Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Annual Anti-BCS Rant

Part of my yearly sports therapy is to use my blog as an avenue to rant against the stupidity of the current BCS system. This year was a nightmare for BCS supporters. Having 5 undefeated teams makes the title game a bit of a farce. How can you have a championship where deserving teams are left out of the mix? Especially when their only sin is not being ranked high enough at the beginning of the year. Or not having a blue blood name like Texas. It puts a lie to the argument "every week is a playoff". If so, then who eliminated Cincy, TCU, and Boise State?

The answer is so obvious it is frustrating. We need a 16 team playoff. With 16 spots every conference champion can get an automatic bid meaning every team starts the year with a chance to win the title. The remaining five at large births can be determined by the current BCS system. Like the other football divisions, the higher seeded team plays at home until the championship game which is played at a neutral site. Here would be this year's pairings.

16 Troy @ 1 Alabama
9 Georgia Tech @ 8 Ohio St
13 Penn St @ 4 TCU
12 VT @ 5 Florida
15 ECU @ 2 Texas
10 Iowa @ 7 Oregon
14 C Michigan @ 3 Cincy
11 LSU @ 6 Boise St

How cool would that tournament be? But won't that take away the excitement of the regular season? No for two reasons. First winning your conference is priority number one. Conference games are huge because winning guarantees you a spot in the playoffs. Secondly, it will encourage teams to schedule better out of conference in order to prepare for conference play. There will be no drop off in excitement. Every conference game is just as important as every game today.

But we will miss the drama from last weekend where Texas, UF, and Alabama were playing for a spot in the title game. Will we? Pitt and Nebraska would have been playing for spots in the playoffs while Texas, Cincy, UF, and Alabama would be playing for seeding. The UF / Alabama game would have still been big because it guaranteed home field throughout the playoffs. Plus it matters who the first round opponent would have been. There is a big difference between playing Troy and Virginia Tech.

Besides, the amount of buzz around the sixteen team playoff would be enormous. Many times greater than the buzz around the Alabama / Texas two team playoff. But instead of letting the players decide it on the field like every other college sport, the BCS is going to spoon feed us crap so they can continue to make their money. It is a joke.

Want to know the reason Texas got the miracle second back on the clock unlike say FSU versus Miami? Because the BCS didn't want TCU playing in the title game. How embarrassing would it be if TCU had won it? I also like how the Fiesta Bowl is taking one for the team. Pair the two non-BCS schools together so they can't suffer the humiliation they received last year when Utah punked Alabama.

But what teams being rewarded with a bowl game for a good season? You could still have bowl games. They would still be as meaningful as they are under the current system. Heck you could even invite the first round playoff losers to bowl games.

But instead of a playoff and bowl games we are treated to the BCS. An institution that is nothing less than a cartel used to keep money in the hands of the haves and out of the hands of the have nots.

The BCS is a cartel in the truest sense of the word. If Exxon Mobil and Chevron did in the oil industry what the BCS has done in college football, they would be prosecuted for violating antitrust laws.

Need proof of the cartel? Well, look at TCU (non-BCS conference) vs. Baylor (BCS conference). Here’s the tale of the tape from 2005 to 2008:

Baylor is earning more than $1.5 million a year from bowls it never plays in, while TCU — which during this time period beat teams such as Oklahoma, Texas Tech and even Baylor, twice — received just a third of that.

I am rarely for government involvement in our day to day lives, but these are public institutions getting public dollars. Maybe government should step in and at least break up the cartel. This would be more useful (and better for my health) than taking over the health care system. The whole thing pisses me off!  Ok, rant over. Return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Posted by brians at 6:32 PM in Sports Topics
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Friday, 25 September 2009

The Tour Championship

Is anyone even aware that the final golf championship is going on right now? Unless you are a golf fanatic, I doubt you care all that much. The start of football season tends to drown out all the other sports. Personally, I think it could be like a 5th major except for the stupid FedEx cup point system.

I understand they got the idea from NASCAR. And it makes sense for the regular season. Award points based upon results of the tournaments. Nothing wrong with that. I even understand using the point system to whittle down the field during the "playoffs". But what I don't understand is why the point system is used in the final tournament. It just makes the whole thing very confusing. Especially with all of the silly scenarios that you wind up with depending on what position players finish the final event.

Take John Senden who is in 30th place in the point standings heading into this weekend. If he wins the final event then he must have the following scenario occur for him to win the big prize.
Tiger Woods must finish 30th; Steve Stricker must finish seventh or worse; Jim Furyk must finish fifth or worse; Zach Johnson must finish fourth or worse; Heath Slocum must finish third or worse; Padraig Harrington must finish third or worse
Ok, that is just silly! Why not convert the point system into strokes for the final tournament. That way the low score on the final day wins it all. The benefits are many:
  • Easy to follow because it is like any other golf tournament - avoids all of the weird scenarios
  • You know exactly where all the players stand by just looking at the scoreboard
  • Since it would now be a winner take all event, the drama on the final day could be much more exciting than having to determine where everyone needs to finish to win the thing.
  • Allows the possibility of a sudden death playoff for all the money.
How would my system work. Depending on where you finish in the FedEx cup standings would determine how many strokes you are given. Here is an example.

FedEx Standing
Starting Position
1-10
2-8
3-6
4-5
5-5
6-4
7-4
8-3
9-3
10-15-2
16-20-1
21-30E

This is just an example off the top of my head, I am sure it could be tweaked to be a fair representation of the point system. Anyway, it is just a thought I had that might add some excitement to the final event and get rid of the confusing point system for the final tournament. In doing so it would make watching the event more enjoyable.

Posted by brians at 4:22 PM in Sports Topics
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Thursday, 26 March 2009

NCAA Basketball Has Become Stale Again

In the mid 80's college basketball was dominated by big men. Since all baskets were worth 2 points it didn't make any sense to shoot outside shots when you could take higher percentage close range shots. The natural result was to get 7 footers who could dominate the middle. These players dominated the game. It isn't surprising that most of the final four teams in this period had a dominating center (Georgetown, Virginia, and Houston come to mind). The game became stale because it was all about the big man.

The 3 point line and 35 second shot clock were introduced to change the dynamics of the game.  To liven it up. The 3 point shot opened up the game. Teams without a big guy could specialize in shooting the 3 and not have to pound the ball in the middle. Defenses had to extend to cover the three which opened up the game under the basket.

Fast forward to the last couple of years. I have been watching the game the last couple of years and have noticed a trend. Each possession will end with someone shooting a three or shooting a shot inside the paint. The 12-15 foot jump shot is rarely taken. It makes sense in a way. A team is going to take the shot most likely to return the most points per shot. Let's say a 60% chance at making a shot in the lane brings a point value of 1.2 per shot. A three point at 35% brings a value of 1.05 points per shot. But a 12-15 footer at 45% only brings a value of .9 points per shot. Simple market analysis will tells us where a team should be focusing its efforts.

Watch a game and count the shots. It doesn't matter the game or the teams. The vast majority of the shots will be either inside shots or 3 point shots.  In fact, I would argue that every offense is running the same offense with just different means. The problem is that defense has caught up with the offenses. They are especially made today to stuff the 3 point shot and the inside game. You will often see a guy pass up a 12 foot wide open jumper to take the ball into the lane. We have come back to the situation we had in the mid 80s.

As such the game has started to see a decrease in scoring. How many games in the 60's have we seen this tournament? Another side effect is that the better team almost always wins the game*. I think it is the reason we are seeing so many top seeds advancing in the tournament** .

For me the game has lost some of its appeal. You used to be able to witness clashes of styles and coaching, but now you only get clashes of tempo with UNC/UConn on one end and Wisconsin/Pitt on the other. It is like the NFL where all the teams are roughly the same and the better team usually wins. There just doesn't seem to be much variation in a particular game.

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer. I think a good step was moving the three point line further back because it is making it harder to shoot the three and hopefully discourages sooter who could barely make them at 19ft. But I don't know if it will be enough. I wouldn't mind seeing them shorten the shot clock a little bit and force teams to take the first available shot instead of working around looking for one of the two shots they want to take. In the mean time, I'll continue to watch basketball because a close competition is always thrilling. But the excitement that usually surrounds March Madness has dimmed for me.

* I don't have a problem with the better teams winning most of the time. In fact it makes the tournament better because it is more likely to determine which was the better team. One of the big problems with tournament basketball is that the best team rarely wins the tournament. It usually goes to the team that was good but lucky over a stretch of six games.

** Another reason for the lack of upsets is that and the selection committee has done a better job with seeding. We no longer get horrendous under or over seeding as years past which lead to upsets.

Posted by brians at 1:25 PM in Sports Topics
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Wednesday, 14 January 2009

Tubby Smith

It doesn't surprise me that Tubby Smith is seeing instant success at Minnesota. He is a great coach who needs players who will buy into his system and play hard nosed disciplined defense and grind it out offense. If he can get kids who play hard within the system he is a winner. The kids at Minnesota are buying into the system and guess what? He is winning.

I think his problem at Kentucky centered around the fact that he was forced into recruiting super stars. Kentucky, like other top names such as Duke and North Carolina, are expected to get top notch recruits so Tubby went after the big names. Unfortunately for Tubby, the super stars didn't thrive in his hard nosed / high discipline style of coaching. It is the same reason that I believe Knight saw a decline at Indiana. Hard nose discipline doesn't really work with today's Prima Donnas of the court.

But now, Tubby is back to a smaller name school without a rich history in basketball. He has his type of players and is winning. In addition, he won't have the pressure to bring in the big name recruits at Minnesota. Because of that he will be able to recruit kids that fit into his system. And I suspect he will enjoy as much if not more success at Minnesota than as he did at Kentucky.

Posted by brians at 11:02 PM in Sports Topics
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Monday, 1 December 2008

BCS Appreciation Day

Last Saturday turned into BCS appreciation day as all of the possible results that would make the BCS look good happened. Oregeon St lost, Florida won, and Oklahoma won. Ugh!

We are left with only one more scenario that would make the BCS look bad. Florida and Oklahoma win their conference championship games and Texas finishes ahead of Florida in the BCS rankings. A result which would mean an OU/Texas rematch in the championship game. I have to believe that would make the BCS look stupid. Not only would a team who didn't "win" their conference make the championship game, the winner of the SEC would be snubbed. Especially since BCS proponents are talking about the SEC championship game as a "semi-final" game.

The BCS is assinine. It has no logical reason for being. My favorite argument for the BCS is that every week during the season is a playoff. If that is true, how come Florida wasn't eliminated after they lost to Mississippi? How come Oklahoma wasn't eliminated when they lost to Texas? How come Texas wasn't eliminated after they lost to Texas Tech? Who eliminated Utah, Boise State, and Ball State? No the BCS is some crappy concoction to keep bowl games and make money for the schools. Oh yeah and to annoint the MNC (Mythical National Champion).
Posted by brians at 5:23 AM in Sports Topics
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Thursday, 27 November 2008

Death to the BCS

As we head into the weekend, I am hoping for results that will cause the maximum amount of chaos in the BCS standings. While looking over the current standings, I was trying to figure out what would be the worst case scenario for the BCS this year. I asked myself how bad would it be for the BCS if neither participant in the championship game won their confernce championship? I believe it would be  a delicious slice of irony that the national championship game featured two teams that didn't even win their conference title. From that perspective, I came up with a plausable result that I hope will play out over the next two weeks.

Looking at the BCS standings, two teams could easily not win their conference and make the championship game - USC and Texas. Oregon St will win the PAC 10 if they win this weekend at Oregon. Texas will not play in the championship game if OU loses to Oklahoma State this weekend because Texas Tech has the tie breaker over them. I don't know how likely both of these scenarios are of happening, but it is reasonable result.

Yeah but what about the SEC? Won't the winner of it play in the championship game. I have a realisitic scenario that would eliminate the SEC champions. FSU beats Florida at home this weekend and Florida defeats Alabama next week in the SEC championship games. A 2 loss Florida team won't make the championship game and a late loss by Alabama will tumble them out of the top 2. That leaves Texas and USC as the top 2 teams in the country. And neither of them would have won their conference. I would love to see that result!

The BCS is obviously a ridiculous format and such a result would just highlight the inanity of it. It would also put a lie to the argument that every week is a playoff. How can every week be a playoff when you have teams that can't even win their conference in the championship game? The need for a 16 team playoff is painfully obvious to everyone except those that live in thier own fantasty world.
Posted by brians at 10:28 AM in Sports Topics
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Monday, 1 September 2008

UK vs U of L Football Game Analysis

I wake up this morning and read the Courier Journal. It seems that the consensus is the UK destroyed U of L. I was even treated to these amusing headlines.

Cards offense shut down by Cats D

 

State's football capital now in Lexington

 

Hartline shines as Cats' QB in first college start

Did these people actually watch the game? UK is a bad football team. U of L is just marginally worse. Before I get any crap let's look at the box score.

1st Downs1316
3rd down efficiency4-165-16
4th down efficiency0-00-1
Total Yards210205
Passing147152
Comp-Att16-3120-43
Yards per pass4.73.5
Rushing6353
Rushing Attempts3329
Yards per rush1.91.8

Looking at these two columns can you tell me which team is UK and which is U of L? Heck I can't tell the difference. Both sets of numbers are pathetic. The difference was U of L made more turnovers in this game. That makes them only slightly worse in my opinion.

I mean give me a break. UK scored 17 points in the second half and had less than 100 yards of offense. That is called a fluke. Not domination.

UK was going to really take it to Louisville with all of there great running backs. They out gained Louisville 63-53. Passing them for total yards on the last drive of the game. The game's leading rusher was St. X alum, and U of L red shirt freshman, Victor Anderson. Not anyone from UK.

Hartline was awful at quarterback. He threw up one wounded duck after another. Many that weren't close to their targets. He was just lucky enough not to have any of them intercepted. Fortunately for UK, they didn't need him to step up and make plays. But as bad as Hartline was, Hunter Cantwell was worse. He was just as inaccurate as Hartline, but he made more mistakes. He accounted for 4 of the 5 U of L turnovers in this game. U of L needed Cantwell to play well and he threw out a turd.

While I was watching the game, I thought to myself. wow, it's a shame that one of these teams have to win this game. They both were attrocious. They combined for 410 yards of offense. Don't tell me it was because the game was dominated by the defenses. Please. Both teams have good defenses, but neither of them looked "dominating". This game was dominated by offensive ineptitude. At this point, I would have to say that the outlook for both of these team is bleak at best. Neither one of them will have any hope of making a bowl game unless they can find a way to improve their offenses dramatically.

Posted by brians at 9:17 AM in Sports Topics
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Monday, 25 August 2008

The Olympics

The two weeks of the Olympics thankfully ended yesterday. Not because I was sick of the Olympics, but because I was addicted. I spent all of my free time watching everything I recorded on my DVR. I freely admit that my addiction was sad. But I couldn't help it.

There is something inspiring about seeing athletes who have dedicated their entire lives to the being the greatest in their chosen sport. It is fascinating to watch them compete in the most pressure packed environment one can imagine and perform at their best. It has inspired me to fight harder to achieve my own dreams.

Also, I never tire of listening to our national anthem. Nothing is more stirring than seeing our athletes win on the biggest stage. I get fired up rooting for the U.S.A. I felt patriotic chills cheering our athletes and watching them win more medals than any other country. Even more than the host country.

Think about that for a second. We beat a country with 5 times our population. A country that rips kids away from their parents at a young age to train them exclusively for athletics. A country that has to cheat to win medals.

Nothing showcases the power of a free people than the our country's accomplishments in the Olympics. Even against the odds and an unfriendly crowd, our country succeeded. But we weren't the only country. Look at the top 10 countries in the medal count. It is littered with other free countries like England, Italy, France, Australia, Germany and the Ukraine. In fact the free countries in the top 10 totaled 370 medals compared to the 170 racked up by repressive regimes like China and Russia. Free countries dominated this Olympics.

It is great to know that freedom is still the shining light for all the world to see.

Posted by brians at 11:10 PM in Sports Topics
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Monday, 30 June 2008

The Problem With Soccer

Yesterday I watched the finals of Euro Cup 2008. For those who don't know the Euro Cup is the European soccer championships. Working from home, I was fortunate enough to watch many of matches. During which, I tried to become a fan of soccer. I really did.

Soccer has a lot to offer. It has some really cool aspects that can't be found in most American sports. For one thing they have interesting tournament formats. They almost always have some group play aspect to determine which teams move into the playoffs. To best understand how this works, imagine the NCAA basketball tournament where the tournament starts with sixteen groups of 4 teams. The are assigned by the normal seeding process. The 4 teams would play each other. The team with the best results from the 3 games would move on to the sweet 16.

Another aspect I find interesting is their use of home and home games to determine who wins a round in the tournament. A home and home is where two teams play one game at each team's home field. The winner is determined by the aggregate score between the two games. Can you imagine NFL playoffs where teams would play a home and home and the total score from the two games would be combined to determine who moves onto the next round of the playoffs.

I also like the concept of promotion and relegation. The worst teams in a higher division drop down and the best teams from the lower division move up. Imagine if the worst three teams in major league baseball dropped down to Triple A while the best three teams in Triple A move up to the major leagues.

I would be sold on the game if the actual games didn't suffer from some serious deficiencies.

First, there isn't enough scoring in soccer. The finals were 1-0. That is like watching a 3-0 football game. Sure it is OK occasionally, but if that was the results of over half the football games it would not be fun to watch. I am not asking for 10 goals a game. But the games need to average 5 goals a game and not 2. The most memorable games in the Euro Cup were the 3-2 games and not the 1-0 games. The easiest move would be to make the goals bigger. Not a lot, just another couple of feet wider and taller. If all of the shots that hit the goal posts went in the scoring would have been more reasonable.

Secondly, the officiating is bad. I don't think the officials are necessarily bad, I just think it is hard for one person to see the entire game. The are inevitably going to be in a bad position during a play and miss an important call. Are there any other sports which have so few officials on the field? If soccer added two more officials on the pitch I think they could be able to make better calls and have less errors.

Lastly, soccer needs to rid itself of what I call the wimp factor. I don't know how many times I saw a player who was barely touched fall down on the ground writhing in pain only to hop up and continue playing 15 seconds later. In basketball you have guys flop in order to draw a charge. But they don't roll on the ground and act like they have been knifed in the stomach either only to hop up a few seconds later and continue playing. The player would be rightly ridiculed forever.

Until they can address these issues, soccer will continue to be anything but the "beautiful game" to me.

Posted by brians at 7:45 PM in Sports Topics
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Friday, 29 February 2008

No Excuse Too Small

I haven't done much sporting news in a while and this story is a couple of days old, but I thought it was so lame it needed to be addressed. The fact that UK won't play the football game next year against U of L on Labor Day. Here is the gist of the story.

ESPN has offered to place this year’s season opener between the two teams at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium in its “Monday Night Football” time slot on Labor Day night. As U of L announced its full 2008 schedule today, head coach Steve Kragthorpe said the Cardinals “would love to do it” and were just waiting for UK’s approval.

But Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart told The Courier-Journal this afternoon that the Wildcats won’t agree to play that Monday night.

“We’re willing to play that game Thursday through Sunday, and we’ve communicated that to the people at ESPN,” Barnhart said. “We’re not going to play that on a Monday night and give ourselves that short turnaround on a Saturday game. We’re going to have a young team, and we feel it’s in the best interest of our program to guard that prep time and that recovery time.”

So, the U of L vs UK game has the chance of being the prime time football game next year. This is a slot that has hosted FSU vs Miami matchups in years past. This is an outstanding opportunity for both teams to show their programs in the spotlight.

But, UK is worried about a "short recovery time". I would consider this a valid concern if they had to play a conference game the following week. But, when one takes a look at the schedule. Kentucky plays Norfolk St the following weak. If you are asking yourself who Norfolk St. is then you aren't alone. They play in the mighty MEAC conference in Division 1-AA. The Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference isn't even a power conference in 1-AA. Heck, EKU is a stronger matchup than Norfolk St.

The fact of the matter is UK is chickening out of playing U of L on a prime time stage. For a school that talks about being so much better than U of L, they sure don't provide the walk to back it up.

Posted by brians at 5:43 PM in Sports Topics
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