tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386764985111966182024-03-05T01:22:06.222-06:00Big TwenRedefining Negative SpaceNewt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-46817059150523426762011-07-24T13:00:00.001-05:002011-07-24T13:01:05.662-05:00No, No, I *Strenuously* Object to Oversigning<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is apropos of not much besides a <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/TheMarchTo85/status/95170362232414209">single wayward tweet</a> in my queue this morning, but I think it's time for Big Ten fans to let the oversigning issue go, especially in regards to the complaint that oversigning creates a competitive imbalance between the conferences. Is the charge true? Yes, probably, at the margins; it's better to have 88 players on scholarship than 85, and if the coach gets to cull the worst three on the roster after personal evaluation rather than having to choose based on high school tape, then there is surely some advantage.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But at this point, after <a href="http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=310010127">beatdown</a> and <a href="http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=270080194">beatdown</a> and <a href="http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=280070194">beatdown</a> with only a few <a href="http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=310040008">morally ambiguous counterexamples</a>, the complaint rings a little hollow. Oversigning is an issue of marginal improvement, not massive programmatic change. The last three or five or even twenty players on Alabama's roster didn't account for the 42 point loss Michigan State suffered. The difference that mattered was the difference in quality between the top twenty players on both teams, and the gap was every bit as significant there as the gap at the bottom. Alabama could have signed 15 players each of the past four years and still won that game by two touchdowns.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In the meantime, some of the worst offenders don't appear to be reaping much in the way of rewards. The <a href="http://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/commitments/2009/olemiss-77">37-player 2009 Ole Miss class</a> set off much of the firestorm. As redshirt freshmen or sophomores, that class lost to Vanderbilt and failed to make a bowl game; as redshirt sophomores or juniors, that class is predicted to <a href="http://preseason.stassen.com/consensus/2011.html">finish last in the SEC West</a>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Oversigning matters because kids are potentially getting cheated out of promises. It matters because letters of intent are currently only one-way commitments, leaving players at the mercy of coaches who themselves are increasingly at the mercy of fan bases calling for wins at any cost. But bemoaning that the Big Ten is *thisclose* to breaking through yet held back by its scrupulously scrupulous practices has more than a little bit of whinyness about it. The three star linebacker in Jackson who signs up to play for Houston Nutt and gets cut next year is the real victim, not Michigan State or Ohio State.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-73018027473813136522011-07-19T01:29:00.000-05:002011-07-19T01:29:00.861-05:00Dan Persa is Not Winning the Heisman Trophy<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://northwestern.scout.com/2/1086880.html">Stop it.</a> It's not happening, and not just because Persa plays for Northwestern. It's also because he's not good enough.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The main problem comes from adding together non-conference and conference statistics. Northwestern's OOC schedule sucked in 2010 (and 2009, and 2008, and 2007). Vanderbilt went 2-10 (and Northwestern may not have won if not for a very sketchy personal foul call at the end). Illinois State was a mediocre I-AA team. Rice went 4-8 in Conference USA. Central Michigan went 3-9 in the MAC. Persa was 85/106 for 1049 yards, 8 TDs, and 1 INT. Those are very good numbers, but against very bad teams.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Against the Big Ten, his numbers were OK, but by no means great: 114/196, 1532 yards, 7 TDs and 3 INTs. That's good for a 132.5 QB rating (the college rating works different than the NFL rating; 100 is theoretically average though average amongst starters has drifted towards 125 in recent years). He also missed three of the top five teams in the conference (Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Illinois) while playing all three non-bowl teams in the conference. He also wasn't all that much of a threat on the ground, gaining only 3 yards per carry in conference play (some of that is from sacks, but still, that's not very good). Against three of the six opponents, he had a worse QB rating than the average QB against that defense.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Let's compare that to another QB who definitely is not winning the Heisman trophy this year. This quarterback went 101/168 for 1142 yards, 14 TDs and 5 INTs. This QB also went 4.3 yards per carry in conference play (including sacks). Guess what: Nathan Scheelhaase of Illinois is not sniffing the Heisman trophy.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Unfortunately for Northwestern, some of their out-of-conference opponents <a href="http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Debriefing-Boston-College-hangs-on-to-the-good-?urn=ncaaf-wp3845">actually have a pulse</a> this year. They miss Big Ten favorite Wisconsin this year (while I'm rubbing dirt on the wounds: Northwestern missed the conference champion twice in the past four years. The combined score the two times they played the conference champions? 128-30. <i>In two games</i>. Stretch back to 2006 and it's 182-40), but they play in the more difficult Leaders division, and face two decent teams this season (don't sleep on Army) in OOC play. You can't just take last years numbers against awful defenses and apply the directly.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If Dan Persa was a Heisman-level athlete, wouldn't Northwestern have performed noticeably worse in his absence? Against Purdue, Northwestern scored 17 points. They scored 27 against MSU, then 20 against Indiana, 21 against Penn State, and 21 against Iowa. Without Persa, Northwestern scored 20 against Illinois (plus another TD on defense), 23 against Wisconsin, and 38 against Texas Tech. The QB play declined, to be sure, but that wasn't really reflected on the scoreboard.</span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The <a href="http://northwestern.scout.com/2/1086880.html">Argument for the Defense</a> (Rebutted)</span></b><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Passing yards are usually a good indication of a quarterback’s success or failure. For the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks, this number can vary. 2001 Heisman winner <a href="http://northwestern.scout.com/a.z?s=179&p=8&c=1&nid=3885352" style="color: #520063; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Eric Crouch</a> only compiled 1,510 passing yards, while 2008 winner <a href="http://northwestern.scout.com/a.z?s=179&p=8&c=1&nid=5092421" style="color: #520063; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sam Bradford</a> threw for a whopping 4,721 yards. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The last nine Heisman winners have averaged 3,044 passing yards. To put it in perspective, if Dan Persa were to stay healthy in 2010, he would have surpassed that average with 3,355 passing yards.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Eric Crouch is doing a lot of work there; take him out and the average bumps up to 3235 yards. Persa's (unlikely) projected numbers are still higher. So was Ben Chappell's, along with 18 other QBs.</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The previous nine quarterbacks to win the Heisman Trophy have averaged more than 39.8 touchdowns in their Heisman-winning season. That number includes passing and rushing touchdowns—in fairness to the dual-threat quarterbacks. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Last season, Dan Persa was on pace to finish with 31.2 total touchdowns—just a bit shy of the average. However, 2004 winner <a href="http://northwestern.scout.com/a.z?s=179&p=8&c=1&nid=4832610" style="color: #520063; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Matt Leinart</a> and 2006 winner <a href="http://northwestern.scout.com/a.z?s=179&p=8&c=1&nid=5180295" style="color: #520063; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Troy Smith</a> each finished with 31 touchdowns in their respective Heisman campaigns</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">31 is not a bit shy of 39. It is not even 80% of 39. Once again, leave aside the questionable projections; Leinart and Troy Smith were special cases on teams that made the national championship game. The Capital One Bowl would be an accomplishment for Persa and the Wildcats this year.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; line-height: 15px;">The last nine quarterbacks to hoist the Heisman have combined for 11.8 wins in their trophy-winning seasons. Of that group, only Cam Newton and Matt Leinart led their teams to a national title, while 2007 winner Tim Tebow won the award while winning seven games.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Tim Tebow won nine games, but who is counting? He also set the TD record for a single season. He also had fewer wins than the other recent Heisman winners. </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Dan Persa led the Wildcats to seven wins in 2010, but the team more than likely would’ve added more if their starter had stayed healthy. This season, the Wildcats have their sights set on bigger and better things. Like Cam Newton—who took his team from winning seven games in 2009 to winning a championship in 2010—Persa hopes his efforts help the Wildcats to more wins.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Cam Newton was playing for a junior college in Texas while Auburn was going 8-5 (maybe Northwestern fans forgot that they actually lost that bowl game against Auburn). The difference between Chris Todd and Cam Newton is a mite bigger than the difference between Dan Persa 2010 and Dan Persa 2011.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Northwestern fans: you have a quality team returning for an unprecedented fourth straight bowl eligible season. You have multiple prime time home games this season. You are genuinely starting to piss off Iowa fans and develop a genuine rivalry. Things are looking up. Don't oversell your case. </span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-995496066328879992011-07-18T20:38:00.001-05:002011-07-18T20:38:25.105-05:00ESPN Ombudsman: We Totally Suspended Bruce Feldman, But You Are Ignorant For Calling It That<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/6781816/bruce-feldman-saga-espn-marked-bad-decisions">Blech</a>:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The recent flap over Bruce Feldman's non-suspension for writing a book on behalf of a guy now suing ESPN for libel has been characterized as (A) a Twitter revolution, (B) an ESPN house of cards, (C) Twitterati gone wild.</span></blockquote><blockquote style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In fact, it's all of the above and more. To date, this is the most complicated ESPN issue we've tackled at the Poynter Review Project.</span></blockquote><blockquote style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Here are some of our findings, based on a weekend of reporting:</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">What s strange circumlocution: your findings based on a weekend of reporting? Whose reporting? Yours? ESPN's? Anyway, lets get to it.</span></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> ESPN did not suspend Feldman. Instead managers asked him Thursday to not publish anything online, or go on the air, for what turned out to be roughly 24 hours, while they figured things out.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Maybe I lack the nuance of an ESPN ombudsman, but being asked to not do your job sounds <i>exactly like a suspension</i>.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The sports gossip blog <a href="http://sportsbybrooks.com/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #225fb2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sports by Brooks</a> erroneously reported that Feldman had been suspended indefinitely, igniting a Twitter wildfire that has yet to be contained.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So, Feldman was suspended, and he wasn't told how long the suspension would last, but it wasn't an indefinite suspension? I know that both of those words are polysyllabic, but they're not that ambiguous.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Managers gave Feldman the all-clear on Friday afternoon, but Feldman as of Monday morning had yet to tweet or make any public statements, even to explain why he's not saying anything.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Maybe he's pissed. Maybe he's looking for new employment. Who knows? But notice that there was no acknowledgement that the unprecedented bad publicity played a role in any of this.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">ESPN officials approved Feldman's authoring then-Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach's autobiography, long before Leach was fired by the university and sued ESPN.</span> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">When Leach filed the lawsuit against ESPN, it's clear to us that Feldman's involvement with the book became an impossible conflict. But Feldman failed to seek and the network failed to provide clear guidance.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I cannot reconcile these two paragraphs. ESPN gave a thumbs-up, but Feldman didn't seek out guidance? Didn't he get the guidance when he received permission from ESPN to write the book? Also, isn't the continued employment of Craig James an equally, if not more, impossible conflict of interest?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Some of these questions are half-assedly answered later in the column.</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;">ESPN </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2011/07/15/espn-statement-regarding-bruce-feldman/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #225fb2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">pointed out the error</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"> almost 24 hours later in a news release, igniting further argument over the difference between being suspended and merely being asked to take a break. This is more than just semantics. A suspension is a disciplinary action involving human resources, a record in your file and not being allowed onto the company premises for a period of time. Several people on that phone call reported to us that Feldman specifically asked whether he was being suspended and that he was told no.</span> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"></span>Lying low and staying out of the public eye is different than being forced to stay home from work.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is lawyer-speak. I am well versed in it. When you are a reporter in the public eye, being told to "lay low" is exactly the same as a suspension, whether or not you go through the official HR channels.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The rest of the article is tut-tutting about not having facts, all based around the faulty premise that it is a fact that Feldman was not suspended. This is not fact.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This saga also opens up a question of whether ESPN can be trusted about any reporting in the future, especially when quotes like this enter the public domain:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As the college football season heats up, ESPN must still figure out what Feldman can report on independently. When a reporter has a clear conflict, it's standard in journalism to isolate that reporter from the conflict. Having authored a book in Leach's voice, Feldman clearly can't cover Leach, or Texas Tech, anymore. Leach's former staffers, who are now spread far and wide -- some of them now head coaches -- make for questionable material too. Is the entire Big 12 off limits? Feldman's bosses, King and Millman, are still trying to figure that out, which probably explains Feldman's self-imposed silence.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Why stop at Feldman? Given ESPN's conflict of interest, can any reporter be trusted to report on Leach, Leach's coaching tree, or the Big 12? Given the Big Ten's (And Pac 12's) growing independence from the network, can they be trusted to report on the conference accurately? When you have a virtual monopoly on sports journalism broadcasting in many markets, are those markets completely foreclosed from accurate reporting on a subject because of those conflicts of interest. Oh, and while we are in Conflict of Interest Land, what about the accusations that Spaeth Communications (employed by Craig James) was providing ESPN reporters with most of their information during the Adam James saga.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Here's a simple rule of thumb: when the entire non-affiliated relevant broadcasting says that what you are going is slimy, you are going to need to do better than finely parsing the definition of the word suspension. And if your ombudsman can't see what every other journalist immediately saw, then why bother having an ombudsman?</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-65964706137068049882011-06-20T22:37:00.001-05:002011-06-20T22:40:59.016-05:00So, Should We Ignore All That BCS Stuff?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Jim Delany is <a href="http://www.omaha.com/article/20110618/CWS/706189786">none too pleased</a> with southern and western (read: non-Big Ten) domination of the college baseball world series: </span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">College baseball isn't fair to Big Ten schools, Delany says. And for 10 years, he's fought like hell to level the playing field. He gives himself an “A” for effort.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">“But if I were giving myself a grade for getting on base and driving in runs, it would be a very low grade.”</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Perception says the Big Ten doesn't care about baseball. But no administrator in America has pressed harder to revamp the system. Delany's biggest ideas:</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">• Adopt a national start date in March or April and move the season deeper into summer.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">• Devalue the RPI, which favors Sun Belt schools.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">• Ditch the current method of national seeding and return to regional qualification for the College World Series.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">College baseball's answer: No. No. No.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Then, last summer, Delany formally proposed the CWS move from eight teams to 10, with the two new slots reserved for cold-weather schools. Cold shoulder again.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">“I've got no more proposals,” Delany told the World-Herald. “I'm out of ideas. What else can we possibly do?”</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> In response to Delany's proposals, Sun Belt commissioner Wright Walters had this to say:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><em style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The problem is you want your conference to take away opportunities for my teams, to play on the stage our teams created in 1947.</span></em></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just kidding! <a href="http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/21017/delany-stands-up-for-big-tens-rose-access">That's what Delany said</a>, with a few minor alterations, about BCS access this past winter when the Mountain West pitched a fit about the uneven playing field.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I supported Delany then, and I support the principal now. The major conferences, Big Ten and SEC foremost among them, drive most of the interest in college football. The stage is their stage, and if they don't care to cut ever-larger slices to conference that cannot fill 30,000 person stadiums, then swell. But the converse applies as well in those rare circumstances where the Big Ten can't compete against the big boys like, uh, Cal State Fullerton and Fresno State. The College World Series is their big stage, and the Big Ten shouldn't be guaranteed a few spots on that stage just because it has teams north of the 40th parallel. </span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-51046148151741339592011-06-19T18:25:00.000-05:002011-06-19T18:25:22.278-05:00Phil Mushnick, Professional Concern Troll<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><img src="http://trollcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/concerned_trollcat.jpg" /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Rich Rodriguez will be appearing on CBS College Sports next season, and <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/more_sports/isn_that_just_rich_ZPStYVCVPzOWeE6M974NfI/0">New York Post Really Old Guy Phil Mushnick that is a very bad thing</a>. Normally I'd link the pertinent sections and laugh, but this deserves the full fisk:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a class="topiclink" href="http://www.nypost.com/t/CBS" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Cbs </a>[sic] Sports Network has hired Rich Rod riguez as a college football game and studio analyst. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The same<a class="topiclink" href="http://www.nypost.com/t/Rich_Rodriguez" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"> Rich Rodriguez </a>who regularly recruited and indulged criminals and assorted bad boys as the head coach at West Virginia and then Michigan? </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yeah, that one. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a class="topiclink" href="http://www.nypost.com/t/Pacman_Jones" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Pacman Jones </a>and the late Chris Henry, for example, starred for Rodriguez at WVU. Both would accumulate rap sheets as thick as playbooks. But such players helped land Rodriguez the gig at Michigan, where the stadium they call "The Big House," began to take on the other meaning.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As Adam Jacobi points out, Pacman Jones and Chris Henry combined for one offense during their time at West Virginia, a fight for which Jones received a suspension. Those two accumulated lengthy rap sheets as professionals. Abolish the NFL! Unless bored football players<a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6575570"> start assaulting people, of course</a>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As for the crack at Michigan, once again, as Jacobi points out, Rodriguez's tenure was known for a lot of lulzy things but not for all uncontrolled criminal malfeasance</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Mushnick continues:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">1. Big-time college football and basketball are as crooked as the lines on a polygraph. American universities continue to serve as see-through false fronts. Few college presidents, ADs or head coaches could beat racketeering indictments.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I think most college presidents can go to sleep easy knowing that they are not going to be <a href="http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Racketeering">convicted of extortion or heading criminal enterprises</a>. (Note to writers: Don't use legal terms the definition of which you haven't the foggiest notion. See also: antitrust).</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That many football and basketball players -- recruited at great expense -- have no other business enrolled in the college has been a given since Bear Bryant was just a cub. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">No school's charter, especially the charters of tax-funded state colleges, mentions a thing about football or basketball. They stress education and its benefits to society.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The charters don't mention anything about movies on the quad, free condoms, or music schools either, and they do all those things. And they've been playing football for much longer than most of those activities. The first game was played in 1867; good luck stuffing that genie back into the bottle.</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">2. The primary underwriters of this racketeering are TV networks. It's their money that drives the armored trucks. TV networks make no moral value judgments as to who gets their money (see: CBS, Charlie Sheen). A dirty conference stocked with powerhouse teams will be generously funded before all others. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Fox and<a class="topiclink" href="http://www.nypost.com/t/ESPN" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"> ESPN </a>recently signed on to pay about $3 billion over 12 years to broadcast football and basketball for the soon-to-be Pac-12. It's easy. You hold your nose with one hand, sign with the other. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And then, to add to the insidious lunacy, you instruct your broadcasters to shill it up, to see and speak no evil. Why? Would any conference otherwise refuse to cash your checks?</span></blockquote><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">TV networks are evul because Charlie Sheen.</span></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">3. Big-time coaches who fall, regardless of why, are "taken care of" by TV. They're hired as analysts, hired for their "expertise," though their expertise on exactly what it takes to succeed is left unspoken.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">College head coaches are hired because people know who they are and because every single head coach knows way, way more about football than you do. I know, I know, Ron Zook is clueless and Joe Paterno is old and Ron Prince and Mike Locksley and all the rest, but as much fun as it is to make fun of those guys, they know more about football than almost anyone in the world. This makes them more viable candidates for jobs that call for talking about football than, say, sports media journalists. And Rodriguez isn't even a dope; at minimum, he is one of the architects of the spread football revolution, one of the top offensive minds in college football, and will be a head coach somewhere within a year or two. I think that works for qualifications, Phil.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Colleges typically dangle large cash bonuses to coaches for a certain number of wins, for making bowl games and postseason tournaments. How do such incentives serve anything other than exacerbating the win-at-all-costs corruption?</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">They give bonuses for graduation rates too. But yes, schools like winning. News at 11.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a class="topiclink" href="http://www.nypost.com/t/CBS" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">CBS </a>Sports Network, a fairly new entity, is just working off the same old plan. TV is loaded with college football and basketball coaches who were hired and fired for the same bad reasons. What should disqualify you only enhances your chances. But where do the clean guys go for a TV gig?</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Is Urban Meyer dirty? Bob Davie? Steve Lavin?</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And 'round and 'round, lower and lower we go. And we call it <em>college</em> athletics. Yahoos, here there and everywhere, lap it up, love it, don't care if it's crooked. Besides, your school's more crooked than theirs!</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Take that, yahoos!</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So how does American society benefit from all this? What's our payoff for indulging this? What do we get in return for making college basketball and football coaches the highest-paid, by far, state or university employees? </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Beats me.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Ugh one sentence paragraph endings. But leaving that aside, since when must everything exist for the benefit of American society? Besides from hilarious penis joke headlines, how does the New York Post benefit American society? How does Phil Mushnick benefit American society? How do any sports benefit American society? And what a strange standard to set.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>BONUS MUSHNICK COVERAGE</b>: believe it or not, this wasn't the dumbest part of today's article:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">SO Plaxico Burress exits prison wearing a red Phillies' cap, a hoodie over the cap, sunglasses and shorts (Was it hot out or cold?) claiming to be a changed man. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hmmm. Put me down as "undecided."</span></blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">What could possibly be the point of this little aside? If he genuinely doesn't know, why include it? You could literally put anything in that spot and it would make as much sense ("Is Plato's Republic still relevant in 21st Century America? Hmmmm. Put me down as undecided.")</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Obviously, this isn't what he really means. Mushnick is winking at his audience--look how this hoodlum dresses!--and hoping the readers catch on. Replace "SO" with "I'M NOT RACIST BUT" and you'll get the full effect, and yes, if you can blithely state that you can pick a college coach's name out of a hat and find someone indictable under RICO, I can play the race card. Trollface is as trollface does.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Maybe Mushnick would prefer if college coaches just avoided recruiting players that look like Plexico Burress? (One more sentence here. Will not close with one-sentence zinger ending).</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span></span></span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-81251185951958732622011-06-18T21:17:00.000-05:002011-06-18T21:17:08.077-05:00Where the Players Own the Game<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Will Leitch in the Atlantic identifies what the magazine thinks is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-14-biggest-ideas-of-the-year/8556/3/">one of the 14 Biggest Ideas of the Year</a> (and by extension, the biggest idea in sports this past year):</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">The world of sports is able to exist because it treats its labor unlike any other business on Earth. If you are an accountant, a librarian, a car salesman, whatever, when you receive an offer from anyone in the world for your services, you are able to take it. You can work anywhere, for whatever wage you’re able to grab. If this happened in sports, the result would be chaos: every team’s roster would turn over every year, and all the talent would be concentrated on two or three teams (even more than it already is). So much of a sport’s appeal is in the illusion of team history and continuity; unbridled free agency would destroy that illusion. For all the talk of supposed “rich and spoiled athletes,” few other industries can get away with labor practices that essentially amount to high-paid indentured servitude for the players.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> </span> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">LeBron’s example marks an evolution in athlete culture, one in which players realize their power. You’re seeing this everywhere now, from the NFL and NBA labor battles to the better understanding of concussions and athlete safety. For their part, fans are better educated than they’ve ever been (thanks to the Web) and are starting to side with the players in kerfuffles like labor disputes. Fans used to feel that owners somehow “earned” their money, while pro athletes were just fortunate winners of a genetic lottery. This is the exact opposite of the truth. (Holding on to your job is about 95 million times harder for a player than for an owner.) Sure, guys like LeBron and Carmelo Anthony are seen as mercenaries, but from a business standpoint, we understand their leverage ... and even appreciate and envy it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Basketball is a bit unique because the NBA salary cap restricts how much individual players can make. Lots of players are "maximum" level, and if they decide to change teams, every team in the league with cap space will offer them the maximum. In those situations, players use secondary factors, like favorable tax environments or climate, to make decisions.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But the NBA is the exception to the rule. One thing that has always alienated me from professional sports is that players have very little control over their career. Once drafted, the player is stuck with that organization for at least one year no matter what. When they try to get out of that situation, they are <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/141703496505">portrayed</a> <a href="http://roadsidephotos.sabr.org/baseball/jddrew.htm">negatively</a> by the media and fans. When they reach free agency, they generally just follow the money--there are exceptions, of course, but they are just that: exceptions. Your favorite player on your favorite professional team is there either because he is contractually obligated, or because they threw the most money at him. It is hard to romanticize that.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That's not to say the system is evil or that players shouldn't chase money (though I absolutely despise the draft process). And it's not to say that college players don't chase money, too. But just as you make a decision as to where to go to college or which team to cheer for, every college athlete makes a decision (mostly) severed from economic considerations to attend that institution. A linebacker is a Packer or Bear or Lion or Viking by coincidence; he is a Badger or a Wildcat or a Wolverine or a Gopher by choice. If LeBron's Decision leads to a professional sports environment where athletes have true attachment to their locales, that is the best news I've heard all year.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-32129105459167209722011-06-17T12:35:00.000-05:002011-06-17T12:35:23.219-05:00Let Agents Pay the Players<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://buckeyefansonly.com/images/Gold_Pants.jpg" /></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I share <a href="http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1253">John Gasaway's beliefs about amateurism</a> and see the NCAA's attempts to define amateurism as "accepting no benefits besides a scholarship from anyone ever) as misguided. I also think there are a few low-hanging fruit situations where athletes are clearly getting a raw deal. Case in point: EA Sports sold about 1.5 million copies of NCAA Football 2011<a href="http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/45851/ncaa-football-11/"> for XBox 360</a> and <a href="http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/45852/ncaa-football-11/">PS3</a>. If they sold the game for $5 more, maybe sales fall to 1 million (assuming an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand">unrealistically inelastic demand curve</a>), but that $5,000,000 could be given back to the players through the NCAA. It wouldn't be a huge amount of money even then (less than $1000 per player), but it would be equitable--every DI player that had his likeness in the game would get the money--and fair--the game gets every single detail about these players correct <i>except</i> the names, so they are effectively already using their likeness. If the NCAA wanted to play hardball on this I have no doubt that the changes would be implemented immediately.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The argument for allowing players to sell their stuff is also easy, although it assumes no second-stage problems. What I mean is this: there was a mini-uproar after the A.J. Green jersey sale suspension, and later during Gold Pantsgate, as to whether players should be allowed to sell their own stuff, with lots of people coming down on the side of "this is America so yes." And as a first-stage approximation I think this is correct. Some players <a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/2011/04/division-i-athletes-are-overpaid.html">are more valuable than others</a>, and a good way of letting those players benefit without exacerbating the differences between the <a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/screw-meac.html">SEC and the MEAC</a> would be to let the valuable players sell stuff that other people want. Third parties, and not strapped athletic departments, will then foot the bill.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The second-stage problem is, what happens when teams start giving players cheap crap that they can then sell on the open market. Think of the Gold Pants problem, only if the Gold Pants were made of tin. Every Ohio State player gets Very Special Tin Pants with their initials engraved, and those Tin Pants cost the school $10 each. Boosters know about the Tin Pants arrangement and pay $1,000 a pair for them. There is no difference between this arrangement than the boosters giving that money to the players directly, or the boosters giving that money to the school to give to the players. And I'm not sure how to avoid these fake secondary markets for crappy trinkets that will undoubtedly spring up purely as a way of providing backdoor salaries.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The only solution I can imagine is to permit binding agent relationships on the players at any point during their collegiate careers. In other words, players can agree to agents while in school, and those agents can give money to the players once those players have signed. However, the player must use that agent for his first contract in whatever professional league they next play. Now, agents have a vested interest in finding the best players; they won't just throw money at the backup long-snapper on Auburn because he goes to Auburn. Those few players that are actually underpaid can earn something approximating their true value early, and third parties will take on the risk. There will have to be rules protecting against unconscionable agreements and all that, but the details don't seem all that hard to fill in. And despite my protestations that I really could not care less about the MEAC, this rule will help better protect the little conferences; agents will be more interest in talent than name recognition, and if you are a safety at Southeast Missouri State that will definitely go in the top three rounds of the NFL draft, and agent somewhere will throw money at you to sign.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-74327026533182467602011-06-01T11:09:00.002-05:002011-06-01T11:10:57.843-05:00Rules Are Made To Be Broken<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The official Big Twen Position on Intercollegiate Athlete Compensation is as follows: <a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/2011/04/division-i-athletes-are-overpaid.html">most D-1 athletes are overpaid</a> relative to what they would get in a truly free market, even in the revenue sports. All efforts at capping total compensation, including by preventing players from selling merchandise, are attempts to level the playing field between programs. <a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/big-ten-to-start-paying-more-for.html">Recent proposals to increase the amount of aid</a> to players are <a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/will-paying-players-destroy-college.html">no different in principal than attempts to allow players to sell swag</a>. Any changes to the system in favor of greater compensation will likely result in greater disparity between the Big Ten and the MEAC (<a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/search/label/Death%20to%20the%20MEAC">and I'm fine with that</a>) and fewer athletes overall on scholarship at their schools (I'm a bit more uncomfortable with that but on the fence).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">What the reaction to the Big Ten scholarship proposal made quite clear is that very small amounts of additional money ($3000/year per <i>revenue</i> athlete, plus Title IX costs) are enough to threaten smaller programs. Unless we're going to go beyond "Screw the MEAC" to "Screw the Mountain West and Maybe the Big East Too," any compensation proposals will have to be limited. If we are going to say firmly grounded in the world of reality, the difference between paying the players and not paying the players is going to be a couple thousand dollars a year per athlete.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Which is why <a href="http://www.blackheartgoldpants.com/2011/5/31/2197650/on-jim-tressels-resignation-and-jim-delanys-efforts-to-make-sure-it">I don't believe this for a second</a>:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Jim Tressel resigned today, after the weight of allegations against him and his program became too much to bear. There is a Sports Illustrated piece on the way that threatens to blow apart the basics of what Tressel actually did to warrant his hasty resignation, but to date we know his players sold memorabilia and received sweetheart deals from local auto dealers, he knew of it, and not only did he do nothing to stop it but signed a piece of paper saying he had no knowledge of it. If this were simply the tattoo story from December, we would not be here. It was a conspiracy of one that brought down The Great Sweatervest, and it's solely and completely his fault that his career at Ohio State ended this morning. This post is not about that. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><sup style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><br />
</sup>No, this post is about what's being done to prevent it from happening again. Because as long as the college football system -- and, for that matter, the NCAA system in general -- continues to exploit student athletes, it will happen, and happen repeatedly. Jim Tressel did what he did not because he wanted to gain an advantage, <i style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">per se</i>; take a look at the cars your team's players are driving and tell me auto dealers in Columbus are acting alone. Rather, Tressel did what he did because he wanted to protect his players from breaking a rule that he and his players clearly felt was improper and insignificant. And he's right. And it's why Jim Delany's plan to increase scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance will save us from a repeat performance.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So long as we cap total compensation, we will have to prevent players from going over that cap. Some won't want to do this, like when, for example, car dealers decide they want to contribute to the team in the best way they know how. More money is always better than less money, and a certain type of player will always select the more money option regardless of whether there are rules in place to stop him or whether he is already getting money from the school. There might be some<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-0601-haugh-ohio-state--20110531,0,5278454.column"> marginal deterrence at the edges</a>, but the players willing to wantonly violate the rules, as Terrelle Pryor and others are alleged to have done, are unlikely to be dissuaded by $10 a day. As long as there are rules, Terrelle Pryors will exist to skirt those rules.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-10895853688762332562011-05-31T16:34:00.001-05:002011-05-31T16:34:30.302-05:00Tressel from Every Angle<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The Postmortem</b>: <a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/magazine/05/30/jim.tressel/">Dohrmann essay = bleh</a>. Lots of things we knew, a few fun but irrelevant tidbits from the past, and anonymous sourcing; something tells me the author won't be winning another Pulitzer for this one. (Did you hear that George Dohrmann won the Pulitzer? Pulitzer Dohrmann Dohrmann Pulitzer Pulitzer!)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The Reaction</b>: <a href="http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2011/05/sports-illustrateds-expose-the-lion-that-squeaked">Ohio State fans are blasé</a>. <a href="http://alioneye.com/2011/05/31/so-youre-telling-me-theres-a-chance/">Every</a> <a href="http://www.buckys5thquarter.com/2011/5/30/2197229/per-espn-jim-tressel-resigns-from-ohio-state">other</a> <a href="http://www.hammerandrails.com/2011/5/31/2199204/the-jim-tressel-resignation-what-does-it-mean-for-purdue">fan</a> base sees this as an opportunity to ascend the conference ladder. Except for Indiana fans.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The Candidates</b>: No one has any clue. Much will depend upon just how severely Ohio State is hammered by the NCAA; it's tough to believe that an Urban Meyer type candidate will want to take on a reclamation project. Remember, USC had to go with their fourth or fifth option after getting hit with sanctions, and USC is arguably a better job than Ohio State (the weather is nicer, at least). I'm putting exactly zero credence into any of the lists floating around.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The 2011 Season</b>: Who knows. The biggest question mark is whether Terrelle Pryor after game five; opinions seem to range from "<a href="http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2011/05/pryors-ohio-state-career-said-to-be-over">probably not</a>" to "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd9KKbLLWPI">absolutely not</a>." If Pryor is gone, Ohio State will be starting either a true freshman or Joe Bauserman, a lesser-of-two-evils situation if ever there was one.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Unfortunately for Buckeye fans, the pain potentially doesn't end there. The NCAA meeting is set for mid-August, so there probably won't be enough time for a 2011 bowl ban or scholarship reduction. But Pryor wasn't the only player suspended for the first five games next year, and while the others haven't been implicated in the automobile-related hijinks, further suspension isn't out of the question. And Dohrmann's piece suggested that many more players on the Buckeyes have received improper benefits. Without better sourcing than Dohrmann provides, however, the NCAA is going to be hard pressed to follow up on those claims.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-18852876973640128532011-05-30T08:51:00.000-05:002011-05-30T08:51:35.884-05:00Tressel Resigns<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Not a shock that it happened, but <a href="http://www.osu.edu/news/newsitem3139#fb">certainly surprising that it happened before the 2011 season</a>:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Ohio State University announced today that it has accepted the resignation of Jim Tressel as head coach of its football program. Luke Fickell will serve as interim head coach for the 2011-2012 football season. Recruitment for a new head coach – which is expected to include external and internal candidates – will not commence until the conclusion of the 2011-2012 season. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">“In consultation with the senior leadership of the Board of Trustees, I have been actively reviewing matters attendant to our football program, and I have accepted Coach Tressel’s resignation,” said President E. Gordon Gee. “The University’s enduring public purposes and its tradition of excellence continue to guide our actions.”</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Boom. We're still working with incomplete information on this (the George Dohrmann story scheduled to go up on SI.com later today will help explain some things), so any speculation beyond what is known seems unnecessarily premature. I'll post some extended thoughts once the article is released.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-4867272203236170982011-05-29T23:54:00.000-05:002011-05-29T23:54:12.187-05:00Big Ten Could Extend Invitations to Maryland and Georgia Tech. Wait, What?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Boston Globe has a thumbsucker today on <a href="http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/mens_basketball/articles/2011/05/26/for_big_east_where_is_all_this_leading/?page=full">the strength of the Big East's position</a> and college football television negotiations generally. But in a classic example of burying the lede, the article includes this paragraph, almost as a throwaway:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There may be more trouble coming for the Big East if the Big Ten decides to move forward again in a few years; already there are rumblings that it might go to 14 teams, with an eye on Georgia Tech and Maryland, which would significantly increase its television footprint.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Those rumblings must be awfully low frequency, because it's the first I'm hearing of them, and I'm pretty compulsive about reading every news-like substance about the Big Ten.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Neither school makes much sense. Georgia Tech in particular would stretch the geographic footprint perhaps beyond the breaking point. Yes, new television markets are great, but every non-revenue team is going to have to travel to Atlanta (or, in Georgia Tech's case, to Chicago, and Minneapolis, and State College, and Lincoln). Those airline miles add up on a budget. And while Maryland and Georgia Tech are fine programs, well, when's the last time you make a point of watching a Terrapins football game?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For the Big Ten to extend an invitation for another team, that program has to be able <a href="http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/the-settling-conference-realignment-landscape/">to create $30 million or so in revenue for the league to break even</a>. Otherwise, further expansion is a net loss for the other twelve programs in the conference. Without further verification, I'd chalk this rumor up to "journalist needs to make deadline and fill space," and nothing more. Next time, at least choose plausible teams.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-81698199735979344682011-05-27T00:26:00.000-05:002011-05-27T00:26:55.028-05:00The College Football Stock Bubble<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I think <a href="http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/15164424/army-navy-might-hold-key-to-big-east-football-expansion">we've seen this before</a>:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Big East is now officially on the clock. The league has until September 2012 to determine its football membership because that's when ESPN's 60-day exclusive media rights renegotiating window with the league begins. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So what schools will the Big East add? Numerous candidates have been mentioned including Villanova, Central Florida, East Carolina and Houston. However, college industry sources told CBSSports.com the league is also considering the possibility <b>of pursuing Army and Navy as football members to get to 12 teams</b>. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"I believe the league will approach the academies first and if they turn the Big East down, then they'll approach the other candidates," a college football industry source said. "There are a lot of hurdles to overcome. The Big East would have to convince them that's where they want to be."</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The league would be attracted to Army and Navy because of their national appeal and also because the schools could join as football-only members. If they joined, along with another member, to get the Big East to 12 schools, a championship game would be on the table.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The only real difference between the housing bubble and this is that, when television networks realize how much money they are paying for Army vs. USF and have to recoup that money somehow, it's not going to wipe out vital sectors of the American economy. But minor distinctions like that aside, this is lunacy. With all due respect to the service academies, whose fine young men not only entertain us but risk their lives for us, no one cares about their teams except for when they play Notre Dame or each other. And, they usually stink, though the past few years have been a welcome respite from that.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Someone here is wrong, and you get three options. If I'm wrong, college conferences can shuffle and repackage leagues into tranches that everyone will love and the amount television networks will pay for these games will keep going up until the sun goes supernova. If the Big East is wrong, ESPN isn't going to care a whit about the infinitesimal fraction of the New York market Army brings. If ESPN is wrong, they're going to have an awfully funny-looking television contract in 2016 when people don't suddenly start caring about Navy football just because they might end up in the Orange Bowl at season's end and because their presence is necessary for a Big East Championship Game. It's a shame that ESPN is a fully-owned subsidiary, because if it's the third option, I'd love to be able to short that stock before people realize that all the Bud Light commercials in the world can't eternally finance multi-million dollar deals for the Flotsam-Jetsam conference.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-87891957754427520872011-05-26T10:34:00.000-05:002011-05-26T10:34:06.600-05:00By The Numbers: Big Ten Records Since 1995<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The invaluable Northwestern blog <a href="http://www.laketheposts.com/">Lake The Posts</a> (the good kind of invaluable, like peace or love) has a post on the records of t<a href="http://www.laketheposts.com/index.php/2011/05/stacking-up-the-stats-clip-n-save-edition/">he Big Ten football teams over the past 15 years</a>, along with a few other interesting tidbits like the bowl records during that time. Because they're just excel screenshots I am going to shamelessly misappropriate the graphics from over there:</span><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He has the total record figures as well, but I find those less interesting because quality in schedules tends to vary quite a bit. That's true of conference schedules as well (two teams got a chance to miss Ohio State every year) but with the revolving schedule that tended to even out a bit better.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A few things that jump out to me:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The Big Ten is not, nor has ever been, the Big Three of Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State</b>: There was a lot of talk during the last offseason about the Big Ten Great Chain of Being, partly because of the need to split the divisions and partly because Michigan's fall from grace left a hole at the top of the standings. While Penn State has been a quality program over the past 15 years, Wisconsin deserves just as much, if not more, credit as a top-class Big Ten football program. Since 2000, the conference has been split between five quality programs (Ohio State, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Penn State) and six mediocre or bad programs, with a clear break between Penn State and Purdue/MSU. But Iowa and Wisconsin tend to get left out of the "top program" talk, for whatever reason.</span></li>
</ul><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Northwestern hasn't been "Northwestern" since before high schoolers were conceived</b>: Those 1995 and 1996 seasons are doing a lot of the work in the 15 year breakdown, but look at the 10 year breakdown and you'll see a program that 1.) averaged 3.5 wins a season, 2.) is just behind Michigan State and Purdue, and 3.) has put clear distance between Minnesota, Illinois, and Indiana.</span></li>
</ul><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Indiana has been consistent, and awful</b>: From 1995-99, the Hoosiers won 9 games. Indiana won 8 games the next five years, and 9 games in the past five years. They managed to cram enough of those wins into 2007 to make a bowl game, but through Mallory, Randle-El, Hoeppner, and Lynch, it has been Indiana's manifest destiny to go 2-6 most years with a few awful seasons thrown in for good measure. I know this isn't breaking news, but the steadiness of the suck is peculiar.</span></li>
</ul><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>There has been a clear upper, middle, and lower class over the past five seasons</b>: Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Penn State have separated themselves from the pack (good thing all three were put into the same division), while only one win per season separates Iowa and Michigan State at 4th from Illinois and Purdue at 8th. The aggregate numbers obscure some things--Northwestern and Purdue have been steady as she goes while Illinois and Michigan have flopped from wild success to incompetence, but in total there isn't much separating those six programs recently.</span></li>
</ul>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-78982878733253333322011-05-25T15:27:00.001-05:002011-05-25T15:28:34.577-05:00Screw the MEAC<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm <a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/will-paying-players-destroy-college.html">sympathetic to complaints</a> that the Big Ten and other major conferences are trying to put the screws to mid-majors because, hey, I <a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/schools-are-not-profiting-from-bowl.html">actually agree with that</a>. The ur-text to the announcement about the Big Ten maybe possibly perhaps looking into providing its players with a little something for expenses was that maybe it's time for the MAC to GTFO of Division I, or at least the juicy, expensive part of Division I. Your feelings about that will probably depend upon your attachment to the Western Michigan athletic program and its ilk.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So I can at least <a href="http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/31322/big-ten-scholarship-proposal-bad-for-hoops">understand the concerns</a> about the Big Ten proposal being an iron fist of robber baron competitiveness in the velvet glove of student-athlete wellbeing, even if I disagree with them. This, on the other hand, <a href="http://gregg-doyel.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/5881996/29569430">is just nonsense</a>:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;">The NCAA just hammered some schools from the SWAC and MEAC for low graduation rates, which I find ironic -- given that the NCAA shows absolutely no intelligence at all by delivering that punishment.</span> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;">Of the 58 harshest penalties handed out by the NCAA for poor APR results,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><a href="http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/15160957/ncaa-penalizes-meac-swac-for-poor-academics" style="color: #3b5998; text-decoration: none;">half of them went to schools in those two conferences, </a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;">a lopsided amount given that historically black schools account for just 7 percent of NCAA's Division I.</span> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;">This isn't a black thing or a white thing, of course. It's a money thing. And leagues like the SWAC and MEAC -- leagues without BCS football or high-major (or even mid-major) basketball -- have no money at all.</span> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Schools such as UConn and Tennessee and Florida and UCLA have ample money to pay for incredible academic support services for athletes -- tutors, computers, advisors. Meanwhile, student-athletes in poorer leagues like the SWAC and MEAC make do with very little of that.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Part of the Grand Bargain that schools make by having athletic programs is that they have to make at least an honest pretense of educating the players. These are <i>schools</i>, after all. And we understand that, by and large, the kids playing football and basketball wouldn't have gotten into the universities if not for their athletic ability, and we understand that they are likely to struggle with their schoolwork more than the average student, so we expect that these <i>schools</i> (that word again) will provide the necessary resources for them to succeed. That's doubly true in the low conferences; the idea that kids at Prairie View A&M will be making a living on the hardwood is optimistic to the point of lunacy.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If Hampton or Coppin State or Jackson State can't even educate its players, then what the hell are they doing? They certainly aren't competing on the field (Kenpom has the MEAC and SWAC as the <a href="http://www.kenpom.com/conf.php?c=B10">worst two autobid conferences</a> in already-bloated D-I basketball). If they don't have the resources to compete <i>or</i> the resources to prepare its students for their future, maybe it's time for those schools to think for a few moments about their priorities. If they "don't have money at all," then stop spending that absence of money on D-I basketball and start spending it on more important things, like your students.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-88463623501850027722011-05-24T11:52:00.000-05:002011-05-24T11:52:00.408-05:00Basketball Coaches Are Human, Too<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/majerus_billiken_250.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">With <a 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">just one exception</a>, I am fully positive that college basketball coaches eat, sleep, breathe, and have fully formed emotions just like you and I. We want to be loved, and trust, and paid well, but not at the expense of hating every last waking moment of our lives and waiting with anxious hope for the moment that Spanish Flu returns to give us sweet repose from this world. On that note, despite being completely shocking before the switch, maybe Ed DeChellis's move to Navy <a href="http://blog.pennlive.com/davidjones/2011/05/dechellis_left_for_navy_becaus.html">isn't quite so inexplicable</a>:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This move looks like an absolute stunner on the surface – a high-major coach leaving for a low-major job and a pay cut of $200,000 annually. But a lot entered into it that makes it more easy to comprehend. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">DeChellis, now 52, is not interested in coaching more than another 8-10 years, tops. He felt a lack of respect and commitment from the Penn State administration. When he asked for raises for his assistants, one of whom is the lowest paid of 36 in the Big Ten, he was rebuked. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">After reaching the Big Ten tournament final and squeaking into the NCAA tournament for the first time in his tenure, he was unable to get an extension or raise on a contract lasting three more seasons. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">His daughters have completed college and are out of the house. His wife Kim, I've been told, loved the idea of living in a beautiful area bordering the major metro of Washington/Baltimore. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And there's the enchantment and majesty of the Academy, a spectacular campus full of people who follow a higher calling than bank accounts and pocket cash.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">John Gasaway, <a href="http://www.basketballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=702">echoing this</a>:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In the real world, where employment is kind of important, a person in the situation I’ve just described is going to update the top of their resume (”Became first coach in 17 years to lose a tournament game to the guy I lost to”) and start working their contacts. But DeChellis isn’t in the real world. Until yesterday he was a major-conference head coach. He’s supposed to barricade his office door and hold on for dear life. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And for what? To avoid the salary cut he’s now taking? If you’re Ed DeChellis in the spring of 2011, there’s a prohibitive likelihood that a salary cut is on the way, no matter what. By taking the job at Navy the coach has negotiated this cut on a timetable of his own making. Besides, any normal human would be thrilled to be pulling down a reported $450K in a quaint, historic, and highly livable Chesapeake town located in close proximity to substantial cities and airports. No, the Middies aren’t going to the Final Four anytime soon, but expectations at the 5700-seat Alumni Hall are set accordingly. Not to mention the unique nature of the Naval Academy’s student population means the regular recruiting grind is, mostly, a thing of the past for DeChellis. (He now has little or no reason to attend all those AAU events. Woe is Ed!)</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Sometimes ambition runs dry, and you realize that a little extra money isn't worth the gnawing pain at the back of your eyeballs. DeChellis took his alma mater to the NCAA Tournament and now gets to go into semi-retirement (relatively speaking of course; now his work load will drop to 40-60 hours a week), <a href="http://www.centredaily.com/2011/05/24/2731435/dechellis-takes-job-at-navy.html">earn half a million dollars</a> each year in a nicer area of the country, and he won't wake up every morning wondering whether he will have a job if 19 year olds don't make their free throws next February. You or I would have thought long and hard about making that same decision. It is a testament to the insanity of college coaches that more do not do the same.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-41949771076196180012011-05-23T16:43:00.001-05:002011-05-23T18:18:13.627-05:00Ed DeChellis to Lolwut<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://altrixsoft.com/en/trolololo.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(U mad?)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This <a href="http://www.navysports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/052311aaa.html">is peculiar</a>:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span></div><blockquote style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Naval Academy Director of Athletics Chet Gladchuk announced Monday that Penn State head coach Ed DeChellis is leaving his post at Happy Valley to become the 19th head basketball coach at the Naval Academy. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"To have one of the most highly respected coaches and educators in the sport join our Navy family is a great day for the program and the Academy," said Gladchuk. "Ed's maturity, integrity, character and accomplishments at Penn State have made him one of the most respected role models in the coaching ranks. His career is all about building programs with educational priorities in place, including graduating every senior that has ever played for him, and in the end achieving team goals that resonate with competing for championships. Ed will make a positive and impactful impression on Navy Basketball in short order."</span></blockquote><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Basketball Navy is not Football Navy. Football Navy runs a wonky system, rips through the rest of mid-majordom, and frustrates a major team or two along the way to an 8-5 record and bowl appearance. Basketball Navy, well, <a href="http://www.kenpom.com/team.php?team=Navy">sucks</a>.</span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have theories for the move, none of them very good:</span></div><br />
<ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse;"><b>DeChellis got tired of waiting for Penn State to get serious about basketball</b>. Maybe, but Penn State's "not serious about basketball" is about three standard deviations to the good side of the bell curve past what Navy can accomplish even with complete and utter dedication.</span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse;"><b>This is as good as things are going to get for Penn State, so best to get out while the getting is good</b>: Penn State will likely be quite awful next year, and DeChellis is on not very thick ice already, despite the NCAA Tournament appearance last year. Better to do the "you can't fire me, I quit" routine when you have some plausible deniability, not after you go 1-17. Still: Navy?</span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse;"><b>DeChellis is married to the sea</b>: Plausible.</span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse;"><b>DeChellis bought a house in Maryland when Greg Williams retired and now he can't back out</b>: Also plausible.</span></span></span></li>
</ul><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse;">Given the tempo Penn State basketball usually moves, expect DeChellis's replacement to be named sometime in 2013.</span></span></span></div>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-1474613382844289872011-05-23T14:33:00.000-05:002011-05-23T14:33:06.840-05:00Will Paying Players Destroy College Basketball?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I absolutely love John Gasaway, the original Big Ten Wonk, but I have to admit that I think <a href="http://www.basketballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=701">this isn't the most compelling argument</a> he has ever made:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If the Big Ten wants players in its revenue sports to have “full cost of attendance” scholarships, the league has the resources to make it happen. (They have the resources to make it happen even assuming the bottom-line figure would need to be doubled and shared with an equal number of non-revenue athletes in women’s sports to survive Title IX scrutiny.) But creating these new dollarships, while merely cementing existing imbalances in college football recruiting in place, would revolutionize college basketball recruiting overnight. The elite high school football player already chooses between programs that can afford full cost of attendance scholarships. Not so the top high school basketball talent. In a sport where TV exposure and NCAA bids are spread (relatively) far and wide, talent currently has far less incentive to travel in packs. That will change, dramatically, when major conference programs can offer recruits a better financial package than what mid-majors are able to afford. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">These are two very different sports — each with its own very different revenue model — and if you ask me if they share any needs in common I would cite just two things: better athletic directors and a new definition of amateurism. If you’re concerned that the very same SEC West football coaches who make plainly unprincipled decisions receive millions of dollars while their players struggle to afford a plane ticket home, the solution is two-pronged: 1) principled athletic directors creating compensation packages more aligned with empirical reality than with the HR equivalent of the mid-00s housing bubble; and 2) allowing stars in any college sport to strike whatever deals they can with agents and advertisers. Meantime tell college football no one wants them exporting their stale oligarchical ways to the one revenue sport where surprises actually happen.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">During the course of the last paragraph, Gasaway links to <a href="http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1343">his essay on amateurism</a>, which I encourage everyone to read when they get the opportunity. The Readers' Digest version is that the NCAA should allow deals between athletes and third-parties such as agents and clothing manufacturers, a suggestion with which I agree.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But the juxtaposition of that article and the complaints quoted above is jarring. NCAA protestations aside, the reason that college athletes have not been allowed to pursue these opportunities is because the playing field will be skewed even further towards major teams; Longhorns will sell a lot more jerseys than Owls of either the Rice or Temple variety. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Of course, it is already conventional wisdom that the Big Ten made their proposal to <a href="http://bigtwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/big-ten-to-start-paying-more-for.html">put the screws to the MAC and the Sun Belt</a>, so Gasaway's point might seem irrefutable. But the scheme only works because football teams are massive. Basketball programs only get 13 scholarships; an extra $5000 per scholarship is only $65,000 per year, or approximately one-and-a-half secretaries. Title IX will require an extra 13 Super Scholarships in women's sports as well, but we're still only at $130,000 per year, and if the athletic department at Long Beach State can't scrounge that together, maybe Division I just isn't for them.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Besides, it's doubtful whether slightly different compensation for athletes would even mean The End of Long Beach State, either in reality or in concept. Assuming that only the major conferences (major defined as "BCS auto-qualifying") adopt the Super Scholarship proposal and that those teams recruit three basketball players a year, that means about 222 recruits each year will accept major conference scholarships. (I'll call it 225 for simplicity's sake). Of the Rivals Top 150 recruits for 2011, <a href="http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/rankings/rank-2288">only 16 are headed to "mid-major" teams anyway</a>, even without Super Scholarships. (Those recruits are headed to Memphis, Charleston, Xavier (3), BYU, Harvard, Alcorn State, SMU, Western Kentucky (2), North Texas, Houston, George Mason, New Mexico, and Butler). And even of those schools, several would be either certain to pay the small amount of money (Xavier, BYU, Butler, maybe SMU, North Texas, and George Mason) or aren't paying money anyway (Harvard). A few players each season will choose Iowa State or Depaul over Wichita State because of the extra $10 a day, but is this really going to be enough to upset whatever balance of power exists in college basketball?</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">More likely, this proposal, like death, will focus the minds of athletic directors around the country. Men's basketball is still a revenue sport even as football drains athletic department coffers. Rather than pouring endless resources into football, many mid-level schools may decide that the Cinderella-friendly nature of college basketball provides greater bang for the athletic department buck. And unlike third-party contracts, compensation is capped; a top recruit is turning down perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars by choosing to play for Detroit or Central Michigan rather than Ohio State if they get to sell their personages while on campus. If competitive balance is the concern, the Big Ten proposal should be seen as the lesser of two evils by college hoops fans.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-30043402467573910052011-05-23T12:41:00.000-05:002011-05-23T12:41:08.054-05:00Ron Zook for Illinois AD<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><img src="http://www.jumboheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ron-zook-ready-to-rock1.jpg?w=300" /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(obligatory)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Longtime Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/ncf/news/story?id=6556280">announced his retirement last week</a>. Most of the focus has been on what effect that could have on <a href="http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/30990/weber-also-losing-supporter-in-ad-guenther">often-embattled coaches Bruce Weber</a> and <a href="http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/26675/zook-losing-top-ally-in-retiring-guenther">Ron Zook</a>, but seeing as how those programs have achieved at about their historical norm most years under those coaches, with one wildly successful season apiece, the danger to those two is probably a bit overstated. Zook in particular seems to have Illinois ensconced in the meaty middle of Big Ten teams, and while that doesn't sound like much, Illinois went over .500 twice in the past decade. Meaty middle is an accomplishment in Champaign, at least on the football field.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Judging from the past paragraph and the title of the post, you probably know where I'm going with this: isn't Ron Zook the perfect athletic director candidate? He has spent a lifetime in major conference college football, and while he hasn't been particularly successful, he probably has more of a sense of what it a coach needs to win than your average businessman or athletic department employee. The coach-to-athletic director move isn't unprecedented (the best athletic director in the Big Ten is Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez).</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Besides, 90% of an athletic director's job is spent either fundraising or thinking up zany schemes to make those fundraising efforts even more successful. Zook's recruiting prowess is unquestioned, and even the bulk of Illinois fans that don't particularly care for Zook the Coach seem to like Zook the Person. At 57 years old, Zook, may be tiring of chasing down high school football players during every waking moment of his free time. At the very least, the hors d'oeuvres are better when you spend every waking moment of your life chasing down millionaires looking to part with their disposable income. As for the other 10% of the job, search firms do most of the heavy lifting when communicating with prospects for coaching vacancies, and everyone in the business knows the top ten or so candidates each offseason. Figuring out which one of those candidates is actually a good head coach is probably little better than a crap shoot; just ask the guy booing Gene Chizik on the tarmac, or Charles "Turner Gill or Racism" Barkley.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There's a thousand reasons this won't happen, not least of which is that the football season is less than 100 days away--not exactly the best time to announce a new head coach, even if the promotion was made from within. And I'm sure this will seem like a success-through-failure promotion to many, even if sound football strategy is not a prerequisite or even helpful as an athletic director. But Illinois can, and probably will, do a lot worse.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-43840232800202992942011-05-20T13:19:00.001-05:002011-05-20T14:56:15.950-05:00RIP Macho Man<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/000/724/858/2randysavage_display_image.jpg?1297742580" /></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Most of the Twitter world is aware by now that Randy Poffo, a.k.a. Macho Man Randy Savage, passed away earlier today. Amazingly, the death wasn't the "unspecified causes" that most professional wrestlers die from in their mid-40s to early 60s, <a href="http://www.tmz.com/2011/05/20/randy-savage-car-accident-macho-man-dead-dies-died-killed-wwe-wrestler-florida/">but a car accident</a>. If you wrestled professionally in the 1980s, you probably feel a little bit like you're 55 minutes into a Final Destination movie.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For those of you who didn't grow up male during the 1980s or 90s, The Macho Man was a big deal; not quite Hulk Hogan big, but not too far off. In hindsight, the Macho Man gimmick is almost impossible to explain. A somewhat-rednecky guy with a peculiar accent wore flamboyant clothing (see picture above), and America loved it. I certainly loved it. He wasn't a good <i>wrestler</i>, exactly (his matches tended to run a little long and tended to become too punch-and-kick focused), but in his heyday there were few more entertaining characters.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Macho Man character is itself something of a hybrid between the two wrestling archetypes. The first archetype is to take some occupation or ethnicity--a r<a href="http://www.lobsterbush.com/vintagewwf/singles2/repoman1.jpg">epo man</a>, or a <a href="http://thelittlewing.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/04.jpg">waste management employee</a>, or a <a href="http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj39/gbylilly/tatanka.jpg">Native American</a>, or an <a href="http://www.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/irs.jpg">accountant</a>--and play every stereotype at maximum volume. When these characters go out of style, wrestlers become ordinary <a href="http://images.wikia.com/prowrestling/images/5/53/Steve.jpg">everyman-type dudes</a> that wear normal clothing and fight to settle their differences.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But what was Macho Man, exactly? Someone from Mars or France or Manhattan who has no idea what professional wrestling is would look at the picture above, hear "Macho Man," and assume that Savage was a play off of <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAO43p2Wqc08&ei=R7DWTay3JsLogQfjxYm-Bw&usg=AFQjCNEDkjsDNoqGt0a9wABDCj993Ejm4A">gay culture or faux-aggressive effeminacy</a>, but he most certainly was not that (the WWF <a href="http://www.softcom.net/users/abingham/goldust.jpg">wasn't subtle when it chose to play that angle</a>). Yet he wasn't an ordinary person either, even by 1980s standards. A musclehead in a cowboy costume laced with psychadelic toilet paper and speaking in California beach lingo with a half-Creole accent doesn't seem like an emotionally powerful trigger, but for years it resonated powerfully with audiences. Men cried at his "wedding," which took place in an arena on national television <a href="http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQnmCKcaofeOsiYAeFGDYbUlmdRZ-kBNIFvdAF7E4pFYqXBuZGQ&t=1">wearing a gigantic hat</a>. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Eventually the shtick felt silly, even by professional wrestling standards. Savage reinvented himself, with some success, as <a href="http://www.old-wizard.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/macho-nwo.jpg">ordinary badass</a> but even then couldn't quite relinquish the flair. The moment was gone, and professional wrestlers <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dqo392aELFQQ&ei=6K_WTcG5FITpgQe405iTBw&usg=AFQjCNH9q9E5bDMkqblrluGMlygt7HN4tA">tend not to fade gracefully</a>.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There will be some jokes about his death today, and most of them will be distasteful, and I will laugh at them regardless. Still, allow me this moment of respect for a person who's death of a person who reached the apex of his calling, however silly or inconsequential that calling may have been.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-51925873787721526312011-05-20T10:58:00.000-05:002011-05-20T10:58:28.885-05:00Primetime Big Ten 2011: We're Probably Getting Screwed a Little<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">With the Big Ten Network slate of primetime games released yesterday, we now know <a href="http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/26905/big-ten-to-have-14-games-in-primetime">all 15 night games</a> the Big Ten will play in 2011-12 (there's a road game between Ohio State and Miami not listed):</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sept. 1 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">UNLV at Wisconsin, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sept. 2 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Youngstown State at Michigan State, 7:30 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sept. 10 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Notre Dame at Michigan, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Virginia at Indiana, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sept. 17 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Arizona State at Illinois, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sept. 24 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">North Dakota State at Minnesota, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oct. 1 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Nebraska at Wisconsin, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Notre Dame at Purdue, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oct. 8 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Ohio State at Nebraska, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Michigan at Northwestern, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oct. 15</strong> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Northwestern at Iowa, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oct. 22 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Wisconsin at Michigan State, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Penn State at Northwestern, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oct. 29 </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Wisconsin at Ohio State, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My first thought is...meh. A lot of those games, especially the BTN fare, is of the "bludeon or be bludgeoned" variety; is UNLV at Wisconsin or Youngstown State at Michigan State really any more interesting because it is happening under very powerful light bulbs? Tailgaters in Madison and East Lansing will appreciate the later starts because otherwise they'd be sitting in a parking lot at 7 AM on a Saturday preparing for an 11 AM kickoff, but that's a small group of individuals. On the bright side, Indiana won't be playing in 80% of those night games as in previous years, so I won't have to choose between Hoosier football and the national network night game, which is not really a choice at all most weeks, notwithstanding my undying devotion to the conference.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A few games fall well outside of the meh category; Notre Dame at Michigan, Wisconsin at Ohio State, and Nebraska at Wisconsin are the easy choices, and maybe your idiosyncratic preferences say that a couple more games are in the top quintile of interestingness. It would be cool to see The Game get played at night eventually but since the heartland gets cold at night in November (and notwithstanding <a href="http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-wetzel_big_ten_should_hold_title_game_outdoors_051811">macho he-man We Play In Everything talk</a>) that might still be a ways off.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Then there's the middle range of interest--Arizona State at Illinois, Notre Dame at Purdue, Virginia at Indiana, anything involving Northwestern. These feel like the sorts of games that 3:30 was made for. There's even an argument to be made that 11:00 AM would be the best slot for these games if these programs actually want people to watch them. However intriguing Penn State vs Northwestern might be (and it <i>is</i> intriguing), that game will be going up against the best two games the rest of the nation has to offer. Even diehard Big Ten dopes like me will be, at best, flipping the channels; at wost, we'll forget to flip back when Oregon/USC or whatever gets interesting.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Also: North Dakota State? Sorry, Minnesota.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-74493366617318248712011-05-19T09:00:00.002-05:002011-05-19T09:00:07.669-05:00Schools Are Not Profiting From Bowl Games. So What?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This <a href="http://www.thewizofodds.com/the_wiz_of_odds/2011/05/bowl-games-silly-extravagance-or-worthwhile-tradition.html">post from the Wiz of Odds</a> caught like wildfire on the intertubes yesterday, and I'd be remiss if I didn't comment:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) announced matchups for its five games last December, the Fiesta Bowl was handed the biggest clunker of them all — Connecticut vs. Oklahoma. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But Fiesta officials never had to worry about monetary risk because they were handing off the financial burden to the Huskies and Sooners. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Each team, as part of the agreement to play in the Glendale, Ariz., game, had to purchase 17,500 tickets with a face value between $105 and $235. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Combined, Connecticut and Oklahoma sold only 8,338 of their allotted 35,000 tickets. That left the schools and their conferences on the hook for a jaw-dropping $5.14 million in "absorbed" tickets — or tickets that go unsold to the public or have to be purchased by the university for use by staff, families of players, coaches and even the band. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Last season marked a record 35 bowl games and nearly every game required teams to purchase a minimum number of tickets. Teams, in search of prestige, never hesitate to take on the financial burden.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Fiesta Bowl sales were going to be awful no matter what because Connecticut; this is an unavoidable truth. That the two largest ticket-gorges came from the two schools playing in Tempe is completely unsurprising. Had this been an opening round matchup at a neutral site of a playoff, no one would have went either. Connecticut.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There are two takeaways from this though, one negative and one neutral. The negative story isn't the "losses" from the Fiesta Bowl (the BCS and bowl payouts will more than compensate those schools), but the losses from the crap bowls that feature Sun Belt vs Conference USA. Those teams absolutely have to attend those crap bowls, because a refusal to attend would annihilate recruiting for years ("why go to Northern Illinois when they won't even go to the bowl game they earned?") That may work for Notre Dame but not Ball State, but when Ball State can't pay the bills anyway, adding an extra six figures in ticket losses is downright disgraceful. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But this is only a problem at schools that, relatively speaking, no one cares about; that's <i>why</i> it's a problem. The big schools lose money on bowls because they don't try to make money on bowls. For just one example, Wisconsin picked up the tab for over a thousand people to make the multi-day trip to Pasadena, including a few hundred band members and other extremely marginal members of the team. The players stay in nice hotels, take in Disneyland, eat expensive meals, etc. There is plenty of fat to be cut, except that, why cut the fat? The fat is where all the flavor is, and if athletic programs want to reward their teams for good seasons rather than hoarding a little extra money, then why not go ahead? I'd rather have teams willingly go into the red and players have themselves an experience of a lifetime than know that the program maximized its earning potential on behalf of the coaching staff salaries that will inevitably absorb that money.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Of course, it's only the Wisconsins and Ohio States that have that luxury. For Central Florida and UTEP, a bowl trip is just another game with a huge ticket bill tacked on. Those schools aren't merely forgoing profit for the sake of their players. Then again, if the alternative is just eliminating postseason play for those schools, I'm not sure they'd appreciate that either.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-71109191052152506002011-05-18T23:59:00.002-05:002011-05-19T00:00:19.907-05:00Big Ten to Start Paying More for Scholarships?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Not much of interest shuck out of the Big Ten meetings this week, besides from a possible expansion to nine games in 2017 that everyone already anticipated. But there was <a href="http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/print?id=42271">this little tidbit this afternoon</a>:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">An athletic scholarship pays for tuition, fees, room and board and books. But it doesn't cover such items as transportation, clothing and other living expenses -- the so-called full cost of attendance. Studies have suggested that there's a gap of about $3,000 per player between the scholarship allotment and the cost of attendance. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There have been calls to close that gap. In 2003, former NCAA president Myles Brand publicly favored a proposal to use men's basketball tournament funds to give athletes more pay. Current NCAA boss Mark Emmert has come out in support of the same idea and brought the issue up at the NCAA's April board meeting. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said his league talked about such a model this week in Chicago. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"Forty years ago, you had a scholarship plus $15 a month laundry money," Delany said. "Today, you have the same scholarship, but not with the $15 laundry money. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"How do we get back more toward the collegiate model and a regulatory system that is based more on student-athlete welfare than it is on a level playing field, where everything is about a cost issue and whether or not everybody can afford to do everything everybody else can do?"</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Two thoughts on this: first, this shouldn't hurt any Big Ten athletic departments all that badly. Assuming there are around 300 scholarship athletes total in each department, an extra $3000 per student comes out to less than a million dollars per sports department. With the unexpected success of the Big Ten Network and the recession-impervious sports contracts being doled out by television networks, $900,000 is peanuts.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Second, this is a warning to every mid-major football program in the FBS. You want a free market. A <i>real</i> free market? You want full competition? These teams can't break even with support from their universities and sometimes direct payments from the state fisc. An extra million dollars to athletes would be impossible at Eastern Michigan or Ball State; even Boise State will have a tough time of it. And that extra $3,000 per year could mean the difference between Indiana or Minnesota and, say, Central Michigan to the marginal recruits that turn down the Big Ten to become MAC superstars.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-42061735935334525592011-05-18T23:10:00.001-05:002011-05-18T23:10:38.585-05:00The New ESPN Tell-All Book Is the Most Interesting Thing Ever<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There's an office complex in Bristol, Connecticut. Some of the people in the office don't like each other. Some of them like each other <i>a lot.</i> In fact, they've even had intercourse of all varieties. Some of them drink too much during their off hours, or do drugs, or use profanity. Many of them are jerks.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But enough about CIGNA Insurance. You have no doubt heard about the soon-to-be-released ESPN oral history. At 700 pages, you will no doubt learn more about Charlie Steiner and Bob Ley than you ever cared to learn, along with other <a href="http://deadspin.com/5803187/">more ratings-friendly characters</a>. Some of this is interesting if only because you've heard of some of these people, and gossip is always a little bit fun (that's why the E! Network exists, after all). Who doesn't enjoy learning who is screwing whom, especially if the screwer and screwee are both recognizable and not supposed to be engaged in said screwing.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But is it interesting enough to sustain <a href="http://www.amazon.com/ESPN-Uncensored-History-Michael-Freeman/dp/0878332707">a 700-page oral history</a>? I imagine there are two target audiences. First are other sports journalists, who have actually met most of the people mentioned in the book (even the back-office, no-name desk workers that will no doubt play the lead characters in most of the really salacious stories). Targeting a book to journalists is good business; at the very least, they'll provide free advertising since they're pride will be pricked. Most of them are human just like us, and if someone wrote a 700-page history of me or people I know, I'd sure as hell talk about how fascinating the whole thing is. That doesn't mean other people should believe me though.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The second target audience are the self-anointed watchers of the watchdog, such as A.J. "What Is Sourcing?" Daulerio. The essence of Deadspin has evolved over the years, from wackiness-tinged-with-common-man-honesty to Crusader for the Fans. Part of that crusade--maybe the holy grail of the crusade--is to point out the many foibles of the sports media, with an occasionally expansive definition of <a href="http://mgoblog.com/content/aj-daulerio-asshole">what counts as "media.</a>" The charitable reading is that doing this draws readers; the uncharitable reading is that Daulerio is a genuinely objectionable human being who knows his organization will never really be powerful or interesting enough to draw the same type of attention upon him and his coworkers. You can take your pick.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">ESPN is a necessary evil in my world; a massive media conglomerate that nonetheless provides just about every sport imaginable, from cricket to Aussie Football. They employ personalities that range from painfully annoying to genuinely insightful, with every spot on the spectrum in between. They are neither friend nor enemy. If ESPN did not broadcast sports events, sometimes other networks would, and sometimes they wouldn't. When they are not showing actual events, they fill their time with the sort of inane chatter that is ubiquitous on both AM radio and on the internet. If ESPN didn't exist, someone else would invent it, and it would still probably suck because 90% of everything does. If the hosts want to give one another chlamydia during their free hours, I don't see where that's any more worthy of Caro-sized tomes than your neighbors doing the same. And the endless fascination by Deadspin-types says infinitely more about them than it does about anyone who works for ESPN.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-82708470540969921472011-05-17T07:43:00.000-05:002011-05-17T07:43:43.280-05:00Season Obituaries: Indiana<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><img src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTu96slL8RugB3-b2md1e60PRYO_uDmYER30PzMMeJR5iv-78bWgg&t=1" /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Year Three of the Official Crean Rebuilding Project has now concluded, and while there has been definite improvement since 2008-09, how could there not be? The Hoosiers team three seasons ago was one perhaps the worst in the Big Ten over the past decade, winning one conference game and only five games total during the year. That's not on Crean; no coach that ever lived could have made that Indiana team competitive in the wake of the Sampson implosion. Much like Rich Rodriguez at Michigan, Crean took over a program that was elite only in heritage, and the stunning drop-off in year one should not be held against him.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And it's not as though there have been no green shoots since then. The 2009 recruiting class was an accomplishment considering how bad Indiana was; the 2011 class looks even more promising; the 2013 class is downright Calipari-like in its potential. The 2008 team would not have been within ten points of the 2011 versions of Michigan or Illinois, teams Indiana defeated this season. And there were deceptively competitive games along the way, including a contest against Final Four-bound Kentucky that was much closer than the score might indicate.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Still, what has been the crowning moment in Indiana basketball during the Crean era? A win over a disappointing 2011 Illinois team at home (an Illinois team that won by 30+ later in the season in Champaign)? A 20 point victory over Michigan before the Wolverines began their climb to respectability? The biggest headlines have come from recruiting, not on the court, and while the results in April have been encouraging, they haven't meant anything in February, much less March.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I made an unfavorable comparison to Iowa in the previous obituary, but Indiana has several things going for them the Hawkeyes never will. For one thing, they are Indiana; those five national championships aren't getting taken down from the rafters any time soon. Recruits are still attracted to the Crimson and Cream, and fans have shown a remarkable patience during the rebuilding (scenes like the Orange Krush takeover of Carver-Hawkeye Arena are unfathomable at Assembly Hall).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The time for moral victories is over, however. The 2011 recruiting class were freshmen in high school last time Indiana made the tournament; the 2013 class was in junior high. After a while, kids forget that being Indiana means something beyond Big Ten also-ran. Heckling a batter who gets two strikes is silly, because the at-bat isn't over. Crean is down in the count; he still has pitches coming, but he doesn't have any left to take. That's a lot of pressure for a coach who, while not without returning talent, is hoping for young players to make an impression in a notoriously physical conference.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838676498511196618.post-10831921595202849242011-05-11T09:05:00.000-05:002011-05-11T09:05:00.757-05:00Season Obituaries: Iowa<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><img src="http://noboundaries.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/hawkeye-logo-3d.jpg" /> </span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Hawkeyes were expected to be one of the worst teams in the Big Ten this season, and they were. The least interesting articles are the ones that explain the process by which something we expect to happen actually happens. In some areas, this is a tremendous shame. For example, researchers sometimes spend years researching something only to find out that they cannot disprove the null hypothesis, or that their results are not statistically significant. That might be valuable information, but journals prefer articles (presumably because readers prefer reading articles) where something is discovered, rather than the absence of something. It also discourages work that tests long-held truths; the majority of these articles might simply verify the truths (and thus will be uninteresting), but a few would result in those accepted truths being questioned. Of course, some of those articles will themselves be wrong, but that's not the point; how many false things do we now believe are true go unquestioned for lack of professional incentive?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">OK, I'm stalling, but my point isn't that this Iowa team was uninteresting because it played to expectations. On the contrary, this Iowa team was the most interesting Hawkeye squad in the past few years. One reason for this is that they are no longer playing at a sub-Wisconsin pace. Whatever your stance on slow basketball games, they are only fun to watch when teams are good and every possession takes on more importance. Good fast games are fun. Bad fast games are fun just because they are so skattered. Good slow games are fun because every turn down the court matters more. Bad, slow games are painful, and Iowa under Lickliter was painful, not just bad.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That's not just an aesthetic judgment. Top prospects might go to play for a slow coach (the stories of Bo Ryan's lack of recruiting ability are vastly oversold), and they might go play for a bad team, but they won't play for a slow, bad team. Turning around the air-out-of-the-ball culture at Carver-Hawkeye was goal number one for Fran McCaffery, and he was unquestionably successful; Iowa wasn't exactly VMI, but they weren't just "bad Wisconsin" either.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That change will pay off down the road, and there are already some signs that Iowa's recruiting for future years is beginning to improve. But there were benefits in 2011 also. For one thing, fans started showing up to games, and there were no repeats of the 2010 embarassment when Illinois fans took over Carver-Hawkeye for an evening. McCaffery also managed something in his first season that still hasn't happened under three rebuilding seasons in Bloomington--a major win over a ranked conference opponent (I know Indiana beat Illinois last season; I'm not counting Illinois as a top-25 team, even if they happened to be ranked #25 at the time). A win over Purdue is worth fifty promises of future progress; it is a definite, unquestionable mark of progress at a program that has seemingly been in decline since their tournament loss to a 14 seed. That the win came on senior day for a group that has enjoyed preciously little success makes the win a bit nicer still.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That win wasn't the end of the rebuilding project; Iowa is still expected to be in the bottom half, and probably the bottom quarter, of the Big Ten next season. It probably wasn't even the beginning of the end. But it may have been the end of the beginning, and for as little as that sounds like it is worth, there are programs around the country--and programs in the conference--that have been searching in vain for the end of the beginning for years now. Small accomplishments are still accomplishments, and no accomplishment should be taken for granted.</span>Newt Raggenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811003442317059372noreply@blogger.com