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In praise of the conference season Posted: Thursday January 31, 2002 12:31 PM
As everyone knows, the best team doesn't always win the NCAA tournament. I accept that. It's the price I'm willing to pay for deciding matters on the court in ridiculously exciting one-off games. Yet there's one thing I don't accept, and that's the complete emasculation of the conference season. The Second Season is a wonderful time of year, full of tense, emotional games, and yet these days conference titles mean ... almost nothing. In an effort to rectify the problem, I present (drum roll, please) the Wahl Doctrine: 1. Winning a conference regular-season title should be a big deal, since it requires sustained excellence over a span of 14 to 20 games (often in absurdly difficult settings). 2. A league's best team should get that conference's automatic NCAA tournament bid. 3. The best team should be decided on the court in a home-and-home, round-robin conference season. Sounds simple, but conference tournaments and bloated memberships (the Big East and Conference USA each have 14 schools!) are killing the regular season. In fact, with the Pac-10 reviving its postseason tourney this year, only one conference out of 31 (the Ivy League) adheres to the three criteria above. Just as bad, only six of the top 13 conferences still have home-and-home, round-robin season formats. Tell me how it's fair, for instance, that Oklahoma only got to play Big 12 rival Kansas once (a loss at Allen Fieldhouse) and doesn't get a shot at the Jayhawks back in Norman. Take me back to the old home-and-home Big Eight, which had a conference title that actually meant something. Look, I'm no naïf. Money is what matters to the pooh-bahs of college sports, and the major conferences all make a boatload with their postseason tourneys and oversized memberships. (Oops, I almost typed "oversized members," which surely wouldn't describe most conference pooh-bahs.) Anyway, to make the postseason tourneys worthwhile, they have to dangle their automatic NCAA bids. It's crass and unfair, yet at least I understand why they're doing it. Besides, big-conference champs will always cop at-large bids anyway. But here's what kills me: Some of the smaller, one-bid-and-out conferences actually lose money on their postseason tourneys, yet hold them anyway -- and screw their best teams out of deserved NCAA tournament spots. Take the Big West. Last year, UC Irvine went 15-1 and won the regular-season title by two games (in a home-and-home format). Sure enough, the Anteaters were upset in the Big West tourney and missed the NCAA tournament despite a 22-4 record. I'd understand the reason for a Big West postseason tournament if the conference made money off it, but according to Big West publicist Mike Daniels, the event has been in the red "for the past few years." So what on earth is the league's incentive for holding one, you ask? "For exposure," Daniels says, referring to "Championship Week" (henceforth known as Cheap TV Drama Week). "And for everybody to have the chance of reaching the NCAA tournament." In other words, We're gonna give Cal Poly another shot, even though it had 16 opportunities not to go 3-13 during the conference season. The death of the conference season is symptomatic of larger problems, of course. Never before has sustained, season-long excellence meant less in American sports. (Just ask the Seattle Mariners.) As many as 80 percent of the teams make the postseason in American pro leagues. If you get hot at the right time, your team can make the history books. So let's take a second and recognize some sustained excellence. Here are the nine teams in the nation that still have undefeated conference records this season: Cincinnati (8-0 C-USA), Kansas (7-0 Big 12), Memphis (8-0 C-USA), Pepperdine (7-0 West Coast), Princeton (2-0 Ivy League), St. Joseph's (6-0 Atlantic 10), Utah (5-0 Mountain West), Wyoming (5-0 Mountain West) and Xavier (8-0 Atlantic 10). Onward ... What do you think of the job Georgia's Jim Harrick and Mississippi State's Rick Stansbury are doing?
After slamming Wisconsin earlier in the year, don't you think it is time to give some props to Bo Ryan's squad?
Before I list my top 10 candidates for Coach of the Year, I'll be happy to give some credit to Stansbury and Ryan, who have felt the lash of my laptop this season. For starters, Mississippi State has performed beyond my expectations in the SEC, particularly after a creampuff non-con schedule and a destruction at the hands of Cincinnati. As for Ryan, he has helped turn the Badgers (11-10, 5-4 Big Ten) into an NCAA tourney contender after a brutal 3-6 start, so more power to him. Here are my top 10 COY candidates: 1. Bob Knight, Texas Tech. Love him or hate him, his Raiders have gone from doormats to 15-4 NCAA near-locks. 2. Lute Olson, Arizona. Green Wildcats have no business being 13-6 with one of the nation's toughest schedules. 3. Kelvin Sampson, Oklahoma. The 16-3 Sooners weren't in most folks' preseason top 20s. 4. Harrick, Georgia. The 16-5 Bulldogs have won at Florida and at Kentucky with seven scholarship players. 5. Mark Gottfried, Alabama. Gottfried beefed up his schedule this year and still has gone 18-3, with wins at Kentucky and at Georgia. 6. Ben Howland, Pittsburgh. The 17-4 Panthers are this year's version of Boston College. 7. Bob Huggins, Cincinnati. Huggs' boys have rung up 20 straight W's with a rough three-game stretch ahead at Marquette, at Charlotte and at Wake Forest. 8. Jim O'Brien, Ohio State. Surprising Buckeyes lead the Big Ten, but four straight road games loom. 9. Mark Few, Gonzaga. Different cast members, same results. 10. Rick Majerus, Utah. Utes have pulled off 12 straight wins despite loss of Chris Burgess to injury. The name gameYou might notice that The 'Bag is no longer "The 'Bag." Since I wasn't answering enough of your questions to merit full 'Bag status, we've decided to rechristen this as a column: On Colleges. Bland, I know, but it allows me to call myself the On-College-ist (get it?). Anyway, let me know if you like it, if it's in bad taste, or if you have any better (printable) ideas for column names. And keep sending in questions, because I'll keep answering -- a few of them, at least. Wow, an answer Whatever happened to Casey Jacobsen from Stanford? Last year this guy was an All-American, but now you don't even hear his name.
Well, Jacobsen actually is scoring better this year (19.7 ppg) than he did last year (18.1), but the difference is in his shooting. Jacobsen's field-goal percentage has fallen from .508 to .419, and his 3-point shooting from .472 to .396. Those are substantial dropoffs, the result mainly of not having as many offensive threats around him this season (though Curtis Borchardt has been solid and Julius Barnes is showing signs of becoming a genuine third scoring option). Plus, it's always easier to ignore West Coast teams, especially if they're 12-5 and ranked 18th -- as opposed to 31-3 and top-ranked, as the Cardinal were last year. The Magic SevenRemember my Magic Eight from last week? Well, as soon as I nominated Illinois, it violated one of the cardinal rules -- losing by more than 30 -- against Indiana. Since national-title contenders never get blown out, that sound you hear is ... the Illini being scratched from my list. WATN returns!Many thanks to my Italian journalist pal Roberto Gotta for sending me the 4-1-1 on Fire and Ice -- North Carolina State's Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe. Both happen to be playing in Europe these days. Monroe is in the Italian A1 league with Banca Marche Fabriano, where he's averaging 21.0 ppg, third best in the league. Monroe's teammates include Adrian Autry (Syracuse '94), Chandler Thompson (Ball State '92) and Tyrone Washington (Mississippi State '99). Corchiani, meanwhile, is playing for Spain's Tau Vitoria, last year's Euroleague finalist. Coming off the bench, he's averaging 5.9 ppg and 1.4 apg while playing alongside Elmer Bennett (Notre Dame '93). Which reminds me, there's a great Web site, worldbasket.com, to keep up with Euro action (and players). Check it out! Next week's WATN: Where in the world is Benoit Benjamin? See you next week. Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl covers college basketball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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