Couple of things
- Curt Schilling pitched well, David Ortiz doubled and homered and Mike Lowell smacked his first career Opening Day home run as the Red Sox pounded Texas 7-3 to kick off the season.
- Speaking of sports ... Florida won the national title in basketball? Florida? They're already preparing the commemorative jean shorts. And, you know, when I think back to that January day where I watched Florida beat Georgia ... I remember thinking 'man, that's the best team in the nation.'
Seriously, it's the weakest national champion since Carmelo Anthony's Syracuse team a couple of years back. Everyone is talking about parity ... parity, schmarity. What you had was a handful of teams (like George Mason and LSU) playing out of their minds for a few days and catching better teams like UConn and Duke on off days (does J.J. Redick ever go 3-for-18? would he again?). So congrats Gators ... just know you did it by beating 14th-seeded South Alabama, 11th-seeded Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 7th-seeded Georgetown, top-seeded Villanova, 11th-seeded George Mason and then UCLA. I count one legitimate victory (Villanova) and one solid one (UCLA). Let's run Florida through Duke, Texas and UConn and see if the Gators cut those nets down.
- In corruption news, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is resigning and not seeking re-election ... because that magically clears up all of the GOP's election year woes.
- Because kids aren't used to functioning on little sleep or anything.
- Speaking of sports ... Florida won the national title in basketball? Florida? They're already preparing the commemorative jean shorts. And, you know, when I think back to that January day where I watched Florida beat Georgia ... I remember thinking 'man, that's the best team in the nation.'
Seriously, it's the weakest national champion since Carmelo Anthony's Syracuse team a couple of years back. Everyone is talking about parity ... parity, schmarity. What you had was a handful of teams (like George Mason and LSU) playing out of their minds for a few days and catching better teams like UConn and Duke on off days (does J.J. Redick ever go 3-for-18? would he again?). So congrats Gators ... just know you did it by beating 14th-seeded South Alabama, 11th-seeded Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 7th-seeded Georgetown, top-seeded Villanova, 11th-seeded George Mason and then UCLA. I count one legitimate victory (Villanova) and one solid one (UCLA). Let's run Florida through Duke, Texas and UConn and see if the Gators cut those nets down.
- In corruption news, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is resigning and not seeking re-election ... because that magically clears up all of the GOP's election year woes.
- Because kids aren't used to functioning on little sleep or anything.
posted by Jmac at 6:48 AM
7 Comments:
I'm not trying to dismiss anything done by George Mason, who put together a very impressive run in the tournament and beat a slew of impressive teams (though I think North Carolina was very overrated this year), but I think this reveals the flaw in a playoff system.
Again, was Syracuse the best team a few years back? Would Georgia Tech have been if they had upset UConn two years ago? I'm not saying Florida isn't a quality team - they surely are (though I think Joakim Noah is overrated and not enough credit is given to the talent of Lee Humphrey and Corey Brewer) - but I'm pointing out that it's not right for the national championship be awarded to a team which everyone admits is not necessarily the 'best?' Or, if not right, it's definitely misleading.
And I don't think that's disrespectful to the mid-major teams like South Alabama and Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who enjoyed stellar seasons. But it's silly to equate their success to, say, Duke or UConn or Texas.
I'm giving extra weight to the regular season because the regular season is where you earn your stripes. It's not six games condensed into two and a half weeks on neutral courts stretched across the nation. It is, typically, 30-35 games played on your home court against conference opponents, rivals and non-conference foes.
Is that perfect? Of course not. But, what's a more accurate measure of how 'good' a team is - six games that span the country or surviving the rigors of a 30-35 game season?
Again, I'm not trying to belittle the talent of the mid-majors, not am I trying to take anything away from Florida. I may despise the Gators, but they're a very good basketball team who is worthy of being in the top 10.
Should they play a tournament? Of course. I'm just saying it's not (always) going to give you the 'best' team in the country.
Take golf, for instance. A couple of years back, when I worked at the ABH, the Georgia's men's golf team was arguably the best in the country. They set, at the time, the NCAA record for most team wins in a year. It was ridiculous to say they weren't the best team in college golf that year, if not ever.
What happens? After demolishing the field at the SEC Championships and NCAA Regionals, they don't play well at the NCAA Championships. Florida (weirdly enough) plays out of its mind and cruises to a victory (a team Georgia had beaten by something like 35 strokes just a few weeks earlier). That's the nature of sports, right? But it doesn't mean Florida was better than Georgia ... just better that particular event and/or day. And the national championship is supposed to be about rewarding the team which was the 'best' that particular season.
I didn't mention Villanova, Gonzaga or Memphis just because I didn't. All three are excellent teams that are worthy of acclaim, and I already gave the Gators props for their win over Villanova (though, again, the Wildcats were fresh off an exhausting win over Boston College, while Florida was coming out of a win over Georgetown ... those opponents are apples-and-oranges).
I'm just in fan of more limited playoffs. You ask why we play the tournament, and I ask why even play the regular season if we rely on 'March Madness' to deliver us a champion? Jump right into conference tournaments and then roll into the NCAA Tournament. At least college football respects the hard work and successes teams make in the regular season, even if the formula to reach a champion is imperfect.
What would be more fair would be a smaller tournament pool set up in a round robin-style event, similar to college baseball's set-up.
doubledawgdareya, we can have both.
The regular season determines the handful of teams at the "top" of the pyramid. These are the teams that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack, but which it is hard to differentiate between. Is Villanova better than Duke, etc.? Who knows, but they're both at the top of the pyramid.
The point JMac is leaning towards, I think, is that our postseason needs to reflect in some way who this handful of "very best" teams is. But what basketball does is take 65 teams and throw them all together into a big train wreck. It is exciting, no doubt, but it's pretty stupid to think that the winner of the tournament is the "best" team. What JMac wants is a "smaller" tourney, not no tourney. He's not saying we should just have no playoff at all.
You also say that "The tournament is an inherent part of the game. To be the "best" college basketball team, you have to be able to win in the tournament. You have to have six consistent games in a playoff atmosphere....I say that surviving the tournament is as much what makes a basketball team good as is height, shooting ability, jumping ability, or anything else."
But there is a confusion here. What exactly are you advocating? That the tourney is "as important" as other things, like pure talent and regular season performance? Well, that's fine, but then the tourney is only an important part of the puzzle, not a necessary and sufficient one. We might decide that, given the contingencies of this particular year, that the tourney winner is not the "best" team (because the tourney, while important, is not all there is to it). On the other hand, the first part of the quote makes it sound like winning the tourney is the sole (necessary and sufficient) condition of being champion. Being the "best" just is ("by definition") winning the six games in March/early April. Period. But if this is your position, then you fall into JMac's criticism that you seem to render the regular season utterly meaningless. If we allowed one terrible team to get into the lottery by some sort of lottery (hey, just to make it more fun), and that team won, you would call them the "best" because they did, after all, win the six games in a row.
So what if the tourney is "objective"? So is a coin toss. Which is often all the Dance comes down to.
Basically, doubledawg, we're just grumpy college football fans 'round these parts. :-)
Oops, there was another post. You've already answered some of my questions, doubledawg. Sorry to pile on.
I believe what Johnathan is saying is that the Atlanta Braves are the greatest team in baseball.
I have to agree.
But they'd never have gotten there under JMac's system. It'd be the Dukes, UConns, and Kentuckys every year.
Not necessarily. Look in football ... we finally had Utah crack the BCS last year and both Boise State and Fresno State have come awful close, and that was, admittedly, with a system that was skewed against mid-major conferences.
Who's to say this new smaller tournament wouldn't include mid-major conference winners like Gonzaga?
And, Hillary, say it with me, the Boston Red Sox ...
Doubledawg, life is all about trade-offs. Certainly you are correct to point out that some have benefitted from the current arrangement (Gonzaga), but this does not by itself prove that the current arrangement is optimal, or appropriate, or even desirable.
Any arrangement will "help" some and hurt others. The question is how to do this in a way that is equitable.
You are correct that ALL sports with playoffs have the same problem--they (most often) give too many teams a shot at the whole shebang. Many of these teams have demonstrated amply during the reg season that they are not deserving of that shot.
But of course, on any given day, a big underdog might pull off the upset. But this is precisely why we cannot simply leave things to "settling it on the field/court". Especially not in sports where it is one-and-done. In the pros, the series reduces this risk of an inferior team making it through, as you correctly point out. But I still think it's inappropriate to give that many teams a shot at it in the first place (as I've argued elsewhere).
And your point about the NFL is also good. I agree, the Steelers were not the "best" team last year. But they are the champs, because of how we set the system up. But I'm questioning that system.
I could easily see there being 10 or 12 or 16 teams in college basketball in any given year who are legitimately deserving of a shot at the national title. But 65 is ridiculous.
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