“Major MC’s become Minor B Flats…”

--L.L. Cool J

by Guichard Cadet

Starting on Thursday, March 17th, sports fans everywhere got a chance to witness established powerhouses get shrunken in size. It started in a Congressional mock court, and continued on the hardwood floors where NCAA power conferences took major losses.

Today is no different, as a dejected Barry Bonds talked openly of not playing this season.

The Real Interest in Maturing Bonds
Congress started the shellacking by forcing Major League Baseball’s key principals and players to give their take on the sport’s steroids / image problem. This past St. Patrick’s Day culminated with Mark McGwire looking like a cheat, due to his refusal to discuss history, albeit after he overexerted himself in celebrating while breaking the sport’s single-season home run record.

That mark had stood for 37 years, since 1961, when Roger Marris broke Babe Ruth’s record. Unlike Marris, McGwire was fêted by the majority of fans during this chase. Though there was clear, and admitted evidence by Mark that he was using supplements (Andro), baseball and the media, at large, looked the other way.

As long as it was a beloved figure breaking the records, supplements and, perhaps, steroids was par for the course. Something was happening in baseball. Thirty home runs became common for the average second baseman; and 4.0 became the norm for a good pitcher’s E.R.A. Still there was no serious talk of taking action regarding steroids by the league, or making it a real story from the media.

Barry Bonds changed all this. Not only did he hit 73 home runs in 2001, Bonds is doing a Roger Marris impersanation. He is challenging Ruth! Though Henry (Hank) Aaron holds the all-time home run record, the name Ruth has always been synonymous with the long ball. Bonds knows this, and has even gone on record to state he’s more interested in passing Ruth than eclipsing Aaron.

The media witch-hunt to prove Bonds is a cheater has knocked over a generation of Hall of Fame statues. Sammy Sosa. Rafael Palmero. Mark McGwire. Barry Bonds. Though they all may still make the Hall, history will prove the real interest in a maturing Bonds was not worth the investment, especially when dealing in a sport with few guiding principles.


The Big Least
The ACC was one lost away from becoming the LACC, but thanks to NC State’s victory over Connecticut, the Big East conference has earned the distinction of being this year’s most overrated conference. One could make a case for the SEC, but the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee who defeated Alabama went ahead and did the same to Boston College, advancing to the Sweet 16. Let’s not even talk about Syracuse who lost to Vermont in the first round!

With two consecutive early exits, Gonzaga diffuses any real push for “mid-major” conferences gaining higher seeds, but watching Nevada and UAB begs the question whether the tournament can be tweaked. The current system is light years ahead its football counterpart, the Bowl College Series (BCS).

Still, I would rather lose those conference tournaments.

In the place of those 3 (or 4) games, I would make more teams eligible for the NCAA tournament, by rethinking the nature of the conference tournaments.

For bragging rights, name the bracket after the Conference hosting, e.g. The Big East Tournament, The ACC Tournament, etc… Imagine the seriousness of Vermont being crowned this year’s Big East Tournament Champion.

· This tournament would feature 16 brackets in which 8 teams would start.
· Each recognized conference would send a team to a bracket.
· The Number One seed would be that conference’s regular season champion.
· The top team from each tournament would then advance to the sweet 16.
· At this point, we would seed the teams.

As it stands, the number of Power Conference teams who lost in the first 2 Rounds to lesser-ranked opponents is practically equal to the number who gets to go to the Sweet 16.

Power Conference Upsets (based on ranking)
1. Big East: Connecticut (2); Boston College (4); Syracuse (4)
2. Big 12: Texas (8); Kansas (3); Oklahoma (3)
3. SEC: Alabama (5); LSU (6); Florida (4)
4. ACC: Georgia Tech (5); Wake Forest (2)

Power Conference – Sweet 16 Qualifiers

1. Big10 – Illinois; Wisconsin; Michigcan State
2. ACC – UNC; NC State; Duke
3. Pac10 – Arizona;, Washington
4. Big12 - Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
5. Big East – West Virginia, Villanova
6. SEC - Kentucky