3 of last 10 BCS NC games have been close

[nelsonmuntz]

Put another way, 7 of the last 10 BCS NC games have been won by 10 or more. The BCS is very bad at picking the two best teams, To be fair, I didn't think Notre Dame would get killed like that either, but that is why they play the games. Picking the 2 best teams from video and reading a schedule is a lot harder than having teams play each other and decide for themselves.

On the other side, 7 of the last 10 NCAA Championship games have been won by 9 or less. The last time there was an outright mismatch in the NC game was in 1990, when UNLV was destroying everyone. Duke beat Michigan by 20 in 1992. Since 1992, there has been one 17 point victory (NC over MSU 2009), one 16 point victory (Florida over UCLA), and then most of the rest of the games over the last 30 years were close until the final minutes.

How many epic national championship games have their been in basketball in the last 30 years? My list:

1982: UNC/Georgetown
1983: NC State/Houston - one of the most famous basketball games in history
1985: Villanova/Georgetown - also one of the most famous basketball games in history.
1986: Louisville/Duke
1987: Indiana/Syracuse
1988: Kansas/Oklahoma
1989: Seton Hall/Michigan - possible the best game ever
1993: UNC/Michigan - Webber's TO
1994: Arkansas/Duke
1997: Arizona/Kentucky
1999: UConn/Duke - my favorite game ever
2003: Syracuse/Kansas
2005: UNC/Illinois
2008: Kansas/Memphis
2010: Duke/Butler - incredible ending

And there were a bunch others that were not epic, but were still good games (Kentucky/Utah, Kentucky/Syracuse, Duke/Arizona, others).

How many BCS championships have been like that? Miami/Ohio State, USC/Texas and maybe Auburn/Oregon (which was actually a poorly played game but was close). Most BCS championship games suck.

The NCAA Basketball Championship is a lot better at getting the best games in the Final Four and Championship than the BCS is, which would make sense because in basketball the teams actually have to prove it on the court. Florida and Notre Dame were flawed teams all season long, and likely overrated becasue of their historical performance and popularity. Oregon and Stanford are not historical powerhouses and played in an underrated Pac 12 and therefore didn't get a shot at the title. I am confident one of them would have played in the Championship Game if there was an 8 or 16 team playoff. Or maybe they wouldn't. We will never know.

 

[mattp]

So you're saying that bball's method of picking a national champion is preferred? Thanks, but I don't think the research was necessary, I think most people would have taken your word for it. I wonder what the TV ratings were for the "Dream Match-Up" the BCS delivered last night. All season was spent putting together what a TV exec would probably consider the ideal NC game and it was all thrown out the window because the game was lousy.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Can you imagine if THE O$U were eligible? It would've been a competitive game pitting the 11th & 12th best teams in the country against each other.

 

[Husky25]

You do understand that the BCS is going to a 4 team playoff next year right? It's not 68 teams, but it is a start. I am on record for predicting a 10 team tournement by 2024 and probably earlier.

 

[bballgrda]

While I agree with everything you are saying it is kind of unfair to compare basketball and football. The nature of the way the two games are played simply results in less blowouts for basketball.

 

[Vowelguy]

While I agree with everything you are saying it is kind of unfair to compare basketball and football. The nature of the way the two games are played simply results in less blowouts for basketball.

+1

Plus, the talent gap is much much much much smaller in basketball than it is football.

 

[freescooter]

While I agree with everything you are saying it is kind of unfair to compare basketball and football. The nature of the way the two games are played simply results in less blowouts for basketball.

I agree with this. Basketball is much more of a game of ebbs and flows where it isn't really unusual to see a team get up double digits and down double digits over the course of a game. In part that's a function of the fact that it is easy to score points in basketball, probably the easiest of the major sports. Throw in the 3 point line, intentional fouls and a few other things and in some ways it lends itself to close games. Take UConn's win over Georgia Tech in 2004 for example. UConn had a huge lead at one point but the final margin, I recall it was over 20, but ended up winning by 9 when GT hit a bunch of 3 pointers late while UConn was content to milk the clock. In a sense basketball is the ultimate game you win by outscoring the opponent as opposed to the others which you win by keeping the other team from scoring. Football, on the other hand is a game that can get away from you. Much harder to score points so it is much harder to come back if you fall behind.

Despite all that, you are right that the BCS championship games have largely been duds. I think it is partly the nature of the game, partly the fact that teams have a month off between the end of the season and the game, partly that selections are made based on a popularity contest to some degree, and partly it is pretty difficult to select the top 2 teams out of 125 or so when they rarely play any common opponents. One wonders too how much weather conditions influence results. Not in this game necessarily, but over all. If you played that game in Green Bay instead of Miami it might have developed differently. I understand that you don't want the weather to determine the outcome but I do think northern teams tend to be built a certain way in college football, less so in the professional game, which makes it even more difficult to come back when you get behind.

 

[whaler11]

The fact that the games haven't been close doesn't mean the system doesn't pick the 2 best teams. It doesn't usually pick the 2 best teams but not having close games doesn't prove that. The college football 12 game season makes it pretty difficult to determine who the best teams are anyway - is Alabama the best team? Well had Les Miles not pissed away a win against Bama would you still think that?

The NCAA tournament has great games - but rarely puts the two best teams in the championship game. Seton Hall and Michigan was a great game... but unless you think the only measure of who the best teams are is based on 6 games and not the other 30...

The 2011 Final Four had an 11, an 8, a 4 and a 3 - yet this system pits the best teams for the title? Butler lost to Louisville, Evansville, Duke, Xavier, Wisc-Milw (2x), Wright State, Valpo, Youngstown State.... That system identified a 9 loss team who lost to UW-M twice and a team that finished in the bottom half of their own league as 'the two best teams'?

Even since baseball moved to divisional play, pretty much only the NBA has a system that most often pits the two best teams against each other - or at least since they need one rep from each conference - the best team from each conference.

 

[junglehusky]

Whaler I think some would say that the tournament doesn't find the best two teams based on the their whole season but it finds the teams that are "hot" at the end of feb through march. But the point about sample size is very relevant here.

Maybe we need to hire Nate Silver for some analysis.

 

[Husky25]

Despite all that, you are right that the BCS championship games have largely been duds. I think it is partly the nature of the game, partly the fact that teams have a month off between the end of the season and the game, partly that selections are made based on a popularity contest to some degree, and partly it is pretty difficult to select the top 2 teams out of 125 or so when they rarely play any common opponents. One wonders too how much weather conditions influence results. Not in this game necessarily, but over all. If you played that game in Green Bay instead of Miami it might have developed differently. I understand that you don't want the weather to determine the outcome but I do think northern teams tend to be built a certain way in college football, less so in the professional game, which makes it even more difficult to come back when you get behind.

You are absolutely right. When the "2 best teams" in the country don't play from Thanksgiving weekend until the week after New years (over 6 weeks in some cases), there is a great deal of rust. That is why the Div. 1AA, 2, and 3 playoffs are decent to watch. The ESPN production level may leave something to be desired, but the play on the field is the result of only a week or two off, not a month and a half. Hopefully that is what the BCS playoff (and certain expansion thereof) fixes.

Regarding the seletion of 2 teams ou of 125, you can cut out 80% of FBS schools right off the bat. For instance UConn would have gotten rolled by the Tide's scout team liet alone McCaron and Lacy. In my opinion, the BCS tournment should realistically include 10 teams (the Winners of the Power 5 conferences, 2 teams from the other conferences, and 3 at large bids) with the top two getting byes. Given the TV ratings of the last few years, who wouldn't watch all nine games? Who's against this?

 

[freescooter]

H25, You're right of course that 80% of the teams can be eliminated off the top. But unlike the NFL which I think does a pretty decent job and the NBA which usually does get the 2 best at least by conference, it is much more difficult to get the 2 "best" in college football. In any playoff system you are going to have upsets, and that happens in the NFL and the NBA but I think less often than in other sports. Baseball is a totally different animal. In college football you almost have to pick an undefeated team from a major conference. How could you not take an undefeated Notre Dame, even if they did some of it with smoke and mirrors? You can't. Even if there is a sense that they weren't really the best...I'm not sure if 10 is the right number or 12 would be better (every conference champ plus a few at-large bids) modeled on the NFL with 1st round byes for the top 4 seeds, home games for the higher seeds until the finals which would insure attendance (there is a mis-im;pression that gfans will travel to multiple "bowls" to see their teams in early rounds, I think. This is an error the Conference Championship Games all made).