First up: the Big 12 tournament, held at the T-Mobile Center
in Kansas City. There were a lot of
complaints last year about how ugly the court was; an article in the Topeka Capital-Journal describes “a court design that could be generously described as unusual.” Those folks were being kind. The court was the perfect storm of ugly,
boring, and self-indulgent: little “XII”s all lined up in a symmetrical pattern
on a grey surface. Curmie likes you too
much to show a photo here, but if you’re curious, Gentle Reader, click here.
That article also quotes Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark as
saying, “we wanted to make a profound statement.” Well, they did that. Unfortunately, that statement was that the
league was being run by fucking idiots… or, perhaps by blind folks. Yormark also said that all the players loved
the floor. He obviously didn’t talk to
the players quoted in various articles… or he was lying: certainly a possibility,
as admitting a mistake is apparently outside the realm of possibility.
A few weeks ago, when Curmie heard the conference was going
to go in a different direction, he rejoiced.
He shouldn’t have. What the league
did was to spend an estimated $185,000 to rent (rent!) a spiffy LED floor that could show all kinds of cool graphics,
team logos, updated stats and similar grooviness. Of course, a lot of that was only going to be
really legible from one side of the court, but we can imagine that stuff like
team logos could swirl around the space.
Little of that stuff would be visible to TV viewers, but there were
snippets. But when the game was actually
going on… the same fugly design as last year.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the biggest problem. The damned floor was slippery. Well, that’s what a lot of players said. Others, presumably, weren’t bothered. Curmie heard about it on a Kansas radio
broadcast before the (men’s) regular season even ended. That’s because KU women’s coach Brandon
Schneider had warned men’s coach Bill Self about it after the KU women’s team
played on it in their conference tournament.
At the time, the men’s team might get a “double bye,” or they might
not. It was even suggested that getting
a lower seed might almost be preferable, as you’d have a game against a lesser
team to familiarize yourselves with the court before playing a team that might legitimately
beat you.
True, there was a track record for the LED court, but it was
mostly for exhibition games and the like: in other words, where the show was more
important than the outcome. Even the
floor’s defenders admitted that the floor takes getting used to. But K-State forward Taj Manning went straight
to the point, noting not only that one of his teammates got a migraine from the
lights, but that it was “slippery” and “a bad floor; they shouldn’t bring it
back.” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland
added that “I think with size around the basket it's not [a big issue] but the
quickness of guard play, and stop-and-start action -- it just has a different
response than what we're used to.” In
other words, it changes the dynamics of the game: giving the advantage to teams
with size and power over those with speed and agility. Texas Tech, who was already playing without
their best big man, lost their star guard (and projected 1st-round draft pick)
Christian Anderson when he slipped and suffered a groin injury during the Iowa
State game. Coincidence? Perhaps.
The complaints finally grew loud enough that the league
decided to change back to last year’s ugly but predictable floor for the
semi-finals and final. Be it noted:
between the men’s and women’s tournaments, there were 30 games played. 27 of them were on the LED floor, despite the
fact that concerns were raised in the first women’s games nine days earlier. Of course, two things remain pretty constant
in the world of major sports organizations (NCAA, IOC, NFL, FIFA…). 1). There’s one thing pretty certain about
proclamations that it’s all about player safety: it’s never about player
safety. Witness, for example the 2023 Super Bowl or the 2015 Women’s World Cup in soccer. 2). And, as the latter
example illustrates, player safety complaints matter more when they come from men
rather than women.
Look, Gentle Reader, Curmie doesn’t know whether that court
is literally unsafe or whether it just takes a little getting used to. But it’s certainly different, and therefore should
not have even been considered for a post-season conference tournament. If one of those early-season invitationals like
the already stupid “innovative” Geico Players Era “Festival,” go for it. Everybody knows going in what
they’re going to get, and the tournament is clearly more about flash and trash
than basketball, anyway, so why not? But
not in a conference tournament with NCAA bids and seedings on the line.
Moving on. There’s speculation
that the appearance of the Queens University Royals in this year’s NCAA tournament
might be their last. The small Presbyterian-affiliated
school with an undergraduate population of only a little over 1200 won the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament this year, defeating regular season
champion Central Arkansas in overtime in the championship game. The Royals moved up from Division II in 2022;
this was their first year of eligibility to compete in the NCAAs. (Don’t ask why the wait; Curmie has no idea.)
So why the problem?
Well, Queens announced its merger with Elon University in December; the details will be worked out by the end of the summer. Does that mean the two schools will have only
one basketball team between them? It’s
possible. Indeed, someone named Rob Reinhart proclaimed that Queens won’t have a team after this year. Reinhart, or whoever he is, has been named a troll,
though, so there’s that. Still, the two
campuses are only a couple miles apart, so it wouldn’t be difficult to merge
the teams after staffing and other logistics are worked out.
There doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer at this point,
but the probability is that, at least in the short term, the two schools will have
different teams, playing in different conferences (Elon is in the Coastal Athletic
Conference). It will all depend on the details
of the merger agreement, but if there can be teams called the University of
North Carolina at Wilmington or Texas A&M Corpus Christi, then it doesn’t
seem impossible that two affiliated schools could operate their athletics
programs independently. Or maybe it
is. We shall see.
Finally, there’s this year’s manifestation of Bruce Pearl being Bruce Pearl. The most recent story was about his rant against the University of North Carolina’s firing of head coach and alumnus Hubert Davis, bemoaning the school’s lack of loyalty. Before that, though, was his claim that the Miami (of Ohio) RedHawks shouldn’t be in the NCAA field despite their undefeated regular season after losing in the first round of their conference tournament. Here’s The Athletic’s Will Leitch’s commentary on Pearl:
This was a man literally banned by the sport who is now, and I suspect moving forward, going to be its public face, right there talking to the camera during the three weeks college basketball has the sports world’s undivided attention. I can think of no better metaphor for the state of college basketball (and, really, the world).
Then he moves on the Pearl’s argument:
Not having the RedHawks in the tournament — a tournament with 68 freaking teams in it — would have essentially argued not just that their regular season accomplishment meant nothing, but that the regular season, anyone’s regular season, was in fact pointless: It would tell college basketball fans across the country that there was no reason for any of them to pay attention until March, something non-college basketball fans already do, but nonetheless is not exactly the message you want to send to your most loyal customers.
The situation was aggravated, of course, by Pearl’s advocacy
for Auburn, the team he coached last year and which, thanks in no small part to
his interference advocacy, is now coached by his son.
Bruce Pearl has been an unethical gasbag for years. Curmie described him thus in 2010:
Pearl and many (most?) of his brethren don’t give a crap about under-prepared kids in general, just the 6’8” ones with post-up skills. And when they’ve served the only purpose Pearl has for them, namely winning basketball games and thereby inflating his salary, he’s perfectly willing to toss them, 70% of them, sans degree or NBA contract, on the scrap heap.
Curmie isn’t a fan, to say the least.
But here’s the problem: Curmie agrees with him on both of
these issues. Unless there was some
locker-room stuff we don’t know about, firing Davis was remarkably stupid. The Tarheels’ best player, Caleb Wilson, was
lost for the season due to a pair of injuries.
With him in the lineup, they were 19-4, including five wins against
ranked teams. Without him, they were 5-5,
including losses in their first games in both the ACC and NCAA
tournaments. A little loyalty, or at
least recognition that sometimes you have bad luck, wouldn’t have come amiss.
As for the NCAA selections…
Well, if I tell you that the team that won both the regular season and
tournament in the Big East (St. John’s) was a 5-seed and the team that came in
second in both (UConn) was a 2-seed, that should tell you how much the committee
really cares about getting things right.
(Curmie had St. John’s as a 2 and UConn as a 4.) And there’s absolutely no question that Miami
shouldn’t have been in the tournament. Yes,
they went undefeated in the regular season, but their strength of schedule in
the non-con according to KenPom was #361 (of 365). If they’d played literally anyone actually
good and lost a close game against, say, Ohio State (or even Cincinnati), that
would probably have been the best game they played all year, but no one would
be arguing for them; they’re somewhere around the 90th best team.
Their best win was against Akron, at home, by one possession;
they won four (!) games in overtime. On
the one hand, that makes them scrappy and well-coached. On the other hand, it means that if in any of
those four games, a single jump-shot in regulation had been a quarter of an
inch in one direction or the other and therefore rattled in instead of out or vice
versa, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They’d have taken their automatic bid to the
NIT (the way Curmie’s former employer did, having won their conference regular season
title and then losing in the championship game on their opponent’s home court
(!) instead of a first-round loss to the #198 team in the country on a neutral
court). Note to Will Leitch: pay a
little attention or you’ll say something stupid.
Curmie will grant that CBS shouldn’t have let Pearl opine
about Auburn, but they probably couldn’t resist. They also, of course, called on Wally Szczerbiak,
unquestionably one of the two best players in RedHawks history, to make the
case for his alma mater. They
probably think it’s cute. They’re wrong.
So… that’s enough college basketball talk for now. Until the next topic comes up, at least.
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