Another year of college basketball.
And another year of stupid comments from Seth Davis.
If it wasn't for Seth, I might not even do a blog. I'm creative (which isn't bragging...it just means I can make stuff up). I have opinions. I could probably make it work without Seth's inadvertent assistance. But he just keeps yapping. And I keep getting material.
I know this will be hard for you to believe but over the years, I have really, really tried to like Seth. Even to the point where I've found myself at home, pretending to laugh at his "witty" remarks on CBS halftime shows or feigning interest in his Sports Illustrated articles, hoping that somehow a switch would flip and I would finally understand him.
During one of my many attempts a couple weeks ago, I ran across an article in Sports Illustrated entitled "Foul Play". Seth wrote it. It was deemed a "Special Report" If by "Special Report" they meant bad opinion piece, they were accurate. You can read the full article
here. (Interestingly enough, this isn't the same article as appeared in the magazine but I read both and they are close enough to give you the point).
The article is a little ridiculous in its overall premise that the game has slowed down too much. While he has plenty of stats to back it up, Seth fails to realize the reason why. And I'm saying this even though he acknowledges the very reason in his article (the only person I know who can miss the forest for the trees while still talking about the forest). The reason is DEFENSE. You know, that archaic concept that the NBA denies even exists as if it was Area 51 somewhere in New Mexico.
Instead of extolling the virtues of good defense, Seth goes after the rules committee, currently comprised of three reps from D-III schools, three from D-II, and six from D-I. To top that, *GASP* five of the six D-1's are mid-major schools. Call it the NCAA's way of actually acknowledging that there is life outside the five power conferences. And then Seth goes there. He actually writes these words "The schools that are on television every night should have the most say". At that point he reaches Bob Costas territory, Costas being the biggest big market apologist in baseball history.
The comment itself is ignorant because it denies how money has tilted pretty much every scale in college basketball and football in favor of the five power conferences. The egregious part is that Seth knows that and, much like Jay Bilas, is a big, unabashed supporter of those power conferences. But go back to the main reason--it's not the rules committee. It's the defensive schemes. You don't regulate that. You encourage it. You foster it. Sports, in and of itself, is not just about the athlete. It's about the strategy. And then the counter-strategy. Except for the NBA which, again, is structured to just let the inmates run the asylum. I don't even know why they have coaches any longer.
But hockey, baseball, and football are littered with strategy. Ironically, college football actually had the opposite problem. Coaches were trying to legislate against the hurry-up OFFENSE because they couldn't defend it. That these were mostly SEC coaches was not lost on anyone. How do you stop the hurry-up OFFENSE? You sure as hell don't change the rules. You do your job as a coach and figure out a counterattack. (As the South Park joke goes--how do you stop a giant stone Abraham Lincoln? How about with a giant stone John Wilkes Booth?). When discussing NC State's comeback upset of Phi Slamma Jamma, the second greatest title game upset in history (c'mon, Villanova over Georgetown anyone?), no one ever talks about HOW they got back into the game. They started fouling halfway through the second half. And Houston couldn't make their free throws.
There will always be something frustrating about your favorite sport. The clutch and grab in hockey. The backing out of the batter's box a few thousand times so Sts. Jeter and Ortiz can readjust their gloves. The intentional foul by a team up 3 to stop a team from having a chance to shoot a 3 and tie it(my personal albatross). But sports is cyclical--someone will always come up with a counter. Changing the rules is a cop out. And denies creativity.
Which requires something that Seth Davis has never been accused of possessing.
Creative thinking.
Peace,
Reg
