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Okay, so when UConn and MSU square off Friday night, they will be among nine teams left standing in the tournament. They will have made it to The Nifty Nine, so to speak.
Worthy of a trophy?
Nonsense, you say. It's just a quirk of the schedule, a function of the tournament format.
Really? Well, isn't the Natty itself a quirk of the schedule, a function of the tournament format? Think about it. What team ever enters the tournament having established that it can win six games in a row in 18 days against tournament-class opposition? Are you kidding? It's expecting a miracle. Yet every year, miraculously, one team does. It never fails to happen, no matter how lackluster the field. Why? Because, see, it's the tournament format. It's this quirk in the schedule called the brackets. It's constructed to yield a champion and, by God, it always does.
And so "Hail to the Nifty Nine," also a construction of the brackets but no more so that the Natty.
Does this, btw, suggest that there might be a more fitting way to determine a national champion? What if, say, on the final Sunday of the season, a committee of basketball experts got together and selected the top team in the country based on its season-long body of work. Wouldn't that be a more accurate way to identify the best -- rather than leave it to the vagaries of a post-season tournament? You could call it, I dunno, Selection Sunday, maybe.
Worthy of a trophy?
Nonsense, you say. It's just a quirk of the schedule, a function of the tournament format.
Really? Well, isn't the Natty itself a quirk of the schedule, a function of the tournament format? Think about it. What team ever enters the tournament having established that it can win six games in a row in 18 days against tournament-class opposition? Are you kidding? It's expecting a miracle. Yet every year, miraculously, one team does. It never fails to happen, no matter how lackluster the field. Why? Because, see, it's the tournament format. It's this quirk in the schedule called the brackets. It's constructed to yield a champion and, by God, it always does.
And so "Hail to the Nifty Nine," also a construction of the brackets but no more so that the Natty.
Does this, btw, suggest that there might be a more fitting way to determine a national champion? What if, say, on the final Sunday of the season, a committee of basketball experts got together and selected the top team in the country based on its season-long body of work. Wouldn't that be a more accurate way to identify the best -- rather than leave it to the vagaries of a post-season tournament? You could call it, I dunno, Selection Sunday, maybe.