elite programs continue to lose players early to NBA dreams. Other kids not thought good enough by Top 25 teams sign elsewhere and blossom. Sides like Butler and VCU play the final month of a regular season sitting squarely on the NCAA bubble, getting tougher and more resilient with each win. Terrific coaches are discovered tucked away on small campuses all across the country.

These are just a few of the reasons Houston this week will entertain an NCAA semifinal between Nos. 8 and 11 seeds, why a No. 5 seed or higher has made the Final Four six times since 2000, why since that time three 8s and two 11s have survived to play a season's final weekend.

That's what makes this the best event.

That's why there is no better way to crown a champion.

"Every year we get into the argument about football, about if Boise State has a shot or (Texas Christian) has a shot, whatever the case may be," Stevens said. "There are no politics in this. It's a 40-minute basketball game. That's the beauty if it. I think if there is a chance to watch a VCU game on television, I'd rather watch that than a BCS school that has been on 10 times the past two months. I get as much enjoyment and pleasure (watching a VCU) because I know what they're going through, how hard it is.

"Parity is an interesting term. You're comparing two different things. You're comparing budgets and then comparing teams on the court."

Thankfully for all of us, the former has not kept the latter from having these magical runs.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.