You Keep on Rolling, Put the Moment on Hold
Congratulations to Mr. Dan Carlson for correctly naming "Sweet Baby James" by James Taylor as the Saturday Song of the Day.
Despite disparaging remarks from the General Robert Montgomery Knight (Bobby to you and me), the Baylor men's basketball team was chosen for the Big Dance/Whole Enchilada/All the Marbles/Whole Shebang/etc. last night by the NCAA Selection Committee. There's no word yet on whether Bobby's anger arose from the fact that the Bears defeated Tech twice this year, including his son's debut earlier this season in the Land of the Bear.
In a geographic anomaly that could only be created by sports, the Bears are in the tournament's West Region, but somehow play their opening (and possibly second-round) game(s) in Washington, D.C.
All of the first-grade readers of Running Down a Dream are now scratching their heads and asking their parents,
"But Mom and Dad, I thought Washington, D.C. was on the EAST coast."
"Well yes, Timmy, it is, but this is also the same country that kept the Arizona/Phoenix Cardinals in the NFC East for years. Also, whoever taught you to think logically?"
Nonetheless, the Baylor Bears will take to the floor at the Verizon Center on Thursday to face the juggernaut that is the Purdue Boilermakers. You always have to be wary of a team that is still haunted by the specter of Gene Keady's combover, but I digress.
In a geographic anomaly that could only be created by sports, the Bears are in the tournament's West Region, but somehow play their opening (and possibly second-round) game(s) in Washington, D.C.All of the first-grade readers of Running Down a Dream are now scratching their heads and asking their parents,
"But Mom and Dad, I thought Washington, D.C. was on the EAST coast."
"Well yes, Timmy, it is, but this is also the same country that kept the Arizona/Phoenix Cardinals in the NFC East for years. Also, whoever taught you to think logically?"
Nonetheless, the Baylor Bears will take to the floor at the Verizon Center on Thursday to face the juggernaut that is the Purdue Boilermakers. You always have to be wary of a team that is still haunted by the specter of Gene Keady's combover, but I digress.
Labels: Baylor Basketball, College Basketball, Purdue
posted by Justin @ 3/17/2008 08:36:00 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Oh Justin. You well know that since 2002 the 1st and 2nd Rounds are played in "pods" with locations that are irrelevant to the location of the region that the pod is located in. That's to reduce travel for as many of the teams as possible (usually the higher seeded teams obviously).
The East/South/West/Midwest regional designations only apply to the city hosting the (duh) regional tournament. If the West Regional were played in DC, then that'd be troublesome, but alas it's in Phoenix.
This is the very reason that from 2004-2006 Regional sites were identified not by a geographic region, but by the host city's name (St. Louis Regional, Atlanta Regional, etc). However, that ended last year with a return to geographic regional designations.
Austin,
Thanks for the information. I'm still a fan of the idea that all of the games for a given region should actually be played in that region.
What about if all of the teams for a given regional actually were based in that region, much like the playoff systems that most states have for high school sports?
If that was the case, many in the basketball hotbeds would complain that their road to the championship was much more difficult than a team from a relatively weaker region, but who really cares about fairness?
Wow, this is almost like an IM conversation I guess.
Two things:
First, I agree that having the games actually played in the Region is not a bad thing. It's kind of romantic in a way. Another problem with that (besides travel concerns) is the location of 1st/2nd round games: They don't always fit into nice geographic notches. I will say that when they did it like that I liked the fact that after the first Thursday and Saturday, exactly 2 whole regions would be completed for the round. As it stands the pods create a situation in which like 1/2 or 1/4 of a region is finished while other regions are completely finished or 3/4 finished. It's not as neat for your brackets I guess.
Second, I kind of like your idea for regions based on team location. The obvious problem with this is that teams definitely are not equally dispersed geographically and it could change based on who gets in or left out. That would dramatically increase the workload of the selection committee to place the selected teams into geographic regions that made some sense. However, this would have worked back in the 50's/60's when only 1 team per conference would make the tournament, which would make it much more like high school where you could always predict the region from which teams would come.
Austin,
The points about the aesthetic affect of the "pod" system are very well taken. If anything, I just want Billy Packer to talk about this kind of stuff until his head explodes so we will finally be rid of him.
Perhaps he has compromising photos of Jim Nantz that he holds over the head of CBS President Les Moonves as a means of keeping his job, but I can't think of anyone I know who actually likes Billy Packer.
You forgot my favorite geographic anomaly. The Reds and Braves in the NL West while the Cardinals and Cubs played in the NL East. You can't blame that on post-alignment moves or traditional rivalries.
Excellent point, my friend. There was nothing like watching the fierce race for the 1993 NL West title between the San Francisco Giants and the...Atlanta Braves.
Sure, they were once located in Milwaukee (and Boston), but Milwaukee 's only in the West if we're talking about the Northwest Territory.
I had always thought that they pretended Milwaukee was in the west and just kept the Braves in the western division after they moved. But after some quick research, I learned that the Braves moved to Atlanta after the 1965 season, and divisional play did not begin until 1969. The Reds, too, were founding members of the NL West. That means that the Powers That Be consciously put Atlanta and Cincy in the NL West and Chicago and St. Louis in the NL East. But--that's baseball for you.
Something I think the NBA does right is that all 3 Texas teams are in the same division. The 5 teams in the Southwest Division are all pretty close, geographically, and that makes it easier to attend all the games that matter and for fans to interact more often. When was the last time you ran into a real Angels or Mariners fan? It's no fun being a rabid fan when nobody around you cares.
Besides, wouldn't it be cool to have the Lone Star State divided along a Rangers v. Astros line?
For Major League Baseball to align the teams geographically, that would seemingly force its hand on the DH rule dichotomy between the American and National Leagues.
Personally, I would rather that baseball decided either way on the DH rule and allowed the leagues to be arranged based on geography with a Western Conference playing the Eastern Conference in the World Series.
I say this knowing that baseball fans, including yours truly, are the most tradition minded fans in all of American sports, and such an idea seems like anathema to leagues that have existed since 1876 and 1903.
A man can dream though.
I've been thinking lately that I don't like the DH rule, but I think it probably sells more tickets. (I don't have any stats on that.) I like your east/west conference idea. I was looking at a map on Wikipedia of where the 30 teams are, and it'd be tough to figure out where exactly to draw the line without being arbitrary. But desperate times call for desparate measures. Maybe if we called them "leagues" instead of conferences and kept the names . . . Then you'd have, say, the American League comprised of all the west coast teams and the National League comprised of the east coast teams.
Did you ever read Dave Winfield's book about how black kids don't play baseball anymore?
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