Sunday, March 16, 2008

how all these espn barkers are arguing the wrong things

i love listening to the espn guys whine about the who should have been in the tournament without talking about who should be taken out. i think dicky v wants an 86 team bracket, jay bilas clearly wants a 74 team bracket with the remaining 9 teams taken only from power conferences, and bobby knight literally wants a 128 team tournament - which makes even less sense, considering that they'd be arguing over who's #129, 130 and 131.

calm down. we're debating between arizona state, syracuse and ole miss. they weren't gonna beat anyone anyways.

what i think is the biggest deal is that the seeding committee (headed by the big power conferences) has figured out a foolproof way to protect their teams from getting beaten by the little teams, and that's to have the dangerous mid-majors play each other in the first round.

they tried it out last year (butler vs. old dominion, nevada vs. creighton) and they expanded upon it this year (butler vs. south alabama, gonzaga vs. davidson, drake vs. western kentucky). hell, kent state is matched up with unlv, and this isn't your father's running rebels. so that limits the live mid-majors to just four advancing to the next round instead of the seven possible (and probable) upsets.

and that's the beauty of this tournament, watching the little guys finally get their chances at the big guys, and seeing the upsets happen. that's the magic. that's what we generally remember.

so it's quite devious by the big money majors and their seeding committee, really. if you can't keep them out, then at least save yourself. and it's just so ironic, you know, how the mid-majors can't get the big guys to play them in the regular season, and now they can't even get a shot at them in the tournament.

i guess they're tired of the valpos and winthrops taking headlines. then again, winthrop is taking on wazzu this year, although that's a team that played just like a low mid-major until two years ago.

anyways, as usual, the guys from espn have it all wrong. the committee's obvious decision to keep the bug guys safe is what needs to be talked about, not inconsequential teams that were "slighted" or "snubbed".

then again, power conferences pay for their salaries.

nobody said that a news channel should be expected to be fair.

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