February 3, 2010
March Madness Getting Madder?
The sports radio folks seem to have gotten the vapors over the idea that March Madness might expand to 96 teams. The NCAA sees dollar signs hanging all over that idea so they are prone to make it happen. However, someone might tell them that this means more gambling opportunities on college sports and that might just spook them. I am on record saying that if the tournament goes to 96 teams, they should seed the top 32 and play the bottom 64 teams against on another. The winners of those 32 games go on in the NCAA tournament and the losers would make up the field for whatever they want to call the NIT under those circumstances. Perhaps the National Second Chance Tournament?
On balance, I do not like the idea of an expansion to 96 teams for one very simple reason. Every March right after “Selection Sunday” we have a 24-hour period where people scream and yell about which teams “got jobbed” by “The Committee” and should be in the tournament. However, that spasm of righteous indignation never - - as in not ever - - includes 32 teams that “got jobbed”. Usually, most of the agita centers on two to four teams. Getting another 32 teams in the tournament means that there will room for the tenth place finisher in the ACC or the Big East and the fourth or fifth place finisher in the Missouri Valley Conference. Pardon me if I do not fall all over myself in rapture over that prospect…
Here is an expansion I have proposed before that would work:
Expand the field to 68 teams. Have “play-in games” in all four brackets and not just one bracket.
Play two of the “play-ins” in Dayton as a double header.
Play the other two “play ins” as a double header at the Palestra in Philadelphia where the first game in NCAA tournament history happened.
If the NCAA did that, they would accommodate most of the teams that people might think “got jobbed” on Selection Sunday without putting some teams in the field who have lost 14 or 15 games already.
Another story that has drawn an awful lot of attention is the “Rex Ryan flipping the bird at Dolphins’ fans” saga. Yes, it was a low class act; no, the NYC tabs should not have printed the picture of it on their back page; yes, he should have been fined because the league has a precedent of fining players (Michael Vick) and owners (Bud Adams) who have done the same thing. [To be accurate, Adams did a double-barreled salute when he got his fine.] Nevertheless, in terms of assaults on the stability of Western Civilization, can we take a collective deep breath and say that Rex Ryan did not put the world in danger of another 1000 years of “Dark Ages”.
Rex Ryan is bombastic and he is a boor and he is a braggart and he acts very much like a bully. So what? He is a football coach not a statesman or the leader of a religious group. In the grand scheme of things, he does not mean enough to the culture of the US to worry about. So, let him pay his fine. Next time he does something this “outrageous” they will fine him even more. Wake me when that happens…
By the way, I do not think anyone should suggest that Rex Ryan needs to eat crow for all of his predictions that the Jets were the best team in the playoffs and should be favored in all their playoff games. If he were to do that, crows might wind up on the endangered species list…
As we move closer to Super Bowl Sunday, there are a few bases that need to be touched just because they are part of the rites of the week leading to the game. Matt Youmans writes a column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on sports gambling. He interviewed Jay Kornegay who runs the sportsbook at the Las Vegas Hilton where they have more proposition wagers on the game than anywhere else. Kornegay said that they just keep putting up prop bets until they “get tired”; as of the time Youmans wrote the column, he counted 335 such wagers. In addition, Kornegay said that in all of his time involved in Super Bowl props, there has never been a time when even one prop bet failed to draw any action.
Interestingly, Kornegay said that amateur bettors tend to play “Yes” and “Over” in the prop bets. But the public may not wager much on these bets so the books have to be careful not to set lines too far in one direction because professional gamblers might seize on that opportunity to hit the books with big action on the “No” or the “Under” side of the ledger. Kornegay said that the early betting said that the book would do very well if the Colts won the game 3-0.
At the end of the column, Youmans offers this suggestion for a prop bet that is not available yet:
“Here’s an idea: Who will score more on Feb. 7? Manning (total touchdown passes) in the Super Bowl or [Tiger] Woods at the sex rehab clinic? Manning might be the underdog in that bet.”
Greg Cote had this item relative to prop bets in the Miami Herald last weekend:
“The Super Bowl-ing Saints and Colts arrive Monday — New Orleans at 11:45 a.m. in Miami and Indianapolis at 5 p.m. in Fort Lauderdale. Saints had been a 5 1/4-hour favorite, so it looks like the first Super Bowl prop bet is a push.”
Given the connection between one of the members of The Who - - the halftime act for this year’s extravaganza - - and a child porn website, I think the odds against the band doing Pants On The Ground are astronomical…
Along that line, I assume that Prince did not give them the nod to perform Purple and Gold at halftime on Sunday. For that, all of us should be eternally grateful…
Finally, here is another observation from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald regarding the depths to which the television media might go this weekend to fill airtime with NFL “stuff”:
“Rivals ESPN and NFL Network will combine to air more than 130 hours of programming this week in the buildup to the Super Bowl. ESPN has exclusive footage of Colts coach Jim Caldwell taking a nap, with expert analysis of his snoring patterns. NFL Network counters with a special in which former Saints kicker Tom Dempsey recounts his missing toes.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
