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| 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. |
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.
5 comments:
Why wait until this year to complain about it? It's been the same format your whole life.
I'd argue that the smart teams actually play the regular season like a preseason. This really only works if you're in a major conference, as you can afford to lose half your games in the Big East. And of course, VCU is an exception this year, but hey, whatever!
The tournament just expanded for the first time in my basketball aware lifetime.
I'm arguing against this expansion and think it ought to even go the OTHER WAY.
When else was I supposed to bring it up?
Tournaments aren't designed to identify the best team, just the champion. Villanova wasn't the best team when they won it all in 1985, the NY Giants weren't the best team when they won the Super Bowl in 2007, and the SF Giants probably weren't the best baseball team last year. Those teams aren't remembered for being the best, but for being champions.
In America, we don't just hand it to the team that runs up the most wins against lesser competition over 6 months. Nor should we be voting on the champion like in the farce that is college football.
Nope, the NCAA tournament is America. And if you want a crack at it, we'll give you a crack at it, but you damn well better get the job done when the pressure is absolutely suffocating. Otherwise we'll wish you the best on your way out the door. And we better not hear any whining.
Your opinions are stupid, and you should feel stupid.
Serioustalk: I disagree. For reals. vOv
*kickflips over discourse*
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