Getting Madder Every Year

EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS

It’s a damn good thing the RPI was not around back in 1979, when the Indiana State Sycamores made their historic run to the NC2A final and the brink of perfection, because it’s unlikely Larry Bird and the fellas would have received a number one seed. Hell, by today’s standards, if ISU hadn’t knocked off New Mexico State in the ‘79 Missouri Valley Conference finals, it probably wouldn’t have received an at-large bid, either. Given the strength of the Sycamore schedule, that might have been tough to justify.

The Sycamores’ non-conference slate was dotted with powerhouses like Lawrence College of Appleton, WI, and Morris Harvey, which is now known as the University of Charleston. Yes, Indiana State played Purdue – on the road, of course – but Evansville, Butler, Cleveland State, Ball State, East Carolina and Illinois State do not exactly constitute a rugged slate. Perhaps the toughest team the Sycamores played all year was the Soviet National Team, which was a year away from dominating perennial hoop powers like North Korea, Bulgaria and Vietnam in the ’80 Commie Games. As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the game that made the NC2A tournament a vital part of the nation’s sporting culture, it’s instructive to realize that today’s selection committee members would have done all they could to make sure the Bird-Magic matchup didn’t happen. Michigan State-Indiana State? That couldn’t possibly be good for ratings.

In 2004, 12 schools from non-BCS (that dreaded acronym even finds its way onto the basketball court) conferences earned at-large invites to the tournament. This year, four are in the field. The Selection Committee, led by uber-powerful SEC commissioner Mike Slive, would have us believe the only reason schools from the Missouri Valley, West Coast and Southern Conferences aren’t in the tournament and mediocre squads like Minnesota, Arizona (loses of five of its last six), Michigan and Maryland are is that the bigger names played tougher non-conference schedules. It wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the fact that the NC2A wants name brands in there. While that warms the corporate hearts of big-school shills like Jay Bilas (more on him later), it doesn’t help the tournament, which thrives on the excitement of upsets that occur the first week. Which would get your interest more, a first-round win by Creighton over California or one by Maryland over the Golden Bears? How about St. Mary’s over Texas or Minnesota over Texas? And if Davidson beat Utah, would you be more prone to take notice than if Arizona does so?

The tournament has had its period of glasnost. Now, it’s back to the hard, cold autocracy that keeps the little guy down. The committee isn’t handing out invitations to mid-major schools anymore. It’s looking at the big fellas, who beef up their resumes in contrived, made-for-TV conference tournaments after floundering around during the regular season. Meanwhile, the smaller leagues sell their souls for two hours on espn at the expense of their true champion, which earns its stripes during two months of competition, only to risk on during a three-day game of Russian roulette. As a result, an ugly semifinal loss by Creighton in the MVC tourney spoils an entire season of strong play. Davidson goes 18-2 in Southern Conference play but watches Chattanooga move on to the tournament, despite seven fewer conference victories. Hey, but the conference got two hours on “Championship Week,” so it doesn’t matter if has made a joke of its regular season. Next year, expect the league to swap its integrity for a handful of magic beans.

This year’s tourney includes seven teams from a Big Ten so mediocre it makes the average American Idol finalist look like John Mayer. It has Arizona, even though the Wildcats play in late February and March only looked good after five shots of tequila. There’s a lot to like about the tourney, but this trend is making it easier for the NC2A to say one day that automatic berths for the smaller conferences should go away, or that the little guys should all play pigtail games, the better to leave more spaces for giant schools. You wait; it’s going to happen.

It hasn’t yet, and that’s good news for the ’09 tourney, which has plenty of great plot lines on the road to Detroit. Here are a few.

One More Reason: If it wasn’t already so easy to hate Duke because of its disingenuous coach, obstreperous fans and cheerleading media, the growing influence of Jay Bilas alone would make even the Dalai Lama loathe the Blue Devils. Bilas’ blatant distaste for any school that isn’t in a power conference is enough to make Billy Packer cuddly. Just imagine El Hombre’s disgust when he realized that he would be at the same first-round tourney venue as Bilas. The bile has started its rise already. If it were up to the Duke graduate, no one who didn’t play for the sainted Coach K could talk about basketball, and every one of the 65 spots in the bracket would be occupied by a school from a BCS conference. His continued rise to prominence is one of sports’ great catastrophes.

Fuhgedaboutit: It would be absolutely great if Carl Showalter, Gaear Grimsrud and the rest of the fellas from Fargo could take out Kansas, but North Dakota State, in its first year of full D-I eligibility, isn’t going to beat the Jayhawks. It’s going to be quite a party in Minneapolis when the NDSU crowd buses down, and 5-11 gunner Ben Woodside is fun to watch, but the Bison are headed for the wood chipper.

Welcome Back: Twenty-three years ago, Mouse McFadden and the Cleveland State Vikings advanced to the Sweet 16. Then coach Kevin Mackey got busted for drunken driving on his way home from a crack house. Bad break. Well, CSU is back, and headed for a date with Wake Forest. Put your money on the Deacons, but don’t expect the Vikes to back down. Meanwhile, former Cal coach Todd Bozeman, who led Jason Kidd and the Bears to a second-round upset of Duke in 1993 (bless his heart) before being driven out of coaching for paying a recruit’s parents, has led Morgan State to the tournament, where it will be pile-driven by Oklahoma. Still, good for Bozeman. Finally, give it up for Michigan, which has returned to the tourney for the first time in 10 years. Not bad for a hockey school.

Upset City: Here are your first-rounders: Arizona (12) over Utah (5), Utah State (11) over Marquette (6), Maryland (10) over California (7), Western Kentucky (12) over Illinois and Akron (13) over Gonzaga (4). Later on, look for West Virginia to reach the Elite Eight from its six seed, where it will join Louisville, Purdue, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Villanova, North Carolina and Syracuse.

On to Detroit: And, no, El Hombre won’t be making cracks about the Final Four venue. Why kick a town when it’s down – really down. The four to make it are: Louisville, Memphis, Pittsburgh and UNC. Louisville meets Carolina for the title, with the Tar Heels prevailing.

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EL HOMBRE SEZ: Let’s see now. Jay Cutler has won zero playoff games, yet he can get indignant when a new coach entertains the idea of a trade involving him? The Broncos should get rid of him, because if he’s whining about this, what happens when things get tight on the field?...Bucks forward Charlie Villanueva was caught by coach Scott Skiles Twittering at halftime of Sunday’s win over Boston. That’s right, the newest, most annoying way to communicate has reached the NBA locker rooms. It should be no surprise, since new Celts’ guard Stephon Marbury tried to start a Facebook community of his former Knicks teammates earlier this year, but he couldn’t get anybody to accept his invitations to become a friend…Good news for Mets fans: Johan Santana pitched four innings against minor leaguers Tuesday and looked better than he did in his last start, his first of the spring. Santana gave up two runs on six hits and struck out five. He had to be restrained from going out to the mound for the fifth, though, and was heard screaming, “Don’t let the bullpen blow it again!!” Mets Fever – Catch It…Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin landed the nation’s top uncommitted player, Kansas running back Bryce Brown, who turned down Miami because Kiffin told him he would end up a short-order cook if he played there, Kansas State because he didn’t want to be a sanitation engineer and Oregon because he was afraid of becoming a hobo. Kiffin was unavailable for comment, but a diabolical laughter could be heard coming from the UT football offices after Brown’s signed letter-of-intent came across the mojo wire…espn’s latest attempt to pump its own programming involves the women’s NC2A hoops tournament (good luck). Even though an all-star team of the other teams in the field couldn’t touch Connecticut, the network is trying to convince us that the Huskies could lose. Put it this way; if there were gambling on women’s basketball – and somewhere there must be – the opening line on UConn’s first-round game against Vermont would be about 60 ½. So much for drama.

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AND ANOTHER THING: Congratulations to DeMaurice Smith, who over the weekend was elected the new executive director of the NFL Players Association. Smith, an outsider who impressed the rank-and-file with his toughness, leadership skills, good ideas and willingness to work with owners, has one of the least desirable jobs in sports ahead of him. The owners have already opted out of the current collective bargaining agreement – effective 2010 – and are threatening to lock the players out the following season, in order to get a more favorable contract. All Smith has to do is cut a deal with a group of cutthroats who won’t be easily cajoled into an agreement, as they were by Paul Tagliabue a few years ago. These guys want it all, and it will be up to Smith to make sure they don’t spill too much of the players’ blood. That won’t be easy. At the same time, he has to deal with the retired players, who feel former director Gene Upshaw didn’t help them enough. It’s a high-stakes game with plenty of opportunities for disaster. Let’s hope Smith survives.

-EH-