SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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I needed to get this off my chest and do in such a way that it would be read by a lot of people so I sent this to Sports Illustrated. We'll see if it gets published.
The NCAA basketball championship game last spring and the football championship game this winter were both lousy, unsatisfying games. That can be unavoidable but I think the circumstances leading to those games are flawed. A championship tournament should have two characteristics above all others: it should include all the logical contenders and it should include as few of the ‘illogical’ contenders as possible. The two team football tournament violates the first rule: teams that deserved a shot that might have made it more interesting are left to watch the single game on TV. The 68 team basketball tournament violates the second. It’s too easy to engineer an upset in a sport where contact is, (theoretically) not allowed and you can shoot over the defense. Thus we wind up with Ohio State, Kansas and Duke watching a Final Four of a rebuilding Kentucky team, Butler, Virginia Commonwealth and the 9th place team in the Big East. The upsets people love prevent the confrontations people want. The football tournament needs to have more teams, the basketball tournament less.
The NCAA basketball championship game last spring and the football championship game this winter were both lousy, unsatisfying games. That can be unavoidable but I think the circumstances leading to those games are flawed. A championship tournament should have two characteristics above all others: it should include all the logical contenders and it should include as few of the ‘illogical’ contenders as possible. The two team football tournament violates the first rule: teams that deserved a shot that might have made it more interesting are left to watch the single game on TV. The 68 team basketball tournament violates the second. It’s too easy to engineer an upset in a sport where contact is, (theoretically) not allowed and you can shoot over the defense. Thus we wind up with Ohio State, Kansas and Duke watching a Final Four of a rebuilding Kentucky team, Butler, Virginia Commonwealth and the 9th place team in the Big East. The upsets people love prevent the confrontations people want. The football tournament needs to have more teams, the basketball tournament less.
