Write On Sports LLC - "NCAA Basketball; Where the Polls Don't Matter" by Anthony Tao

NCAA Basketball; Where the Polls Don't Matter

2006-12-05 10:53:07 | By: Anthony Tao

One month into the college basketball season, who could’ve guessed both Florida and Kansas would have two losses? That one of those KU losses would be a home defeat to Oral Roberts, yet that wouldn’t be the worse of the two? That Wichita State would not only be ranked tenth in the nation but have the best resume? That the top two teams in the AP poll would be UCLA and Pittsburgh – Ben Howland’s current team and his old one, coached by his protégé Jamie Dixon?

And this is merely Reason No. 1 to love college basketball this season: on any given day, there’ll be at least one team or one game – not necessarily the Florida-Kansas, UNC-Ohio State, Ohio State-Florida matchups – that carries excitement and intrigue.

Here are 24 other reasons, in no particular order:

Reason No. 2: Only appropriate to start from the top: Florida, defending champion, defending its championship. The Gators return all five starters and have three potential first round draft picks in Corey Brewer, Al Horford and Joakim Noah (who is Reason No. 3: How many college basketball players would feud with their coach over politics? In a USA Today article, senior forward Chris Richard says about Noah’s reaction to Billy Donovan declining to watch Fahrenheit 9/11: “Jo likes to see himself as a very open-minded person and he doesn’t like when somebody doesn’t take into consideration one of his ideas without trying to look at it. They kind of clashed on that a little bit”). It’s not absolutely necessary for a team to carry that championship mantle – no team has repeated since Duke in 1991 and ‘92 – but it’s always more interesting when it happens, like a heavyweight belt holder challenging all comers. The team that beats Florida will know, for one night at least, that it’s worthy. Even Florida State.

Reason No. 4: College basketball’s nouveau riche are neither philistine nor passing fancies. They know what they’re doing and they’re here to stay, in spite of the griping of Billy Packer, Gary Williams (who before the season accused MVC teams of “cracking the RPI code”) and the established order. Consider the case of the aforementioned Wichita State Shockers (Reason No. 5), ranked 10th in the AP poll yet still underrated. Coach Mark Turgeon lost four starters last year and still won the Missouri Valley Conference, then advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. This season, losing last year’s MVC player of the year has so affected the Shockers that all they’ve done is go on the road to beat two Final Four teams and Syracuse in the Carrier Dome. Cracking the RPI code? Let’s see how Maryland does against George Mason, LSU and Syracuse in a span of two weeks. The Shockers, 5-0, are a top five team right now, and there’s no argument you can make to the contrary. With four returning guards and another one who spent last summer getting compared with Steve Nash (the name’s Gal Mekel, of Israel’s 18-and-under national team), this team may ride their talented backcourt to another Sweet Sixteen…

…And beyond? With the depth of the field (Reason No. 6), it’s always too early to say. No one is safe. From 1999-2001, Gonzaga made three consecutive Sweet Sixteens (an Elite Eight in 1999) as a double-digit seed. Then in 2002 the selection committee awarded them a six seed and they proceeded to lay an egg against Wyoming, ruining every bracket in America. While this doesn’t necessarily mean the path to the Sweet Sixteen runs easier for a 10 seed than a 3 (though it could be if the 2-seed is Georgetown, Alabama or Tennessee), it does mean that come tournament time, nothing is guaranteed. So you think the regular season doesn’t matter? Think again. It does, and that’s Reason No. 7. Because these days, all 4 through 7 seeds are vulnerable, as are a couple of 3’s and at least one 2.

On the other hand, polls don’t matter (Reason No. 8). This brings me back to the Shockers (last time this column, I promise). I know voters don’t watch all these games, but is it too much to ask that they not rank Team X, which lost on its home court to Team Y, ahead of Team Y? That’s the case here, with LSU at No. 9 and Wichita State one spot behind. I don’t think a national championship hangs in the balance, though.

Reason No. 9, which is similar to Reason No. 8 but needs to be reiterated: Voters don’t decide the national title game. I’m not saying the Great NCAA Crapshoot – more popularly known as March Madness (Reason No. 10) – is an optimal way of deciding the national title, but it’s undeniable that this tournament, despite its ideological shortcomings, has become one of America’s great sporting spectacles.

Reason No. 11: The freshmen class, which includes big names from big programs – Ty Lawson, Brandon Wright and Wayne Ellington of North Carolina, Darrell Arthur and Sherrod Collins of Kansas, Kevin Durant of Texas, Chase Budinger of Arizona, etc. Of course, no one’s forgetting Greg Oden (Reason No. 12). The mayor of Indianapolis once declared “Greg Oden Day” in the city when the seven-footer won his first national high school player of the year award as a junior at Lawrence North High School. He won it again the next year, joining an elite group that includes LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jerry Lucas. The hype is real. Valparaiso was the first to find out, and the Crusaders were so overwhelmed that they sent him to the foul line 15 times. In 23 minutes, Oden scored 14 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and rejected five shots, leading Valpo coach Homer Drew to say, “You people in Columbus are in for a real treat.”

Reason No. 13: Winthrop will be in the Sweet Sixteen, even though they’ll probably end up as a 14 seed. I said this about two months ago, but you can mark that down now.

Reason No. 14: Duke’s in a down year, which is a polite way of saying Duke sucks. Apologies to Duke fans (for more reasons than you know, chap), but you can probably take that as a compliment.

Reason No. 15: Big Monday, Super Tuesday, ACC Wednesday, whatever’s on Thursday… unlike college football, there’s a good reason for basketball to be on every day of the week.

Reason No. 16: New Bulldogs, same slippers: Butler, the new Gonzaga, has become the ultimate springboard. Barry Collier, Thad Matta and, soon, Todd Lickliter. We say they’re the “new” Gonzaga because Gonzaga, a few years ago, became a place to stay. Kudos to Mark Few. In fact, we’ll even make him and his team Reason No. 17. But there are others that are ready to be anointed the next Gonzaga, like Xavier, Air Force, Missouri State, Southern Illinois and Loyola. Also, any team that follows in the footsteps of Holy Cross and Bucknell and comes out of the Patriot League (Reason No. 18), even if it is Holy Cross or Bucknell.

Reason No. 19: Again on the topic of parity: Kentucky no longer dominates the SEC, Connecticut no longer dominates the Big East and, soon enough, Arizona’s reign atop the Pac-10 will be disputed. Not by UCLA, but the USC Trojans (Reason No. 20). Tim Floyd was one of the best coaches in the country when he was at Iowa State, and now he’s steering the reins of a sleeping giant, with the most highly touted player not named Greg Oden coming in next year (that would be O.J. Mayo… the NBA’s minimum age rule is Reason No. 21 to love college basketball). The rise of USC is great for the hoops landscape because, frankly, aren’t you tired to looking at Lute Olson pacing the sidelines in his pristine suits and resplendent hair? Simply speaking, USC is sexy, and it’s about time the Pac-10 dropped the wool swimsuits for the thong bikini. USC is a highly visible program in one of the biggest markets in the country. Considering how easy recruiting should be – beautiful weather, a gorgeous arena, SoCal gals, those Song Girls and the best fight song in the West – it’s a wonder the Trojans haven’t made a Tournament appearance since 2002. A revitalized USC program means national interest and maybe a non-Gonzaga game worth staying up for every week.

Reason No. 22: Davidson sophomore guard Max Paulhus Gosselin, for no other reason than his name’s resemblance to a certain Saved by the Bell star.

Reason No. 23: Fieldhouses, gyms, halls and pavilions. The NBA can have their 20,000-seat arenas; we’ll take places where real spirit lives, phog overhangs and ghosts haunt.

Reason No. 24: “You know, the Prodigal Son went away and when he came back, they welcomed him with open hands and arms and they were really committed to what he was doing. That's the way I feel about coming back here to Northeast Ohio.” Okay, so Cleveland State coach Gary Waters doesn’t make this top 25. But others do: Mike Krzyzewski, who lobbied for the Duke student section to keep its place on the floor; Thad Matta, who will win a national coach of the year award sooner than later; Roy Williams, a real southern charmer who, during the Ohio State game, instructed the PA announcer to tell the fans to behave themselves because “this is North Carolina”; Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim, still holding the fort in the northeast; Rick Pitino, rubbing Kentucky fans the wrong way every day and twice on Sundays; Bob Huggins and Bobby Knight, for different reasons; Ben Howland and John Beilein, still rising; Tennessee Tech coach Mike Sutton, who you probably haven’t heard of but should know because of his inspirational recovery from Guillain-Barre Syndrome. And that’s just scratching the surface. Coaches are the inveterate stars of college basketball, and that’s not a bad thing.

Reason No. 25: Because you never know. Kansas, coming off a stirring win against Florida, was sleepwalking towards a victory at DePaul when the Blue Demons’ Sammy Mejia decided he’d shake up the college hoops landscape just a tad. The Blue Demons went on a 14-0 run in the last three minutes and stunned the then-fifth-ranked Jayhawks. “It was an opportunity to prove yourself,” Mejia said. He speaks for every team in college basketball. The very next day, Florida State upended Florida, sparking a celebration that matches any for a Seminoles football win this season. Not that there’ve been many. The beauty of college basketball is that if you watch the games, the sport will reward you. Maybe not all the time, but enough to keep you coming back.

And did we mention the polls don’t matter?

Comments

Jake Lloyd commented,
I'm not convinced about USC moving up the ladder in hoops. This season the Trojans are just 5-2, with none of their wins coming against quality opponents (and all of them at home). Yes, Mayo will bring hype to campus next year, but I don't see him staying longer than a year or having a huge impact on the program's direction. While he'll definitely spark the Trojans, it will only be temporary. USC will continue to be known soley as a football school.
December 6, 2006 4:58 p.m.

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