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The Jester’s Quart
March 31, 2006
The Jester's Quart: Dirty Little Secrets of the NCAA
There's a great video that's been in rotation on MTV for
quite some time by The All-American Rejects called "Dirty Little Secret." The
gimmick in the video involves people holding up note cards that reveal those
nasty, embarrassing, surreptitious facts about ourselves - most of them
scatological. Like, for example, "I like the smell of my own poop." Now, I'll
never admit to liking the smell of my own poop - we all know it depends on what
you've eaten; for example, taco night vs. lemon chicken night - but if I were to
reveal such a thing, it would certainly qualify as a dirty little secret. And
also a bit stinky.
I won't admit to that, but I hope that we can all begin to face those hidden
truths about the NCAA postseason, such as:
"GEORGE MASON STILL DOESN'T BELONG IN
THE MEN'S TOURNAMENT."
Jim Nantz and Billy Packer have publicly offered their mea culpas to the George
Mason University Patriots, after they decried their joining the tournament on
Selection Sunday and now that the team has made the Final Four.
Wussies, the both of them.
Stick to your guns, boys. Based on the criteria of the selection committee and
the teams they were vying against for a seed, the Patriots should be celebrating
an NIT victory this weekend.
Hofstra deserved the selection. It won 12 of its last 14 games and made the
Colonial Athletic Association finals. It defeated George Mason twice in 10 days,
and defeated the Patriots when they were ranked in the Top 25. Hofstra's RPI was
30th; Mason's was 26th - not exactly a Grand Canyon-esque gap.
I believe George Mason was selected for two reasons: games against ranked
opponents - negated, in my mind, by the head-to-head losses to Hofstra - and
coach Jim Larranaga. I think the selection committee cut a good guy a break, and
by "good guy" I mean a guy who has put in his time (20 years) and has done it
with two mid-major programs (Bowling Green and George Mason). He's not a
glory-hound prick like John Calipari; he's the guy you root for, and the guy you
want to hand out a favor to.
Now, at this point in the column, I'm pretty sure some of you are screaming that
Mason has proven the Nantzes and Packers and Wyshynskis wrong because the
Patriots are in the Final Four. That's just an asinine response. That's like
saying Iowa, a No. 3 seed in the tournament, should have been in the NIT because
they had the misfortune of losing in the first round. There's no correlation
between selection and post-selection performance - based on the criteria, GMU
still doesn't deserve to be here.
That said, I'm pulling for them, even if they've turned my bracket into Humpty
Dumpty. George Mason is the most inspiring, entertaining and entrancing sports
story of the year, and perhaps since the Red Sox World Series victory. I've
worked with Mason faculty and athletes professionally, I've covered their
campus, and I'm in their community. You can't help but fall for this scrappy
school and its cardiac-kids team. And I'm saying that as a disgruntled Maryland
alum.
Of course, I'm also a big fan of actor Ed Harris, and would love to see him get
some work in "The Jim Larranaga Story" in a few years.
"BIG BABY IS A TRULY AWFUL NICKNAME."
Seriously, if he's stuck with "Big Baby" or "Baby Shaq," Glen Davis needs to
flip the script on this nickname pronto. Even if he graduates to "Big Boy," he's
competing with Big Boi from OutKast. I shudder to think how the NBA will market
Big Baby - officially licensed bibs and pacifiers, maybe? This may be the most
unfortunate nickname in sports history; at least "The Big Unit" probably got
some dates out of it.
"DON'T FEEL GUILTY FOR IGNORING THE
WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT."
There's a word for most of the coverage the women's tournament has garnered here
in the Mason-obsessed D.C. area: "charity." Nearly every report on the Final
Four Maryland Lady Terps has included the phrase "and there's another local team
headed to the Final Four, too," and then a shot of them getting on a bus. They
must have boarded the same bus 2,000 times for different local media.
Look, nobody cares about the women's tournament, and I'm saying that as a writer
who has supported and shown the spotlight on Title IX issues for the last six
years. I'm an advocate of women's sports; but I'm more of an advocate of giving
people who follow the news what they want.
There is no reason for the Maryland women to be mentioned in the same breath as
George Mason University when it comes to tournament coverage. It's like trying
to give equal time to the AAA minor league team if it was playing in a
championship series the same time as the big league club was in the World
Series. When it comes to basketball, the women's game is the Staten Island
Yankees, and the NCAA men's tournament is the Bronx Bombers.
So why are the women given such attention? Guilt. The media feels it needs to
lend a hand to the women's game because it covers the men's game with such
fervor. It doesn't want to face the slings and arrows from women's sports
boosters claming sexism when in reality it's about demand - check the ratings,
attendance figures and overall imprint of women's college basketball, and you'll
find that the X-Games probably warrant more attention.
Again, don't misunderstand: this isn't a slap in the face of the women's game as
a sport, or female basketball players as athletes, or the validity of women's
athletics as a whole. I'm just saying that ESPN probably isn't putting Kara
Lawson on the screen to break down the women's Final Four if it didn't own the
broadcast rights to NCAA women's games. It has a funny way of protecting
investments, you know? What a coincidence that the head of its parent company
will be investigating the steroid history of its newest reality star on behalf
of Major League Baseball...
"LIFE CAN STILL BE A BITCH FOR A
MCDONALD'S ALL-AMERICAN."
Scottie Reynolds is a local high-school basketball player here in Northern
Virginia. He's also a blue-chip recruit, signing with the University of
Oklahoma.
Or at least he was headed there. When Kelvin Sampson decided to bolt for Indiana
University this week, Reynolds found himself in a quandary: Sooner, or later?
You can't help but feel for the kid. He was recruited by a plethora of
high-profile Div. I programs, and decided to go with a coach he respected. Now,
that coach is gone, and Reynolds will have to attend Oklahoma or ask the school
to release him. It may choose to do so with conditions attached...like, for
example, "don't play for Kelvin." An entire high-school career of basketball,
building a resume that could earn him a spot in the NBA one day, and now his
future is in flux.
But it brings us back to what isn't a dirty little secret about college
basketball: it's all business, baby...
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Published on the web and www.SportsFanMagazine.com since 1997, "The Jester's Quart" is a weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture and why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass. Columnist Greg Wyshynski is the Senior Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History" will be published in April 2006. Email Wyshynski at jestersquart@hotmail.com.
