Snoop Robby Blog

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Basketball Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

As I watched college basketball last Saturday, I was reminded why I like the BCS. Of course, the BCS has its flaws and it's by no means a perfect system, but it makes the regular season important. I don't even really care to watch college basketball until March Madness. Well, I do enjoy regular season games and will watch them if they're on, but at the same time I know they don't really mean that much. Even if it's a great game between two great teams, it doesn't really matter who wins. The regular season's only real purpose is to seed for the tournament and the excitement they try to build around "bubble" teams is pretty pointless as well. Besides the occasional cinderella, a team that barely made the tournament isn't going very far, much less win it all. They could just substitute them for any other mediocre team and nobody would really care or notice. In fact, I'd prefer they play about ten to fifteen games just to gauge the teams and then have the tournament. Maybe even just go straight to the conference tournaments. It'd save a lot of tedium.

For sure, the college football regular season would still be much more exciting than college basketball, if only because of fewer games, but a playoff would drastically dampen the intensity. As it is now, every game matters in football and every win or loss can make or break a season. A game in the first few weeks can be the most important game of the season. College basketball doesn't really have an important game in the regular season. At least not a single game that can mean success or disaster for a team. In college football, that's every game. Every single week matters. Every play matters.

Having a playoff wouldn't really stop people from feeling like their team got slighted either. Only so many teams would be in the playoff and some would get left out. It'd be a whole new debate. Then it'd get expanded so more and more teams would be let in and then eventually their regular season would only be slightly less meaningless than college basketball's.

I'm not sure it'd even crown a "true" champion either. Admittedly, there would be much more consensus, but fans would still be able to find a way to argue that their team was deserving of a better chance, or even that their team was better than the champion. For example, say USC beat both Oregon and Notre Dame during the regular season and they did so pretty easily. However, all three teams still make the playoffs. Due to seeding, USC plays Notre Dame in the first round. After being blown out in the first meeting, Notre Dame barely beats USC to knock them out of the playoffs. Then, Notre Dame and Oregon end up in the championship game and Oregon wins. Two teams that were blown out by USC during the regular season are playing for the championship. But, based on the regular season results it would be hard to argue that Oregon is a better team than USC. But, Oregon won the tournament so they are the "true" champion, even if they are arguably not the best team.

In fact, as it is, the BCS is a playoff system in a way. It's basically a double-elimination tournament. Plus, it's not like in a traditional playoff every team has to play every other team so that's not a requirement to crown a "true" champion. Nobody seems to complain about the lack of a playoff during the regular season. People, of course, want it both ways. They want to keep the intensity of the regular season and have a playoff. That's not how things work, though.

Another plus of the bowl system is the bowl themselves. People will say we can keep the bowls and still have a playoff, but it wouldn't be the same. Is the NIT any real consolation for not making the NCAA tournament? Plus, even with a playoff, a team that loses more than a few games wouldn't really have a chance to win it all. But, with the bowl system, teams get rewarded at the end of the season even if they have no chance to win the championship. Sometimes even getting to a bowl is reward enough for a team. With a playoff system, they'd be outsiders playing meaningless games. A playoff system would be even more exclusionary than the BCS because it would take the meaning out of a bowl victory for a school just happy to be there.

So, I like the BCS system because I don't want the football regular season to become the basketball regular season. Basketball's regular season is simply a prelude to the postseason. The games don't really matter. Not compared to football, at least. In football, the regular season pretty much is the postseason. Every game can mean the end of your championship run. But, hope is not lost because a loss by another team can put you right back in it. It's a three month emotional roller coaster and I enjoy the ride every year. If you love college football's regular season, then you love the BCS.

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