I Hate Jim Nantz....(Not very creative I know, but seriously, I hate him)

So I've been talking a lot about how great this year's NCAA tournament has been.  I've also said how the major reason for this is the element of unpredictability.  What creates unpredictability in the NCAA?  Upsets.  What creates upsets? Generally, mid-major teams playing well.  If the VCU's and Butler's of the world don't fare better than people expect them to against the powerhouse conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big East, etc) the tournament becomes predictable and stagnant.  Simply put, you know from square one that teams like Pittsburgh, Ohio State, Kansas, and Duke will beat teams like Bucknell, Morehead State, Wichita State, and Butler.  That takes all the fun out of watching the tournament.  It goes against the essence of what is exciting about MARCH MADNESS!

So why, then, do sportscasters like Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg insist on tearing these lower echelon teams down?  In 2006, when the mid-majors really started to put themselves on the map and made record-breaking runs in the tourney, Nantz and his then-partner Billy Packer made some brash comments about how sickened they were that teams like Bradley and Northern Iowa were doing as well as they were.  Their comments incited an enormous backlash throughout college basketball and its fan base.  Nantz should have learned his lesson.

Instead, he and Clark Kellogg chose to make similar comments this year (in a much more passive fashion, I would like to note).   But they don't ever cite statistics or in-game evidence to support their claims.  They just sit at the desk and say, "There's just too many mid-major teams" or "VCU never should have had a chance at the tournament".  Well, sorry Clark and Nantzy, but I believe you have been proven wrong.  Butler, a Horizon League team, and VCU, a Colonial Athletic Association team, are playing this weekend for a shot at the title.  

The sad thing is that Jim Nantz is a great broadcaster and seems to be an intelligent enough guy, and should recognize that all the dominant conferences just going around and stomping on everyone else does not make for exciting basketball!  That is what makes college basketball so great!  What's so infuriating is that there is no apparent reason why it would benefit Jim Nantz for mid-majors not to be in the tournament.  Why would that make your day better, Jim? You want to see UNC play Duke? Watch the ACC Tournament.  You want to see a team without the most talent in the world pull off an incredible and inspirational upset against a powerhouse that they theoretically shouldn't be able to beat? Watch the NCAA tournament.  Without this kind of excitement, what would be the draw? What reason would people have to watch if they know what's going to happen.  Open mouth, insert foot, Jim.  This is the way college is and we all like it.  You would do well to accept that or pick a different sport.  HATER

What a Tournament!

This year's March Madness has been one of the most incredible tournaments I have ever seen.  It has literally been as if seedings have no value at all!  We have seen one region in which the 10, 11, and 12 seeds all made the Sweet 16.  We have seen a once again under-ranked Butler team make it to the Elite 8 for the second consecutive year, last year making an appearance in the championship game as a 5 seed.  We have seen one of the better Duke teams of the last several years eliminated before the Elite 8 as a 1 seed.  And best of all, we have seen nearly every game come down to the wire.  There have been hardly any instances of the last 2 minutes of a game being filled with fouls and free throw shooting.  It has truly been a tournament representative of everything people love about college basketball: underdogs defeating the "elite" teams, buzzer-beating shots to win games, exciting athletic performances, record-breaking scoring, emotional story lines such as BYU....the list goes on and on.

However, the one thing that all of these upsets and unexpected outcomes will likely cause is an even easier path to the championship for dominant teams like Kansas and Ohio State.

I'm sitting in 1st place in my bracket pool, and I'm looking pretty good cause one thing that this tournament will not see is the defeat of Ohio State! You may not like them, and neither do I really, but they are UN stoppable by anyone left in this tournament. There are simply no other big men who can compete with what Jared Sullinger puts out there.  Too bad we'll only get to see him in college one year!!!

Goodbye to Les

After 9 seasons, 5 of which being winning ones, Bradley made the decision to fire Jim Les just hours after the team was eliminated in the second round of the MVC Tournament.  I don't think anyone can say they were totally surprised by this, but I will at least concede that I didn't expect them to do it after this season, of all times. I honestly believed that, after having lost Taylor and Sam, Les would be granted some understanding and given another year to prove himself.  Especially considering that lots of freshman and sophomores got plenty of time and experience on the court this year.  You would have to expect this to set up a decent team next season.  But, as each day can go to show, college basketball is a lot of things, but never predictable!

Bruce Pearl

Allow me to be the first to congratulate Tennessee men's basketball head coach Bruce Pearl on his firing today.  Congratulations are in order, because Pearl's history would lead you to believe that this is what he wanted.  He has had such a blatant disregard for the integrity of the game throughout his career that he had to know it would turn out this way sooner or later.  Pearl has been a career weasel dating all the way back to his University of Iowa days, when he deliberately tried to sabotage Illinois through false illegal recruiting allegations after a highly regarded high school player committed to U of I over Iowa.  Kind of ironic that his career has now come to at least a temporary halt for exactly the type of thing he falsely accused Illinois of in 1989.  This move gives me a lot of faith in the fact that honor and integrity remain top goals of the collegiate environment.  It's nice to see, at a time in history when it seems that the least respectable people are the most successful athletes.  College basketball, and sports as a whole, are better places without Bruce Pearl.