In defense of the GOP

You won't read those words often here.

Wothism generally stands in direct opposition to the Grand Old Party. I certainly don't hold all of the Democratic Party's ideals near to my heart, but I usually don't vehemently disagree with what the party does. That's usually not true of the GOP's actions.

For the first time that I can remember, though, here I am, defending those bastards.

On Monday, Paul Krugman wrote this piece for The New York Times. Most days, I find Mr. Krugman to be dead-on with his assessments. Monday was not one of those days.

If you're not familiar with the situation between UW-Madison professor William Cronon and the state government, here's a quick rundown:

Recently William Cronon, a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, decided to weigh in on his state’s political turmoil. He started a blog, “Scholar as Citizen,” devoting his first post to the role of the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council in pushing hard-line conservative legislation at the state level. Then he published an opinion piece in The Times, suggesting that Wisconsin’s Republican governor has turned his back on the state’s long tradition of “neighborliness, decency and mutual respect.”

I loved Mr. Cronon's piece in The Times. It was astoundingly good and spot-on, pointing out the absolute lunacy of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's recent moves. He summed up Walker's "ram it through" philosophy nicely when he wrote:

I have found myself returning over the past few weeks to the question posed by the lawyer Joseph N. Welch during the hearings that finally helped bring down another Wisconsin Republican, Joe McCarthy, in 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Comparisons of Gov. Walker to Joe McCarthy aside, Mr. Cronon's article was actually fairly balanced. He describes himself as a lifelong independent, and he writes as a historian more than anything.

Still, the GOP didn't like it. It made the GOP look bad, and the GOP doesn't ever take too kindly to that. Their response really should have been expected:

(The GOP issued a) demand for copies of all e-mails sent to or from Mr. Cronon’s university mail account containing any of a wide range of terms, including the word “Republican” and the names of a number of Republican politicians.

In  his article, Krugman excoriates the GOP for undertaking this type of action in an attempt to publicly smear those that dare to criticize them.

I'm not writing to condone smear campaigns, though.

I'm writing to say that accessing someone's publicly available records in the interest of doing ANYTHING isn't something to criticize.

What bothers me most is the final paragraph of Mr. Krugman's column:

What’s at stake here, in other words, is whether we’re going to have an open national discourse in which scholars feel free to go wherever the evidence takes them, and to contribute to public understanding. Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are trying to shut that kind of discourse down. It’s up to the rest of us to see that they don’t succeed.

It's unclear what kind Mr. Krugman thinks "the rest of us" should do to see that Republicans don't succeed in shutting discourse down, although we can infer from a few paragraphs prior that he doesn't think the open records laws should apply to scholars.

Mr. Krugman thinks that scholars will be "deterred from even doing research on topics that might get them in trouble." This, apparently, is because scholars will be scared of facing "witch hunts whenever they say things the G.O.P. doesn’t like."

PUH-LEASE.

Is that really any different from any other part of life? Whenever you make a true stand for something you believe in, you're bound to face criticism and you're bound to be closely scrutinized.

Most of all, let's be fair to the law and the public -- the public that pays Mr. Cronon's salary and pays for the computer he uses and the network he uses his computer on. Anyone -- from Joe Smith down the street to the GOP -- has an unalienable right to access his emails. Mr. Cronon, to his credit, is no dummy and said he has always been careful not to use his university email for personal reasons.

If anything, Mr. Krugman's idea that "the rest of us" need to do something to stop this would lead to LESS discourse and LESS openness.

Public records are public. Period.

Perhaps the most interesting part of it all is that Mr. Cronon even wrote this in his original column:

Among (Wisconsin's) proudest traditions is a passion for transparent government that often strikes outsiders as extreme. Its open meetings law, open records law and public comment procedures are among the strongest in the nation.

And it should stay that way.

An intrepid reader adds a wrinkle

Reader David McCoy has done the unthinkable by combining the best portions of the Wothism proposal and the best portions of the current system. As he explains:

My own personal belief is that 64 teams is perfect. The first two days of the tournament, when there are 32 games, those are the two best sports days of the year. It's marvelous. And let's not discount how much fun the bracket pools are. Going down to 32 removes a whole round of fun.

I can't help but agree. Once it's down to the round of 32, that means eight games a day, and it's just not the same. If only there were a way to keep the 64-team format intact ... David continues:

First, we include all regular season conference winners, AND all conference tournament winners. I like this because if you have a great regular season and win your regular season title, but slip up in the conference tourney, you still get in. It rewards you for being good all year. But also, if you have a rough start, or a key player misses a bunch of games, you've still got your shot in the conference tourney. That fixes the issue that you brought up before, about waning interest when a team is eliminated. With my method, nobody is eliminated until their season is over.

 
Boom. That was indeed one of my biggest problems with my own proposal -- once a team was mathematically eliminated from winning their conference, their season became almost entirely meaningless. Keeping the tournaments as an avenue to get in means there's always a light at the end of the tunnel and is a reason for these teams to stay sharp and fans to stay interested.

So far, I'm feeling this.

David's next step is where I start to question the methodology just a bit. If not even one conference were to have the same regular season and conference tournament champion, there would be no at-large bids. I'm OK with that. However, at-large bids "open up," for lack of a better term, when a team wins both the regular season and tournament conference crown.


The ideology here, I think, is that if a team wins both the regular season and the conference tournament, you can't really say it was a fluke or that another team deserved to make it. That's fair. Where I get a little bit bothered is that this will only serve to prop up the participation from the BCS conferences because of David's methodology for picking at-larges:

At-large bids awarded according to strength of conference; according to regular season conference standings. Conferences with .9xxx receive one more bids than conferences with .8xxx and so on. First teams selected for auto-bids will be second-place regular season finishers. If that (second-place) team already has auto-bid due to conference tourney title, third place team is NOT selected until other conferences fill their bids.

The reference to ".9xxx" and ".8xxx" is from the same source that I culled my conference rankings earlier -- the esteemed Dr. Po-Po, Ken Pomeroy. I think the end result is that it ends up giving too many at-large bids to the best conferences.

David put together the following list to explain how the idea would have looked this season:

Big Ten: Ohio State (Purdue, Wisconsin, Illinois)


Big East: Pittsburgh, U-Conn (Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville)


Big 12: Kansas (Texas, Kansas State)


ACC: North Carolina, Duke (Florida State)


Pac 10: Arizona, Washington (UCLA)


SEC: Florida, Kentucky (Alabama)


MWC: BYU, SDSU


CUSA: UAB, Memphis


A10: Xavier, Richmond


MVC: Missouri St., Indiana St


Colonial: George Mason, ODU


Horizon: UW-Milwaukee, Butler


WCC: St. Mary's, Gonzaga


WAC: Utah St.


Ivy: Princeton


MAAC: Fairfield, St. Peter’s


Big West: Long Beach St., UCSB


MAC: Kent St., Akron


Summit: Oakland


Southern: College of Charleston, Wofford


ASun: Belmont


OVC: Murray State, Morehead State


Big Sky: Northern Colorado


Patriot: Bucknell


Northeast: Long Island


Sun Belt: FAU, UALR


Big South: Coastal Carolina, UNC Asheville


Southland: McNeese St., UTSA


America East: Vermont, Boston U


MEAC: Bethune Cookman, Hampton


SWAC: Texas Southern, Alabama State


Auto: 53


At large: 11 - Purdue, Notre Dame, Texas, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Kansas St, Florida St, UCLA, Alabama, Illinois, Louisville

Anything bother you? I'll tell you what bothers me: the fact that some conferences get punished for having one very strong team that stands above the rest.

Let's call it the "Memphis Problem." From 2006-2009, Memphis lost a TOTAL of 14 games. FOURTEEN! Some other teams in the conference were pretty darn good -- UAB comes to mind in a few of those seasons -- but their chances of an auto bid under David's system were nearly null and void, and the conference as a whole was too far down the list for consideration under the .9xxx or .8xxx rules. As it stands under David's solution, the WAC, for instance, only gets one team despite being a much stronger conference than the SWAC, which gets two teams.

I know, it kind of feels like grasping at straws. And I can see the other side of the argument -- if a league doesn't have another team that's capable of knocking off that top team, that top team is the only truly deserving squad. That's all well and good, but when we take bids away from these smaller conferences and give them to the bigger conferences, we're still rewarding mediocrity in those larger conferences!

Finally, the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if some of these cash-strapped conferences have more of an incentive to "throw" the conference tournament to a team that hadn't won the regular season tournament, thereby pushing two teams through and getting a bigger piece of the NCAA tourney cash pie. (Mmmm. Cash pie.)

So, what's the solution? I think a more level distribution of the at-large bids is the ticket. David's method clustered the bids at the top due to the .9xxx and .8xxx idea.

I think if we apply one of David's own clauses to the entire nation rather than just the best conferences, we can fix this: "First teams selected for auto-bids will be second-place regular season finishers. If that (second-place) team already has auto-bid due to conference tourney title, third place team is NOT selected until other conferences fill their bids."

There were nine conferences with just one auto bid under David's system: Big Ten, Big 12, WAC, Ivy, Summit, ASun, Big Sky, Patriot, Northeast.

My adjustment to what David did is as follows: distribute at-larges in a top-to-bottom (in order of conference strength) fashion.

So, starting at the top, we get Purdue, Texas, Boise St., Harvard, Oral Roberts, East Tenn. St., Montana, American, Quinnipiac. Now, every conference has an equal amount of bids and we can start back at the top, awarding the final two spots to the top two conferences: the Big Ten and Big East. Wisconsin and Notre Dame are the final two teams into the tournament.

The teams that David had in that I would be leaving out are: Syracuse, Kansas St, Florida St, UCLA, Alabama, Illinois, Louisville. Since only one (Florida St.) of these teams made it to the Sweet 16, I don't think we're losing much. (Kansas St. lost in the second round -- the real second round, not the third round like the NCAA and CBS want us to believe -- UCLA lost in the second round, Alabama didn't make it at all, Illinois lost in the second round and Louisville lost in the first round.)

So, here's how my modified David field looks:

Big Ten: Ohio State (Purdue, Wisconsin)

Big East: Pittsburgh, UConn (Notre Dame)

Big 12: Kansas (Texas)

ACC: North Carolina, Duke

Pac 10: Arizona, Washington

SEC: Florida, Kentucky

MWC: BYU, SDSU

CUSA: UAB, Memphis

A10: Xavier, Richmond

MVC: Missouri St., Indiana St

Colonial: George Mason, ODU

Horizon: UW-Milwaukee, Butler

WCC: St. Mary's, Gonzaga

WAC: Utah St. (Boise St.)

Ivy: Princeton (Harvard)

MAAC: Fairfield, St. Peter’s

Big West: Long Beach St., UCSB

MAC: Kent St., Akron

Summit: Oakland (Oral Roberts)

Southern: College of Charleston, Wofford

ASun: Belmont (East Tenn. St.)

OVC: Murray State, Morehead State

Big Sky: Northern Colorado (Montana)

Patriot: Bucknell (American)

Northeast: Long Island (Quinnipiac)

Sun Belt: FAU, UALR

Big South: Coastal Carolina, UNC Asheville

Southland: McNeese St., UTSA

America East: Vermont, Boston U

MEAC: Bethune Cookman, Hampton

SWAC: Texas Southern, Alabama State

Auto: 53

At large: 11 - Purdue, Texas, Boise St., Harvard, Oral Roberts, East Tenn. St., Montana, American, Quinnipiac, Wisconsin and Notre Dame

We're still acknowledging the better overall strength of the top conferences without bowing down to their greatness. I LIKE IT!

Finally, one other topic to tackle is the number of empty seats at many of these sites. Does anyone go to these games?!?!?

The best solution is to structure the tournament in legitimate geographic terms and actually make it possible for more fans to take in a game. I'm sure UConn fans love their team and would love to see them play -- only they were out in Arizona this year!

Now, in the current NCAA format, it wouldn't work because we'd have one region with 11 Big East teams.

Under the Wothism/McCoy format, though, we don't have to worry about that since each conference has at most three teams. David's seeding method was as follows:

Teams are seeded in reverse, starting with the 16s (weakest teams from weakest conferences). At-larges are seeded according to conference strength, in reverse order. All at-larges will be seeded BEFORE any auto-bids from conferences that have an at-large team in the field. After non-at-large conference teams are seeded, then at-large teams will be seeded (in reverse order, weakest to strongest), then conference tournament winners are seeded in reverse order of conference quality. Then regular season winners are seeded in reverse. THEN, teams that won both their Regular Season and Conference Tournament will get a one-seed advance (i.e. a 16 according to conference quality gets bumped to 15.)

I will follow that guideline with one exception: I will regard regular season champions as more worthy than their equivalent conference tournament champions. So, the 16 seed line will consist of the bottom four conference tournament champions. The 15 seed line will consist of the bottom four conference regular season champions. (Note: In some cases, I will expand this to five conferences if it keeps one team significantly closer to home. Care was also taken to avoid second-round matchups between teams from the same conference.) FINALLY, when two teams on the same seed line are roughly the same distance from a site, the higher-regarded team will stay closer to home, even if it means a slightly lower seed.

Here goes!

MIDWEST (Chicago): 16) Hampton, 15) McNeese St., 14) UALR, 13) Oakland, 12) East Tenn. St., 11) Morehead St., 10) Murray St., 9) Harvard, 8) Kent St., 7) Gonzaga, 6) UW-Milwaukee, 5) Memphis, 4) Xavier, 3) Wisconsin, 2) Purdue, 1) Ohio State

NORTHEAST (Newark): 16) Boston, 15) Vermont, 14) Quinnipiac, 13) American, 12) Long Island, 11) Bucknell, 10) College of Charleston, 9) St. Peter's, 8) Princeton, 7) Butler, 6) ODU, 5) George Mason, 4) Richmond, 3) Notre Dame, 2) Connecticut, 1) Pittsburgh

MOUNTAIN (Denver): 16) UTSA, 15) Texas Southern, 14) Montana, 13) Northern Colorado, 12) Oral Roberts, 11) UCSB, 10) Long Beach St., 9) Boise St., 8) St. Mary's, 7) Utah St., 6) Indiana St., 5) San Diego St., 4) Washington, 3) BYU, 2) Arizona, 1) Kansas

SOUTHEAST (Atlanta): 16) Alabama St., 15) Bethune Cookman, 14) NC Asheville, 13) FAU, 12) Coastal Carolina, 11) Wofford, 10) Belmont, 9) Akron, 8) Fairfield, 7) Missouri St., 6) Kentucky, 5) Florida, 4) UAB, 3) Duke, 2) Texas 1) North Carolina

(You do not want to know how long that took or how tedious that was.)

So, here's the final result. It doesn't get any better than this.

1	OHIO ST.
16	HAMPTON
8	KENT ST.
9	HARVARD
5	MEMPHIS
12	EAST TENNESSEE ST.
4	XAVIER
13	OAKLAND
6	WISCONSIN MILWAUKEE
11	MOREHEAD ST.
3	WISCONSIN
14	ARKANSAS LITTLE ROCK
7	GONZAGA
10	MURRAY ST.
2	PURDUE
15	MCNEESE ST.
	MOUNTAIN
1	KANSAS
16	TEXAS SAN ANTONIO
8	ST. MARY'S
9	BOISE ST.
5	SAN DIEGO ST.
12	ORAL ROBERTS
4	WASHINGTON
13	NORTHERN COLORADO
6	INDIANA ST.
11	UC SANTA BARBARA
3	BRIGHAM YOUNG
14	MONTANA
7	UTAH ST.
10	LONG BEACH ST.
2	ARIZONA
15	VERMONT
	NORTHEAST
1	PITTSBURGH
16	BOSTON U
8	PRINCETON
9	ST. PETER'S
5	GEORGE MASON
12	LONG ISLAND
4	RICHMOND
13	AMERICAN
6	OLD DOMINION
11	BUCKNELL
3	NOTRE DAME
14	QUINNIPIAC
7	BUTLER
10	COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON
2	CONNECTICUT
15	VERMONT
	SOUTHEAST
1	NORTH CAROLINA
16	ALABAMA ST.
8	FAIRFIELD
9	AKRON
5	FLORIDA
12	COASTAL CAROLINA
4	UAB
13	FLORIDA ATLANTIC
6	KENTUCKY
11	WOFFORD
3	DUKE
14	NC ASHEVILLE
7	MISSOURI ST.
10	BELMONT
2	TEXAS
15	BETHUNE COOKMAN

How to fix the NCAA tournament

The first non-introductory Wothism post created a lot of debate and drew even more criticism.

I couldn't be happier.

While many of you already hate this idea, I want to take it one step further and detail just exactly how this year's NCAA tournament would have looked under my methodology.

To clarify, the basic tenets are:

1. Only regular season conference winners qualify

AND THAT'S IT.

The caveat with this year's results is that not all conferences have truly balanced schedules (two games between each two teams, one home and one away), so a regular season champion may not always be truly fairly determined. That said, because there's no other real option, I am assuming that all conference schedules WERE truly balanced.

Without further ado, this year's 32 33 bids would go to:

Big Ten: Ohio State

Big East Football (splitting into two 8-team subdivisions -- one for football members ... ): Pittsburgh 

Big East Non-Football (and one for non-football members): Notre Dame

Big 12: Kansas

ACC: North Carolina

Pac 10: Arizona

SEC: Florida

MWC: BYU

CUSA: UAB

A10: Xavier

MVC: Missouri St.

(UPDATE 3/30: MISSED) CAA: George Mason
Horizon: UW-Milwaukee

WCC: St. Mary's

WAC: Utah St.

Ivy: Princeton

MAAC: Fairfield

Big West: Long Beach St.

MAC: Kent St. 

Summit: Oakland

ASun: Belmont

Southern: College of Charleston

OVC (goofy since some teams play 19 conference games and other teams play 18): Murray State

Big Sky: Northern Colorado 

Patriot: Bucknell

Northeast: Long Island

Sun Belt: FAU

Big South: Coastal Carolina

Southland: McNeese St.

America East: Vermont

MEAC: Bethune Cookman

Great West (Currently not an auto bid conference): Utah Valley

SWAC: Texas Southern

I like seeding in order of overall conference quality, as broken down by KenPom.com here.

(UPDATE 3/30: Since I somehow missed the CAA and George Mason the first time around, these would be altered a bit. I would either leave the Great West as a non-auto bid conference -- it was really only cobbled together a few years ago -- or put Utah Valley and Texas Southern into a play-in game. In the end, it's not really going to materially affect the below results.)

So, your 2011 NCAA bracket would look like:

EAST REGIONAL:

No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 16 Texas Southern

No. 8 Princeton vs. No. 9 Kent St.

No. 5 UAB vs. No. 12 Bucknell

No. 4 Florida vs. No. 13 FAU

No. 6 UW-Milwaukee vs. No. 11 Murray State

No. 3 North Carolina vs. No. 14 McNeese St.

No. 7 Utah St. vs. No. 10 Belmont

No. 2 Notre Dame vs. No. 15 Bethune Cookman

WEST REGIONAL:

No. 1 Pittsburgh vs. No. 16 Utah Valley

No. 8 Fairfield vs. No. 9 Long Beach St.

No. 5 Xavier vs. No. 12 Northern Colorado

No. 4 BYU vs. No. 13 Long Island

No. 6 St. Mary's vs. No. 11 College of Charleston

No. 3 Arizona vs. No. 14 Coastal Carolina

No. 7 Missouri St. vs. No. 10 Oakland

No. 2 Kansas vs. No. 15 Vermont

Now THAT is a fun and fair tournament. It has all the intrigue of the current tournament with none of the selection committee garbage. There can be no griping about not being included. If your team was truly deserving of competing to be the best team in the nation, why couldn't it even win its own conference?

Based on my own set of proprietary numbers (quite similar to KenPom's numbers), the likelihood that each team would win this tournament are as follows:

OHIO ST. 44.82

KANSAS 28.01

PITTSBURGH  11.03

NORTH CAROLINA 4.22

BRIGHAM YOUNG 3.48

NOTRE DAME 3.31

FLORIDA 1.88

UTAH ST. 0.8

BELMONT 0.7

ST. MARY'S 0.64

ARIZONA 0.41

XAVIER 0.31

UAB 0.09

COASTAL CAROLINA 0.09

OAKLAND 0.09

MISSOURI ST. 0.03

PRINCETON 0.02

FAIRFIELD 0.02

MURRAY ST. 0.01

COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON 0.01

LONG BEACH ST. 0.01

KENT ST. 0

LONG ISLAND 0

BUCKNELL 0

NORTHERN COLORADO 0

VERMONT 0

WISCONSIN MILWAUKEE 0

FLORIDA ATLANTIC 0

MCNEESE ST. 0

UTAH VALLEY 0

TEXAS SOUTHERN 0

BETHUNE COOKMAN 0

Now, I can hear some of you already. "BUT BOB, THE NUMBER OF BAD TEAMS INCLUDED IS APPALLING! HECK, 25 OF 32 TEAMS -- 78.125 PERCENT (YOU ADD CONDESCENDINGLY) -- HAVE LESS THAN A 1 PERCENT CHANGE OF WINNING! WHY EVEN INCLUDE THEM IF THEY HAVE LITTLE TO NO CHANCE OF WINNING?!?"

As it turns out, the current format is very similar. In this year's 68-team tournament, 52 of those teams had less than a 1 percent chance of winning it all at the tournament's outset -- 76.47 percent. So, despite any claims you might have wanted to make about a watered down field, it's really quite similar. (Amazingly, Kentucky had a 2.6 percent chance of winning this year's tournament, but no other team in the Final Four was above 1 percent -- UConn was just below that mark.)

The biggest differences of course, are at the top. I had Ohio State winning 27.4 percent of the time before this year's 68-team tournament -- using this method, the Buckeyes leap to 44.82 percent. Kansas was at 18.4 percent in this year's field -- under my method, the Jayhawks jump to 28.01 percent.

It seems fair to me to reward outstanding regular seasons with a better chance of winning it all. Call me crazy (and I know some of you will), but the only real difference between how it's done now and how I would do it is that you have to prove it every step of the way in my format.

If you're not the best in your conference throughout December, January and February, you don't get in.

If you're not the best in March, you don't win it all.

It almost makes too much sense, doesn't it?

Why the NCAA tournament is a joke

While Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka
Smart (right) and point guard Joey Rodriguez (left)
have captivated the nation, the Rams don't
belong among college basketball's elite.

Most people will tell you that the great thing about the NCAA basketball tournament is its unpredictability. Most people love a Cinderella run deep into the tournament by an unheralded squad that gets hot at the right time.

I am not one of those people.

I'm not against the idea of playoffs in general. There IS something to be said for coming up big when it matters most.

What I am against is the rampant expansion of playoffs in every sport that renders the regular season all but meaningless for far too many teams.

There are 343 Division I basketball teams this year. Sixty eight of them made the tournament. That's about 19.8 percent.

That's not so bad, you might say. In the NFL, 12 of 32 teams make the playoffs for a whopping 37.5 percent. In Major League Baseball, it's eight of 30 for 26.7 percent (this is perhaps the biggest farce of all due to the length of the season, but that's for another time). In the NHL and NBA, it's truly out of control -- even after playing 82 games each, 16 teams make the playoffs in each 30-team league. Yup, that's 53.3 percent.

So, let's be fair: You can actually make the case that the NCAA tournament is the most palatable playoff of any major sport in America. (This obviously does not include the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision. Believe it or not, though, I think the FBS is closer to correct than any other sport in America -- since only two teams make it, every single game is of the utmost importance. It does need to be SLIGHTLY expanded to account for the unbalanced scheduling, but this is another discussion for another time.)

In Europe, major soccer leagues like the Barclays Premier League in England and Serie A in Italy use an aggregate points table. You get three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss. The schedule is balanced, meaning you play each other team in the league twice -- once at home and once on the road. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins the league.

Nothing could be fairer.

In those 20-team leagues, using a playoff would be a true travesty. In this country, with our larger leagues and unbalanced schedules, you can make the argument that we need playoffs in order to give each team a fair chance. For example, crowning Ohio State as the best team in the nation without giving Kansas a chance to topple them wouldn't be right.

That said, the majority of teams in this year's NCAA tournament weren't even the best team in their conference -- so why do we give them a chance to be the best team in the country?

Kansas proved itself worthy of a shot to be crowned the nation's best team by winning 32 of 34 games and the Big 12. Connecticut proved itself worthy of a shot because ... they lost half of the games they played in the Big East? What? They don't even belong in the same tournament as a Pittsburgh or a Notre Dame, schools that finished 15-3 and 14-4 in the Big East, respectively.

Furthermore, it's simply not fair that Virginia Commonwealth, the fourth-best team in its conference after playing a truly balanced schedule, made the tournament and had the opportunity to knock off Kansas. They simply did not deserve it. The same is true of Butler, which finished in a three-way tie atop the Horizon League but was swept by UW-Milwaukee and therefore finished second.

If you argue that it is fair, then let's just throw out the regular season altogether and play a 343-team tournament. It would only require three extra rounds! When fourth-place teams from ANY conference are getting into a nationwide playoff, something is wrong.

You can make "body of work" arguments all you want, but the bottom line is that the college basketball season is severely cheapened when you have teams like Connecticut, Butler and Virginia Commonwealth in the Final Four.

You'll notice I left out Kentucky. That's because I actually do believe Kentucky is one of the best teams in college basketball -- I had them ranked seventh entering the tournament. But even though my own metrics disagree with this example, the fact is that Kentucky didn't prove it on the floor when it mattered, and the Wildcats truly have no more of a place in the tournament than any of the other three teams. After going 10-6 in the SEC East and finishing three games back of champion Florida, why did Kentucky get essentially the same shot at winning the title as Florida? After all, finishing three games worse in a 16-game schedule is a performance disparity of nearly 20 percent -- pretty darn significant.

And yet here's Kentucky, along with Virgina Commonwealth, Butler and Connecticut, on the doorstep of what passes for greatness. Meanwhile, more worthy teams such as Ohio State (lost to Kentucky on Friday) and Kansas (lost to Virginia Commonwealth today) are out of the running because they slipped up for just the third time this season at the wrong time.

The runs that this year's Final Four teams have made, while laudable, are proof of nothing. As Big East Commissioner John Marinatto said in a story the New York Times ran last week, "In the tournament, you have to get lucky, you have to be fortunate. Everything has to come together."

Everything has indeed come together so nicely for Butler, Connecticut, Virginia Commonwealth and Kentucky. When one of these teams wins the title eight days from now, history will remember them as this year's best college basketball team.

Most people will love it.

I am not one of those people.

Welcome to Wothism

What is Wothism?

Well, let's see. It's like communism, only better. It's like Catholicism, only without the dogma. It's like Darwinism, only without the scientific process.

Wothism is, in short, awesome(ism).

Doesn't make sense? That's OK. Stick around and you'll figure it out after a while.

I'm not a bad writer as far as bad writers go. I've won a few awards from a few organizations, which is apropos of the fact that I'm awfully self-aggrandizing. (Oh, get used to that -- I think pretty highly of myself. Parentheticals, too.)

Wothism is far-reaching and oft-rambling, so post content and frequency is completely TBD.

Email me at wothism@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @Wothism.

Most of all, come back often. You have a lot to learn.

(Effective immediately, my personal blog will be moving to an undisclosed address. Should you care to continue reading it, please send me an email and I will provide you with the link.)