Jeremy Lin comparisons; Notes on the Islanders, swimming, Tiger and NCAA Tournament

Tweet

Anyone who has ever read this blog knows I rarely write about the NBA. The last time I really cared about the league was about the same time that the Knicks won their second and last title in 1973.

I watched Magic and Bird and Jordan but not with any great passion. Appreciation yes, passion not so much. I think about the only time I’ve ever gotten really excited about a game in the last 20 years was when Steve Kerr made the clinching three pointer for the Bulls in 1997.

I do, occasionally, tune in when I’m home to see just how poorly The Washington Wizards can play on a given night. Most of their games should be on Comedy Central. That said, Jordan’s Charlotte Bobcats are worse.

Right now though it is impossible to be a sports fan of any kind and not be aware of Jeremy Lin—I won’t use the phrase Lin-sanity because it is the kind of silly cliché that trivializes something that is truly remarkable. Let’s just say that what the kid is doing is amazing and leave it at that.

Let’s NOT compare him to Tim Tebow because, other than the fact that he is also a devout Christian, the two of them have nothing in common. Tebow was a star in high school who was recruited by just about everyone. He won a Heisman Trophy, was part of two national championship teams at Florida and—whether the so-called experts agreed or not—he WAS a first round draft choice. He’s been a star all his life. The only thing that accorded him any sort of underdog status was the constant braying about his throwing motion. Ever see Jim Furyk swing a golf club? Does he look like a U.S. Open champion?

Tebow has always been a good to great football player. Do I think he’s the next Tom Brady or Drew Brees or Eli Manning? No. But he’s proven he can play quarterback in the NFL just as he proved he could play in high school and then in college and everything about his resume says, ‘star.’

Jeremy Lin? He was right in Stanford’s backyard and the basketball coaches averted their eyes. He sent tapes to all The Ivy League schools and most of them said, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ Boston College Coach Steve Donahue, who was then the coach at Cornell, readily admits he and his coaches didn’t think he was good enough to play for them coming out of high school.

Lin was offered a guaranteed spot on the basketball team by two schools: Harvard and Brown. He went to Harvard to play for Coach Frank Sullivan and then played for Tommy Amaker after Sullivan was (unfairly) fired by Harvard after Lynn’s freshman season. He was an All-Ivy Player for Amaker—not player-of-the-year—All-Ivy. He was undrafted, cut by two teams and a month ago was playing in the NBA Development League. Only injuries to several Knicks guards gave him the chance he has now converted into stardom.

No one knows if this will be Lin’s 15 days of fame or if he will turn out to be Kurt Warner, who went from bagging groceries to a Super Bowl winning quarterback. Will the league adjust to him? Will the magic wear off when Carmelo Anthony returns and the ball stops moving whenever it touches his hands?

Who knows?

What we do know is this: Lin has come from nowhere to somewhere his entire career. We know that he has made Asian-American proud with his play. The best sign I’ve seen in a long time was being held by an Asian-American the other night: It said, “Who says Asians can’t drive?”

Is Lin being hyped to the max everywhere he goes because he’s Asian-American? Because no one recruited him? Because he went to Harvard? Because he’s a devout Christian? Because he was cut twice?

Yes to all of the above.

Not because he’s with the Knicks—I’m not going to jump back on that bandwagon after all these years; I’ll keep hoping the Islanders can keep improving enough to sneak into the playoffs somehow—but because he’s a great story, I hope he keeps it going. God knows after the lockout and given the general quality of basketball in this play-every-night season, the NBA could use a legitimate feel-good story.

Anything that keeps people from talking about LeBron James for a few days can’t be a bad thing.

*****

Catching up on a few notes:

--Someone asked the other day if I thought the Islanders could make the playoffs. They’re certainly playing better but losing at home to Florida doesn’t help things at all. They’re going to have to win about two-of-every-three from here on in and that’s tough. Last night was a very good win in Winnipeg but tonight in St. Louis will be one of those games where stealing one point would be a huge victory.

--Master nationals in Indy next spring? Now THAT should give me incentive to get into decent shape. Swim all day, gorge myself at St. Elmo’s at night. Perfect.

--To my friend Bill and the other Tiger-does-no-wrong defenders. 1. He said he was playing for the money in Abu Dhabi only when asked and knowing that everyone knew it anyway. On his web site his initial explanation was, ‘wanting to see new places.’ BTW, how’d you like him marking and refusing to get off the stage for Phil Mickelson on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach on Sunday the way every other golfer on tour would have done for another player who is clearly going to win a tournament? Forget me, every single player on tour noticed that one.

--What does it say about the NCAA that it allowed Jeff Hathaway to remain as chairman of the basketball committee even after he ‘resigned,’ as athletic director at Connecticut. I like Jeff personally, I’ve known him since he was one of Lefty Driesell’s managers 30 years ago, but he was in charge of a program that was allowed to play in last year’s NCAA Tournament while on probation and, as of right now, is not eligible for next year’s NCAA Tournament because of glaring academic deficiencies. The Big East created some bogus ‘consulting,’ job for Hathaway this year so he’d still be eligible to be on the committee and retain the chairmanship. If Hathaway had gone off the committee and his spot had been taken by a new Big East rep, the new person would not have been chairman. So, even though there are no politics on the committee—we know this because this is what we are told, right?—The Big East made sure it would not lose it’s chairmanship. Beyond that, after Gene Smith was allowed to remain as chairman last year even while his house at Ohio State was burning to the ground (see Tressel, Jim) it is remarkable that the NCAA would allow Hathaway to retain his chairmanship given Connecticut’s recent track record.

Then again, it isn’t remarkable. It’s the NCAA.

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game 

Catching up with Washington Post articles: Maryland's Honor Violation; Navy Steps in the Wrong Direction

Tweet

Here are two of my latest from The Washington Post --------

When the Maryland basketball team won the national championship in 2002, Gary Williams received hundreds, if not thousands, of letters congratulating him on taking the Terrapins to a place few dreamed they could ever go.

Williams read almost all the letters. Some meant more than others, coming from old friends and coaching colleagues. One stood out. It came from a former Maryland coach.

“Congratulations,” it read in part. “You have now made Maryland the UCLA of the East.”
The note came from Lefty Driesell.

It was Driesell who made the term “UCLA of the East” famous when he came to Maryland in 1969 and boldly predicted he would build a program somehow comparable to college basketball’s most incomparable program.

Driesell came up 10 national championships short of John Wooden but he did put Maryland basketball on the national map, taking the Terrapins to eight NCAA tournaments in 17 seasons, twice reaching the Elite Eight. He left in 1986 in the aftermath of the Len Bias tragedy.

It was Williams, after the disastrous three-year tenure of Bob Wade, who picked up the pieces of a shattered program and made Maryland matter again. Ultimately, he did what Driesell could not do, taking Maryland to back-to-back Final Fours and the national title that brought the kind of joy to the Maryland campus that for years seemed impossible in the wake of Bias’s death.

Click here for the rest of the column: Maryland's Honor Violation

------------------------------

In November 1995, I was standing on the sidelines at Michie Stadium on a frigid afternoon watching the Army football team practice. Al Vanderbush, then Army’s athletic director, was watching with me. In the midst of small talk about plans for Thanksgiving, Vanderbush suddenly said, “Mind if I ask your opinion on something?”

Flattered, I said, sure.

“What would you think about us joining Conference USA?” Vanderbush said.

My answer was instinctive rather than thought-out: “You’re kidding, right?”

Sadly, Vanderbush wasn’t kidding, nor was anyone else at West Point. They thought that being part of Conference USA’s TV package would give them more exposure and more revenue and being part of a league would help in recruiting.

Put simply, the end result was a disaster, culminating in an 0-13 season in 2003. To be fair, Todd Berry, who was hired in 2000 to replace Bob Sutton as coach, and Rick Greenspan, the athletic director who hired him, had as much to do with that record as playing in Conference USA did. But the decision to join C-USA in 1998 led to Sutton’s firing and a fall from football grace so precipitous that, all these years later, Army is still recovering.

Click here for the rest of the column: Navy Steps in the Wrong Direction

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game 

ND sits on the Big East television committee; Swofford pillaging; Why Serena’s fine was so low; PGA Tour playoffs and much more

Tweet

I suppose I could write today about the latest maneuverings among the money-grubbing college presidents but, to be honest, I find it hard to care that much. Any notion that tradition or rivalries or geography or doing what’s right has flown so far out the window it isn’t even worth railing about it.

All I know is this: If you put the BCS presidents in a room and someone threw a dollar on the floor it would look like the last scene of “Invictus,” with all of them diving on the floor to try to scoop up the bill. I do have one question though for those who run The Big East: What in the world was the president of Notre Dame doing on your television committee? That’s like giving President Obama final say on who his opponent is next November.

“So, Mr. President, who’s it going to be—Mitt Romney?”

“Don’t think so. Think I’d prefer Rick Perry or, wait, even better Sarah Palin with Glenn Rice as her running mate.”

(Calm down my right wing friends it’s just a joke).

This is the same sort of thing. “So, Father Jenkins, while you sit back there with your $10 million per year NBC contract that you share not a dollar of with us, what do you think we should do with this latest offer from ESPN?”

“Turn it down fellas. You can get more later.”

Unless, of course, your league gets raided by John Swofford, who in his biography lists, “pillaging the Big East,” as one of his favorite pastimes.

Oh, one other thing on my friend Father Jenkins: If you hear him say that Notre Dame might end up in the ACC rather than The Big Ten because the ACC’s ‘academic profile,’ fits Notre Dame better, here’s the English translation of that statement: “We’d rather play Duke, Wake Forest and Virginia a whole lot of the time instead of Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State and Wisconsin.” (Yes Irish fans I know they already play Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue).

Anyway, I really and truly don’t care about all the maneuverings. These are bad people doing bad things. Life is too short to pay them much attention. Call me when the 16-team conferences are in place and someone is ready to announce a football playoff. Until then, hey, hockey season starts in less than two weeks.

On the subject of bad people, let’s turn for a moment to the good folks at the U.S. Tennis Association. You might remember that a number of people were stunned when they only fined Serena Williams $2,000 for her outburst directed at the chair umpire during the U.S. Open final a couple weeks ago. How, many of us wondered, could they let her get off so easy for yammering on and on and, (among other things) accusing the chair of being, “the one who screwed me over two years ago,” when (A) NO ONE screwed her over two years ago and (B) it was a different woman.

Turns out there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. You see, if Serena had been fined $10,000 (or more, the max fine would have been $20,000 which is way too low) it would have been considered a “major offense.” Under the terms of the probation she was still on because of her profanity/threat-filled outburst in the 2009 semifinals, if she had committed a “major offense,” she could have been suspended for next year’s Open by The Grand Slam Committee.

Apparently Bill Babcock, The Grand Slam Committee’s administrator was ready to suspend Williams after looking at—and listening to—the tape. When the USTA realized that it could lose Williams for next year’s Open it made certain to keep the fine well below the “major offense,” level. Obviously, losing Williams would have hurt corporate sales and, perhaps most important, wouldn’t have made the all-important TV partners happy either. So, as usual when a name tennis player is involved, Serena skated.

That will certainly deter her from similar behavior in the future won’t it?

One other note on the geniuses who run the sport: Once upon a time Davis Cup was one of the great events in ANY sport. As tennis has lost luster, so has Davis Cup, to the point where I have suggested it be conducted over two years—meaning top players only have to potentially commit twice a year as opposed to four times a year—to make it special again.

Naturally, that suggestion has been ignored. And so, in order to squeeze it into the schedule, The Davis Cup semifinals were held the week after the U.S. Open. Are you kidding? Novak Djokovic finished off two grueling weeks of best-of-five tennis on Monday, thanks in large part to the USTA’s ludicrous scheduling, and then had to show up to be ready to play in Argentina three days later. What a shock that he couldn’t finish either of his singles matches.

Of course the tennis people will tell you all is well with their sport, which is why nothing ever gets fixed. When three of the top players in the world felt they were put at risk being asked to play on slippery, wet courts, the USTA’s reaction was, basically, ‘get over it fellas.’ Would they consider modifying their schedule so as not to stretch the first round over three days and then ask the players to play semifinals and finals on back-to-back days? (that’s with NO bad weather). Nope. CBS likes it the way it is and CBS pays the freight. Shut up and play.

Question for golf fans: Are any of you into The Tour Championship? I just can’t get excited about it and it isn’t because of the tour’s constant overhyping of the so-called playoffs. It isn’t because Tiger Woods isn’t there either because, as most people know, I enjoy watching and writing about and talking about other players. I do wish Rory McIlroy was there because he’s so much fun to watch play and to talk to when he’s finished playing. But it isn’t that either. I just feel as if nothing is really at stake except money. Player-of-the-year? Yeah, I suppose. If Keegan Bradley wins he deserves the award. If he doesn’t it should be him or McIlroy but I promise you there will be people campaigning for Luke Donald if he wins or Webb Simpson if he wins.

They’ve had wonderful years but my rule of thumb is simple: You can’t be player-of-the-year unless you win at least one major. Jim Furyk won it on The PGA Tour last year in large part because Graeme McDowell wasn’t eligible. McDowell was CLEARLY the worldwide player-of-the-year. If I’d been voting last year, with all due respect to Furyk who I’ve always like a lot, I would have voted for Phil Mickelson because his performance at The Masters was far more significant than Furyk’s three victories in non-majors.

But hey, that’s just me.

Oh wait, there’s a news flash coming in here: The AFC West is joining the ACC. Perfect: more mediocre football teams. Just what the ACC needs.

Washington Post column: Saturday was an eventful day for the ACC, on and off the field

Tweet

The following is the latest column for The Washington Post ----

The clouds and misty rain that shrouded Kenan Stadium for most of Saturday afternoon were an apt metaphor for the ever-changing world of college athletics. Less than 24 hours after Big East founder Dave Gavitt had died, the ACC was preparing to gleefully announce a raid that could signal the death knell for the league Gavitt created.

While word was quickly spreading Saturday that Syracuse and Pittsburgh were on the way, four current ACC teams were hosting the kind of games the conference presumed it would regularly be part of when it added Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College seven years ago.

The results of those games — a split for the ACC, with wins for Miami and Clemson and letdowns for Maryland and Florida State — served as reminder: All these football-motivated moves don’t do nearly as much to help the ACC as they do to hurt the Big East.

Florida State’s loss to top-ranked Oklahoma likely means, once again, no ACC school will seriously contend for the mythical national title. More likely, the ACC champion will play a three-loss Big East champion in a bowl no one really wants to watch.

Adding Pitt and Syracuse doesn’t really change the league’s football profile at all. They are no different and certainly no better than Florida State, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Maryland et al: teams that will win a lot of little ones but not very many big ones.

Click here for the rest of the column: Saturday was an eventful day for the ACC

If you are sick of anti-BCS or ESPN opinions, you are hereby forewarned of today’s topics

I know I pick on ESPN a lot and I know people get sick of hearing me complain about the BCS. If you fall into either of those camps this is a warning: Don’t read any further today. Come on back another day when I’m not quite so cranky.

I turned on the BCS poll show—or whatever ESPN calls it—Sunday night for only one reason: I was scheduled to call TCU Coach Gary Patterson to talk to him for my Washington Post column as soon as he finished talking to ESPN after the first poll was breathlessly released. So, I had to watch to know when Patterson was finished since ESPN is never on time.

The first thing I heard Rece Davis say was, “welcome to the most exciting regular season in sports.”

Oh please. Look, Davis seems like a perfectly pleasant guy and he’s fine at what he does. In fact, anyone who can sit next to Lou Holtz all fall and not completely lose his mind must be reasonably intelligent. (on Thursday Holtz declared West Virginia, ‘a great team,’ at halftime of the Mountaineers game against his son’s South Florida team. WVU was up 17-3 at that point only because USF’s quarterback made a boneheaded throw in the last minute of the half. Next thing you know Holtz will be campaigning for Notre Dame to play in a BCS game because it beat Pittsburgh).

So Davis begins the show by pimping for college football’s regular season which, last I looked, is the only one where OPINIONS not RESULTS decide the outcome. While I’m on that topic I have a question for my friends at USA Today: How can you continue to participate in the coaches’ poll when they have again decided to keep their final ballots secret? If ESPN wants to be compromised that way fine, but you guys are better than that.

Okay, so we’ve established the tone of the show: The BCS is great and grand and we’re here to talk about how great and grand it is. Fine. ESPN has a lot of money invested in the thing. I remember when I was still doing Sports Reporters a few years back and the BCS was on Fox, John Saunders used to rip it almost as regularly as I did. Being honest, I don’t ever see the show these days, not because I boycott it or anything (I’m still friends with the people connected to the show itself) but because I’m almost always swimming on Sunday mornings. That said, I wonder if John has been told to muzzle his BCS comments now that ESPN owns the rights. Maybe someone can let me know the answer to that question.

Now, while we’re ‘waiting,’ for the poll—can’t ESPN ever do ANYTHING without stalling? (see, James, LeBron—is Stuart Scott STILL screeching?)—Craig James and Robert Smith weigh in, acting as if they don’t actually know what the poll is going to show.

James goes on at length about how the losses suffered by Alabama and Ohio State the last two weeks really prove how tough these ‘AQ,” (that’s Automatic Qualifier) conferences are? Really Craig? Have you watched an ACC game or a Big East game recently? Not only should The Mountain West get an automatic bid before the ACC or The Big East, so should the WAC. For that matter so should the CAA, which if you are really paying attention, is the best-balanced and most fun conference to watch in the country at any level.

Once James finished his paean to the “AQ’s,” Smith weighed in, thoughtfully, ‘wondering,’ how Nevada’s loss to Hawaii and Air Force’s loss to San Diego State (a game in which the Falcons lost their best running back and their best receiver) might affect the status of Boise State and TCU in the minds of the voters.

So, let’s be sure I have this straight: if the No. 1 team in The Big Ten or The SEC loses, it’s a sign of how strong those conferences must be. If the No. 2 team in the WAC or the No. 3 team in the Mountain West lose to opponents IN the conference it must be a sign that the No. 1 teams aren’t that good.

Huh?

In other words, if Wright State loses a game in conference play this basketball season, that should affect how people feel about Butler since they’re both in The Horizon League.

Look, I’m not trying to say the WAC or The Mountain West are as strong top-to-bottom as The SEC. They probably aren’t as strong as The Big 12 or The Pac-10 or (maybe) The Big Ten. That misses the point. Again, use The Butler analogy: Was the Horizon League as strong or as deep as the ACC last season? No. But was Butler good enough to beat anyone in the ACC—or any other conference in the country? Yes. That’s why it missed winning the national title by two inches.

Oh, there’s one other reason Butler almost won the national title: it had the chance to PLAY for the national title. TCU and Boise State may both go undefeated in the regular season—Boise for a third straight season; TCU for a second straight season. Neither team has lost to anyone except one another since 2008. And yet, you can bet that James and Smith and Davis and all the other ESPN big conference apologists will carefully explain to us why they just haven’t done enough to merit a shot at the national title.

If two “AQ,” teams finished undefeated, there’s no way either team gets a shot. Last year it was considered a given that Alabama and Texas were better unbeatens than TCU and Boise State were. Maybe. But how did Alabama do the year before in The Sugar Bowl against Utah? Are you SURE that Texas would have beaten either TCU or Boise State on a neutral site?

I’m not and you shouldn’t be either. Let them play and prove they’re better. That way we don’t have to roll our eyes when the ESPN boys shamelessly promote the big money conferences. Why do they do that?—because they are business partners with all of them. And, even if Gary Patterson at TCU and Chris Petersen at Boise State sit and roll their eyes every time they hear all the talk about resumes and strength of schedule (even though almost none of the power teams will play either school. The caveat to that is that Patterson says he can occasionally get a power team to come to Fort Worth because Texas is such a recruiting-rich state. The same can’t be said for Boise) when ESPN calls, they have to come running because they can’t turn down that kind of exposure.

The four letter boys do wield a lot of power, which is important when (I repeat myself) opinions are deciding championships instead of results.

Again, please don’t misunderstand me those of you who love The SEC or The Big 12 or fans in Oklahoma and Oregon. I’m not claiming that TCU or Boise State would beat your schools. I’m saying they deserve the chance to try.

The dominoes are falling in college sports – it's changing forever, and not for the good

And so the dominoes have started to fall—although not in the direction everyone thought.

While Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany was sitting smugly holding a full house, Pacific-10 Commissioner Larry Scott may well be holding four aces. IF Scott ends up stealing Texas for his conference then he will have out-maneuvered Delany—perhaps showing that a Harvard education is more valuable than a North Carolina education. (Just joking Tar Heel fans).

What’s far more significant here than exactly where everyone lands is this simple fact: the college landscape is in the process of changing forever and it isn’t going to change for the good. Nothing ever changes for the good when the only motivation involved is money and that is ALL this is about—nothing else.

Here’s one thing I don’t EVER want to hear again from my friend Bill Hancock; from his henchman Ari Fleischer or from any of the BCS college presidents: “The BCS must continue to exist in order to preserve the tradition of the bowls.”

That’s always been a bogus argument but now it rings even more hollow because this dismantling of the conferences—The Big 12 is on life support as we speak—is absolute proof that NO ONE in power in big-time college athletics could care less about tradition.

Tradition? It’s bad enough that Nebraska and Oklahoma don’t play every year anymore. Now they won’t even be in the same league. Texas Tech-Washington State is tradition? Nebraska-Michigan State is tradition? What if Delany, having been shunned by Notre Dame and lapped by Scott on Texas, adds Maryland and Syracuse to his wish list? Can you imagine how Maryland fans would feel about annual games against Iowa and Northwestern instead of Duke and North Carolina in basketball? The Big Ten may be overrated in football but Maryland and Syracuse would be buried in that league as opposed to the even more overrated ACC and the rarely rated Big East. Of course Maryland and Penn State have tradition in football (Penn State traditionally hammering Maryland) but how about a Maryland-Penn State basketball rivalry? Can’t wait for that one.

There are a lot more issues involved here than the breaking up of football and basketball rivalries—although that matters a good deal. Football teams travel to games by charter and, most of the time, so do big-time basketball teams. That’s not true of soccer teams or wrestling teams or field hockey teams or volleyball teams. The Oklahoma State non-revenue teams are going to love those trips to Pullman, Seattle, Eugene and Corvallis. The same—obviously goes for Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech and Texas A+M. And in reverse for the Pac-10 teams. Eugene to Stillwater in December—what a delight.

You think the Maryland non-revenue teams will enjoy trying to get to Iowa City in January?

Let’s be honest, none of that matters to the presidents or the commissioners who are putting these deals together. This is all about chasing money and trying to jump on board before the train leaves town. How do you think Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Iowa State and Missouri are feeling right now—especially Missouri which thought it was going to get a Big Ten invite only to be left standing in the rain without an umbrella. The only thing missing was a crumpled note saying, “My darling I can never see you again,” from Ilsa Lund/Delany.

Beyond that, how do you think Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe is feeling these days? Beebe took over the league from Kevin Weiberg in September of 2007. Soon thereafter Delany convinced him that an ACC-SEC proposal to change the BCS to a ‘plus-one,’ format—which in affect would have created a four-team playoff en route probably to an eight-team playoff—was a bad idea. If you believe Dan Wetzel, the outstanding Yahoo!.com columnist who knows more about BCS finances than anyone (he’s done a book on the subject) that decision may have been the Big 12’s death knell. If Beebe hadn’t trusted Delany—and since he knows him and succeeded him as commissioner of The Ohio Valley Conference in 1989 there’s no excuse for that—then The Big 12 would probably be so flush right now that schools wouldn’t be looking to jump ship. It might even be better off financially (according to Wetzel) right now than The Big 10. Which might explain why Delany told Beebe it was a bad idea.

But the league’s real demise—ironically—may have come in February when Scott convinced Weiberg to move west and become his No. 2 man. Weiberg was commissioner of The Big 12 for five years, so he knows all the players in that conference. He was also Delany’s deputy at The Big 10 for nine years which means he (A) knows the league (B) knows how to set up a TV network since he was involved in the start-up of The Big Ten network and (C—perhaps most important) he knows Delany’s psyche and knows when Delany says, “I’m going to make a left-turn,” you better watch out on the right.

It is probably not coincidence that soon after Weiberg’s arrival, Scott, who has spent his entire professional life in tennis, has proven to be the wild card in this scenario, swooping in to stand on the verge of creating the first super-conference—one that will include Texas if things go Scott’s way on Tuesday when the school’s board of regents meets. If Texas goes, the other invited Big Twelve schools (Colorado has already jumped) will follow (although Texas A+M seems to change by the moment). End of Big-12; start your engines on The Pac-16 (or whatever it is called) being the most important—and perhaps most lucrative—conference in college athletics.

To keep up, The Big Ten, the SEC and the ACC will almost certainly have to go the 16-school route. That will probably mean The Big Ten going after Syracuse, Maryland, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Rutgers—Notre Dame (again) and God knows who else to try to get to 16. The SEC will likely try to recruit Florida State, Miami, Clemson and either Georgia Tech or Virginia Tech from the ACC. The ACC would be left to plunder The Big East yet again going after Big East schools left out by The Big Ten including perhaps Connecticut and Cincinnati. Big East football would go away.

Of course there are about a million things that can happen in the next few months. What we know for certain though is that they WILL be happening. This is no longer speculation. Where everyone will land isn’t certain although it is becoming clearer by the day. Once the musical chairs have all been grabbed and some schools are left standing, college athletics will undergo another sea change.

Whether the super conferences will bring us any closer to a true football playoff is hard to say. About the only thing the BCS Presidents may like more than money is power and control. IF they can find a way to hold a playoff just among themselves—in other words leave out schools like Boise State, Utah, Hawaii and any other upstarts that might pop up—they might very well do it.

They might even forget about the great tradition of the bowls. In the end, there’s only one tradition any of these guys care about—the time-honored tradition of the rich getting richer. It has never been more in play in the cesspool that is big-time college athletics than it is right now.



-------

John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:



------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases

The Golf Channel will be airing a documentary based on the book "Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story," with the premiere showing Monday, June 14 at 9 p.m. ET.

Let’s hope the rest of the weekend goes like yesterday; I didn’t listen when told about the Huskies

So, anyone out there who wants to change the NCAA Tournament after what we saw yesterday, raise your hand.

Are you kidding me? It took about five minutes to understand that this was going to be one of those days—and we can only hope one of those weekends—where if you turned your head for more than a minute you were likely to miss something spectacular.

The loudest noise I heard in the bowels of Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville was at the moment when Florida and BYU were in their first overtime and CBS switched over to the final seconds of regulation in the Villanova-Robert Morris game. A cheer went up because there were still three minutes left in the Florida-BYU overtime and everyone wanted to see what would happen in Villanova-Robert Morris.

But at the instant Scottie Reynolds appeared on the screen with the basketball, he was gone. Someone at CBS had remembered that in Florida you can’t switch away from a game involving Florida. Poof! Reynolds disappeared as screaming broke out around the TV sets where almost everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch.

Reynolds didn’t score but Villanova won in overtime, one of the few high-seeds that got into trouble and survived yesterday. Already, Old Dominion had taken down Notre Dame and as we all know the single-digit carnage continued late into the night. Even my Lehigh Mountain Hawks, the No. 63 seed in the tournament, hung with the No. 1 seed Kansas for a long time

Of course the most stunning upset of the day was Ohio taking down Georgetown and making it look relatively easy. I’m sure my three or four Georgetown ‘fans,’ (the ones who keep hacking into my Wikipedia, proving their computer skills are equal to my 12-year-old daughter) will somehow see this as a diss, but the fact is there were few teams in the country more wildly inconsistent this season than the Hoyas.

At their best, they could beat anybody. At their worst they could, well, lose to a team that went into its CONFERENCE tournament as a No. 9 seed. If this is it for Greg Monroe as a college player you would have to label his career a disappointment. Although he was brilliant at times, showing the kind of all-round court skills that will likely make him a top five draft pick, Georgetown didn’t win a single postseason game the last two years. A clearly splintered Georgetown team fell apart last year and lost in the first round of the NIT to Baylor. This Georgetown team seemed to right itself with a rout of Cincinnati and three wins in The Big East tournament only to lose to Ohio.

IF Monroe were to return next year, the Hoyas could be a preseason top five team. If not, they’re probably more middle-of-the-pack Big East.

Which, based on yesterday, isn’t as impressive as it appeared to be. Pull up a chair Pac-10 fans, this is the part you’ve been waiting for.

Mea-culpa.

Washington beat Marquette yesterday and, if you throw in Georgetown and Notre Dame losing and Villanova squeaking by a No. 15 seed—we DID get to see most of the overtime down here—it was a bad day for The Big East.

And, apparently a bad day for me too. Yup, I said there was no way Washington would beat Marquette and I ripped The Pac-10. Needless to say the Pac-10/Washington fans are out looking for me today. As they should be. Heck, even Kevin O’Neill—or at least someone claiming to be Kevin—posted that his USC Trojans would whip Cincinnati and that Syracuse would finish third in the Pac-10. One guy went even further: He said Rick Reilly picking the Huskies is proof that he’s better than me.

OUCH!

Now, if California beats Louisville tonight I will go back to the committee tomorrow and use every bit of influence I have to get the Pac-10 two more bids retroactively. (I watched Louisville practice yesterday. I know they’ve been up-and-down all year but this is a group that beat Syracuse twice this season. I think they’re a dangerous dark horse in the south bracket).

Seriously, I was warned by my friend Mike Gastineau in Seattle who sees Washington a lot more than I do, that the Huskies were a hot club. I didn’t pay attention and I got burned. Just remember one thing: this is EXACTLY why I don’t do brackets!

The real bottom line is that yesterday was just a wonderful day of basketball. Five double-digit seeds won and several others came extremely close. Montana scared the heck out of New Mexico; St. Mary’s took down Richmond; Wake Forest beat Texas in overtime in the game someone had to win. It was good stuff—even with the endless commercials and the halftimes that lasted longer than many marriages.

The guy I felt worst for if truth be told was Mike Brey. He did a terrific job of completely remaking his team’s playing style a month ago to adjust to the absence of Luke Harangody. That change produced a six game winning steak that jumped the Irish from outside the bubble to a No. 6 seed. They got a tough draw in Old Dominion, which came out of a league that didn’t have its best year but still had a half-dozen solid teams. Now, people will no doubt focus on the last loss (as often happens) rather than the great run the Irish made prior to the last loss.

Finally, even though I know this will probably fall on deaf ears, can someone with more influence than me—that would be almost anybody—please SCREAM at the basketball committee and the suits in Indianapolis to NOT CHANGE this tournament. The Super Bowl is the most popular sports event we have but there is nothing—NOTHING—more fun than this tournament. I’ve often said through the years that the NCAA Tournament is so good that even the NCAA can’t screw it up.

Except that they can. And probably will. So enjoy today and the weekend because it may never be like this again.

Day two from the ACC Tournament, watching results roll in

AT THE ACC TOURNAMENT DAY TWO—I really didn’t expect much from the basketball here in Greensboro yesterday and I pretty much got what I expected.

None of the four games is going to be sent to the Hall of Fame anytime soon although the winners certainly breathed a sigh of relief. For Virginia, getting a win—any win—was a big deal. The same was true of Miami, although the story of that game was Wake Forest absolutely failing to show up. Georgia Tech-North Carolina was like sitting in a dentist’s chair for two hours since neither team had a point guard who could get his team into an offense. And Clemson-North Carolina State was a typical 9:30 (or in this case 9:45) game in this tournament. Both teams looked tired from the start and the building was more than half empty by halftime. Given that the score was 25-21 you couldn’t really blame people for leaving.

What was most interesting about yesterday—as it is often is—was watching other tournament results come in from around the country. Three of the four Big East double-bye teams lost and the only one that did win, West Virginia, needed an off-balance three at the buzzer to beat Cincinnati. In truth though, none of those upsets really meant anything: Syracuse will still be a No. 1 seed even though it lost to Georgetown. Villanova might drop to a No. 3 because it finished poorly and Pittsburgh might drop one line on the seeding chart. The three winners—Georgetown, Marquette and Notre Dame—were all in the tournament already so their victories simply give them the chance to improve their seeding.

The games that mattered were those involving teams trying to play their way into Sunday’s bracket. Everyone had decided that Washington-Arizona State in the Pac-10 Tournament was going to be an elimination game: winner goes, loser heads for the NIT. Except that Arizona State never made it past Stanford last night and they are OUT. I know they are OUT because I heard Joe Lunardi say it after the game.

I happen to like Joe Lunardi, I’ve known him for a long time. And I give him credit—sort of like Mel Kiper—for making money by doing something my friend Bill Brill has done for about 40 years, usually aided by about four or five beers and little else.

In fact, another of my long time friends, Keith Drum—who once was sports editor of The Durham Herald-Sun but now scouts for the Sacramento Kings—has an idea for the expanded tournament.

“Since ESPN is going to offer the NCAA billions for the tournament rights, they should throw in an extra billion and say, ‘in return for this last billion, we want you to do away with the basketball committee and just put Joe Lunardi in charge,’” Drummer said to me yesterday when we were joking about the minute-to-minute, ‘who’s in and who’s out,’ list.

“Lunardi can start doing hourly updates on January 1. The NCAA will save lots of money not having to fly the committee around and put them up in expensive hotels and it will be good for the teams too: When Joe says a game is a MUST win for them, they’ll KNOW it’s a must win, no ifs ands or buts.”

Personally I think it’s a great idea. Joe can be totally honest about his picks. “I left Villanova out because I work at St. Joseph’s and even if they’re 24-6, the heck with them. They can play in the CBI.”

Jay Wright’s a good guy. He’ll get over it.

Right now the big issue for Joe—and for the overpaid and overpampered selection committee—is how to find 34 teams worthy of an at-large bid. Seriously, there aren’t 34 teams out there, which makes the notion of trying to dig up 65 teams next year even more ridiculous.

Here’s some of the math we did yesterday: The Big East is getting seven at-large bids. (Remember with each of these conferences you add one to get their total because of the automatic bid: Big East gets eight total, seven at-large). The two teams that had a chance to play their way in—Seton Hall and South Florida—bombed out. They’re gone. The ACC is going to get six—yes, Georgia Tech gets in even if it loses to Maryland because there just aren’t any alternatives out there. The Big Ten gets four—again, Illinois may not be worthy but it doesn’t matter. They’re going to get in. The Big 12, which may be the most underrated league in the country, also gets six—even though it feels as if Texas hasn’t beaten anyone since New Year’s. The SEC is going to get three—Florida probably clinched its spot Thursday—and the Pac-10 will get one unless Stanford or UCLA wins the tournament in which case it will get two.

So, the big six conferences have locked down 27 spots—fewer than usual. Obviously there are teams from those leagues that could play their way in over the weekend. But for now let’s stick with 27.

The Atlantic-10 will get at least two at-larges and The Mountain West will also get at least two. The WCC will get one—Gonzaga. Conference USA might get one but having UAB and Memphis lose last night didn’t help. Add all that up and you have 33 teams (at most) with teams like Wichita State, William & Mary and either San Diego State or UNLV hoping for a miracle. The better the favorites do the next few days, the better the chances that one of those teams might sneak in.

That said, none of those schools or the other bubble teams trying to play their way in right now—teams like Minnesota or Tulsa or Mississippi—will have much to complain about if they don’t get in.

Of course if this was a 96-team field all those teams would be in easily and we’d be wondering if Miami’s win over Wake Forest vaulted it over North Carolina for one of the final spots. That’s certainly something to look forward to, isn’t it?

One last note for today: As I watched the Clemson-NC State game with almost no one in the arena, I thought of something Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey said earlier this week. I asked him to compare The ACC Tournament (in which he coached eight times as a Duke assistant) and The Big East Tournament.

Here’s what he said: “At the ACC Tournament you see all the fans from the schools sitting together, wearing their team colors, for the most part very polite, rarely raucous. There are always a lot of ladies in the crowd.

“At The Big East Tournament it’s guy’s night out. People sit with their buddies, regardless of school, they have a few beers and they get into it as the night goes on.

“A few years ago Anthony Solomon, one of my assistants, had his family there. We were playing the late game against U-Conn. His kids were little, maybe six and four. Late in the game we made a big run to get back into the game. There were a couple of guys in U-Conn shirts sitting in front of the Solomon’s. One of them turned around, pointed at the kids and said, “You know don’t you that there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”

On that note, it’s time to go watch some more basketball.

Side Stories of September Baseball; Quick Re-Analysis of Big East

September baseball has always fascinated me. I'm not talking about the pennant races, which everyone takes an interest in, but the side stories--which team has a September call-up who may play a critical role next year; which managers or general managers may be in trouble; what teams that aren't in contention have--nonetheless--made real progress. There's more time than usual to pay attention to those stories this year since the pennant races--wild cards aside--are all but over even with almost four weeks left to play.

On Monday, as I noted here yesterday, the Pittsburgh Pirates clinched a record-breaking 17th straight losing season. Last night, in Boston, the Baltimore Orioles, another once proud franchise, clinched a 12th straight losing season. The Kansas City Royals continue to be awful year in and year out which makes Zack Greinke's performance all the more remarkable. If Greinke was with any kind of decent team he would either have 20 wins by now or be closing in on 20 wins. Except for one brief stretch in the summer, he has been brilliant almost every time out. He's 13-8 with a 2.22 ERA which means if he was pitching in The National League his ERA might very well be under two runs a game. It will be interesting to see if Greinke (who is only 25) wins The Cy Young Award with 15 or 16 wins or if Mariano Rivera, who has also been amazing all year, wins it. Anyone else winning it would be a crime.

There's more: the complete demise of the Mets. Yes, injuries have played a huge role, but it isn't that simple. Omar Minaya has made one mistake after another and it’s pretty clear the players don't have a lot of respect for Jerry Manuel. Often they don't play hard and more often they just play dumb. A couple of Saturdays ago a potential big inning was broken up in Chicago when Fernando Tatis tried to score from third--after initially stopping--when a ball thrown from the outfield rolled loose for a moment. He was out by 10 feet with NO ONE out. Tim McCarver, doing the game on Fox, made the point that a play like that has nothing to do with injuries. Plays like that happen to the Mets all the time.

The Cardinals are having a superb season; the Cubs have collapsed meaning their fans don't have to watch them collapse in October this year; the Phillies have lots of power but pitching that looks too shaky (especially Brad Lidge) to win it all again and Ozzie Guillen says the White Sox' mediocrity is his fault. The Rays made a run but have dropped back and the Rangers have been a pleasant surprise. The Orioles and Nationals are both building future hopes around young pitching although the Orioles kids look a lot more solid than the Nationals kids right now although Stephen Strasburg's arrival could change that equation.

And then there are the Yankees. Since the All-Star break they have been virtually unbeatable. Night after night they find a different way to win. A.J. Burnett went more than a month without a win and it didn't matter. C.C. Sabbathia has earned his millions the last couple of months and Andy Pettite has looked more like 27 than 37. Rivera is simply the eighth wonder of the world and both Derek Jeter and Mark Texeira have had MVP-like seasons.

Even so, none of it is going to matter if they don't win--and I don't mean the division series--in October. They haven't won a World Series since 2000 or a pennant since 2003. In fact, they haven't won a postseason SERIES since the Collapse of '04. To say that memories of that disaster linger in New York is like saying The French remember Waterloo. Jeter is going to pass Lou Gehrig on the career hits list very shortly--isn't it amazing the Yankees have NEVER had a guy with 3,000 hits?--and Alex Rodriguez has managed to stay out of headlines since his spring outings as a steroids user. The new Yankee Stadium has been full most of the summer after being half empty for much of the spring.

All good. But if the Red Sox show up for the ALCS, there are going to be some seriously frayed nerves in New York. The irony in this is inescapable. For years, all Red Sox fans cringed every time a team with "NY," on the uniform showed up. The Red Sox were the coyote and the Yankees were the roadrunner. Sooner or later the anvil came down on the Red Sox head. That all changed during those four remarkable evenings in '04 and now the anvil is on the other head. Oh sure, the Yankees won the division in '05 and '06--the Red Sox not making the playoffs--but the Red Sox added a second World Series title in '07 and almost won another pennant last year. In postseason series the last five seasons the Yankees are 1-4, the Red Sox are 7-2.

Ouch.

As someone who grew up a Mets fan I am supposed to hate the Yankees. I don't. A lot of people criticize them for spending so much money but the owners I think are really evil are the ones who spend NO money and leave their fans to live through one losing season after another. The Yankees--love them or hate them---are good for baseball. They sell out ballparks and drive TV ratings up. Yes, I get tired of all the Yankees-Red Sox hype (thank you once again four letter network for leading that charge) and SOMEONE ought to make John Sterling cool it with the corny home run calls, especially the "A-bomb from A-Rod." A-bombs are not a topic that should be brought up as part of sports. Too many people died because of them.

But you can't NOT respect Jeter, Rivera and Jorge Posada or the demeanor in that clubhouse most of the time. I hate the way Joe Torre was treated but he brought class and dignity to the team for 12 years. Torre gets it like few people get it in sports. A couple of years ago I was interviewing him during spring training while researching, "Living on the Black." My cell phone began ringing. I started to turn it off, then saw it was my son, who I had been trying to reach. "Joe, can you give me one second," I said. "It's my son and I need to talk to him."

Torre just smiled. "I know how that feels," he said. "I've done this long enough that I can pick up in mid-anecdote." Which is exactly what he did.

I may not like the Yankees but I respect them. I wish there was a salary cap in baseball--and a salary floor--so the Yankees couldn't spend more than $125 million on payroll and the Rays and Pirates had to spend at least $75 million. THAT'S the problem, not the Yankees.

Having said all of that, even being as sick and tired as I sometimes get of Yankees-Red Sox, I'd love to see them play in October if only to see all my friends who are Yankees fans walking around looking a little green while the series is going on. Because believe me, if they somehow get up 3-0, they won't feel comfortable.


*** ***

A number of people wrote in responding to my Washington Post column on the wonders of ACC football Monday, commenting that it was unfair of me to lump The Big East with the ACC. Upon further review, they're right. I think The Big East was down last year and isn't that good this year, but its record the last several years is far better than the ACC's--especially in BCS bowls, most notably the West Virginia win over Georgia and Louisville's victory in The Fiesta Bowl. So, I stand corrected--the ACC stands alone when it comes to true mediocrity in the BCS conferences no matter how entertaining the Miami-Florida State game was on Monday night.