NCAA To Bust Their Brackets?

       I have recently heard on a local sports talk radio show (XL 950- The Fan) that the NCAA committee has all but officially announced that the NCAA college basketball tournament will be adding 31 more teams to their tournament brackets in the near future. This will bring the total invitations to 96 teams. There are only just over 330 teams in division I college basketball. I’m not exactly for sure how they are going to split the brackets up at this point, but I do think that this is an interesting idea on many levels.

       First of all, let me start off by stating that I like this idea. However, there are plenty of arguments against the idea and they are all very valid. The number one things that comes to mind is “Why fix what isn’t broken?” I get this and in most cases I do agree with this concept, but in this case I tend to think that the NCAA is trying to take what is already very good and are going to make it perfect….. for now. Another great point might be “We want to add more teams to the college basketball tournament, yet we can’t even get a college football tournament at all.” My response to this is that we shouldn’t have to hold off our ability to make college basketball better just because college football doesn’t have a fair way to decide their champion. I kind of look at it like this…. Just because I have one neighbor (college football) that is screwed up, doesn’t mean that all of my other neighbors (all other NCAA college sports leagues) should also suffer a disability to help even our lives out. Two wrongs don’t make a left…. er right…. er, whatever. My big argument on this is the fact that college football can wait six weeks and have a bowl game, then say that it is bad for the kids to play football too deep into the semester, yet college basketball can add another round to it’s tournament and barely anyone cares. I digress, this is an argument for another blog.

       In my opinion, I look at this from the head coaches’ view. As a college basketball coach you are (in many cases) judged by the amount of NCAA tournament appearances that you make it into. Sometimes the fans will rise and say “Who cares that Roy Williams has gotten our team into the tournament and won us some championships, it’s all about what have you done for me lately! If he doesn’t make it this year, then he should be fired! Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. By making this change nearly 30% of all college basketball division I schools will make it into the tournament. Nearly 10% of the rest of them will make it into the NIT. This is going to allow 128 of the 330 plus head coaches to add a tournament appearance to their resume’s every year. In a world where we are too quick to pull the plug on college coaches (cough, cough… Notre Dame Charlie Weis and Tyrone Willingham) it is nice to make it as easy on them as possible. No coach can do things to change a sports program around in a legal manner is less than 4 years. It just can’t happen. I think that adding the depth in the brackets can help by some coaches a little extra time and you might be able to see some of the smaller programs blossom a little easier since they might be able to have some more stability at the coaches position.

-Justin L. Stephens

Tiger Is Human After All!!!

       Well, Tiger is barely human. Human enough to lose once in a while. The men’s PGA U.S. Open was held at the historic Bethpage golf course on Long Island in New York this past weekend. It took some unbelievably tough weather conditions, a few guys to have some amazing rounds of golf, and Tiger to have a horrible opening round (where he shot a 74) for the first time U.S. Open winner Lucas Glover to pull it off and tame the Tiger.  In fact, Tiger Woods ended the tournament in a tie for 6th place, with Phil Mickelson, David Duval, Ricky Barnes, and Ross Fisher all finishing ahead of him.

       The tournament wasn’t all bad for Tiger though. He was still the only golfer to shoot in the 60′s at least 3 out of the 4 rounds, he finished with a 69 in the final round which was better than any of the 5 players ahead of him on the leader board had posted, and he walks away with $233,350 for his trouble. Chump change to him, but still a decent weekend in all. More importantly, with every passing tournament he is showing more and more that his knee surgery is not in any way bothering him and that he is back and a force to be reckoned with.

       What is my opinion? I am happy for Lucas Glover, but much like Rocco Mediate from last year, Lucas better enjoy this party now. Every major golf tournament there is a new face and a new name that pops up and has a great tournament, finishing somewhere in the top 3-5 spots. However, it take the great ones to consistently be among the top in an individual sport such as golf, like Mickelson, or even Duval, Sergio Garcia, or Vijay Singh. However, if these names are names of great and somewhat consistent golfers, then Tiger is simply in a league of his own. Sorry Glover, but just ask Mediate how good his second place playoff finish feels now after he finished 47th at Bethpage this weekend and had next to no headlines.

Justin Stephens

Sammy “Steroid” Sosa

       So the steroid bug has bitten again! In the most recent reports, Sammy Sosa has reportedly joined Alex Rodriguez as one of the 103 names that had tested positive for a foreign substance in a 2003 drug testing. The test were supposed to remain confidential under the agreement with the players union and the names of the positive donors were not supposed to be released. Yet somehow (only days after Sosa stated to the press that he deserves to be in the MLB Hall of Fame) Sosa’s name has been released.

       Some people are speculating that this might be exactly what it is going to take to keep Sosa out of the Hall of Fame. I am even beginning to wonder myself if the Fed’s are going to be able to lock him up for a little while for lying under oath about ever using illegal performance enhancing drugs (PED’s). If the Fed’s do choose to pursue any legal action, then I wonder if they can even use the evidence against him considering the fact that contractually the MLB wasn’t supposed to be able to release the information anyway. Does this fact make this evidence null and void?

       We now have a longer and ever growing list of PED users in the MLB. The question is, how do we rank these players now in comparison to the players of yester-year? It is typically very difficult enough to compare players of other generations to one another as it is since the players were never able to showcase their talents against one another. If you throw in the fact that one generation now has a huge advantage over the others that was unheard of before and that makes it even more difficult to compare stats.

       What is my opinion? My opinion is that any player that has definitely been proven to have taken any PED’s over the course of their career should be banned from any opportunity to make the Hall of Fame. Baseball is a sport of traditions and statistics and this new generation of users and abusers have ruined the sanctity of the sport.

Justin Stephens