I get a strong feeling that the power conferences in college basketball would love to be rid of the myriad of little guys who muddy up the water. They win an occasional game in the NCAA tournament and mess things up. They embarrass big money programs with regular season upsets. They occasionally pick off a recruit that the bluebloods wanted (although with the transfer rule these days, they probably will get him back before long). They really give off the aura that they would love to create their own super-division, such as football has, and let the little guys scrap among themselves.
The problem, of course, is that if there are no little guys, then the opportunities for buy-a-win decrease dramatically. If they had to go down to a lower division, those wins presumably would not be counted in the ranking calculations, and any occasional upsets would be all the more embarrassing.
I will have to admit that 350+ teams in Division 1 basketball seems like a few too many. The gap between the Dukes and the Gramblings is so huge that any games between them become totally irrelevant, except for the money that the little guys get for getting beat up. And all this is, after all, a money issue, both for the big guys and the little guys. I do not know the answer, but however things get adjusted, if and when they do, you can rest assured it will be to the advantage of the Dukes of the world, and not for the Gramblings and Little Rocks.
No comments:
Post a Comment