NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

Brain fart on my basic fractions and whoops on the Big 10.

Heck, I don't think Michigan and Michigan State deserved to get in either, to be honest.

Again, I think teams' conference seasons should carry a slightly higher proportion of weight than the non-conference season. That doesn't mean the big win in Maui doesn't count. It does mean you can't limp to the finish, then lean on November wins to get in.

 

He's one player. And have you looked at his numbers on the season. That has nothing to do with the name on his jersey. Those numbers, in the Big 10, are damn impressive. One game does not mitigate that.

 

Big Ten Player of the year, right?

 

Yup.

Also, in that type of game where a team gets down a lot early, it's very tough for a big man to get into the flow and get enough touches.

 

Purdue's problem isn't JaJuan Johnson and it isn't E'Twaun Moore. It is the cast of mid- to low-major talent surrounding them. They needed a third guy. That guy was in street clothes all season long.

Also, I hate how big the tournament has become that it has made the regular season completely irrelevant to 99 percent of the sports fan population. I don't know what you do about that, but it probably needs to be addressed. Perhaps a BCS-type updated pool of the field of 64 so fan bases know where they stand throughout the year? I don't know what the answer is, but I know that regular-season college basketball is quickly becoming a niche sport, at least in most of the country. It seems like these days, people only care about sports if they have action on it, either fantasy sports or tournament office pools.

 

Dave Dameshek, whom I normally love, on Twitter:

Oof. Might want to sit the next few plays out, big guy.

 

With a few exceptions, FSU has had that kind of defensive effort all season long. Seminoles kept Duke to 61 points, Ohio State to 58 and Florida to 51. Now they've given up 50 and 57 in two tournament wins. You can go a long way playing like that.

 

Dick, I wish you had some sort of governor on your ability to make sweeping statements. Because this one is unmitigated BS.

A niche sport doesn't draw 32 million across the board, as the NCAA schools did in 2010, fourth-highest ever in a shitty economy. Forty-four schools drew 10,000 or more per game. Eleven conferences averaged 5,000 or more league-wide, which doesn't sound outstanding, but drawing 5,000 isn't bad when many of these college markets have far fewer than 100,000 people in them.

And the notion that the only people who care about fill-in-the-blank-sport are gamblers -- a mantra that is repeated about the NFL, NBA, college football, college basketball, etc., depending on who's doing the arguing -- is the most overrated argument point made in sports.

Often, the ones making that argument are gamblers themselves, bored with the sports they bet on, but addicted to their own action. They can't fathom that there are fans out there who enjoy the games on their own merits. And in my experience, the latter group far outshines the former.

Gamblers might help drive TV ratings, but most gamblers aren't season-ticket buyers. Most gamblers aren't merchandise buyers. Most gamblers aren't donating to schools to help fund newer and better practice facilities, etc. If college basketball was increasingly becoming a niche sport, it's one hell of a niche.

College basketball's regular season is only meaningless to those who can't think out of the national/ESPN box that constantly says February is a "slow" month.

College basketball's regular season, like many others is rhythmic.

It isn't that college basketball's regular season is meaningless, its a helluva lot more meaningful than the NBA or NHL, but that there's a large group of casual fans who don't have the patience to ride out the rhythm. They'd rather have the comparative instant gratification of once-a-week NFL or college football.

Different strokes, etc., but there's plenty of fans on the other side too, who are genuinely interested in each game.

 

The college season is fine the way it is. My only complaints are the slow week during finals, which won't change, and the fact conferences seasons are longer now that conferences are bigger. Scheduling a few non-conference games during Jan. and Feb. would break that up.

 

This tournament does not exist to identify the best team in NCAA Division I.

 

I think living in an unabashed "pro town" skews my perspective far more than ESPN, which I don't even watch (except for, well, college basketball games).

Of course, I get to endure 10,000 message board posts and 1,000 columns a year from real America about how "nobody" cares about the NBA, so I guess we're even.

 

Is that supposed to be a revelation? It's not.