NCAA News

NEW YORK (PAE) -- The call for change has finally been heard, and it's good news all around.

College sports, long a target of critics from coast to coast, has overhauled its championship format and will employ a new system beginning next season.

That's right; the NCAA men's basketball tournament will do away with the 64-team event that's been only mildly popular in recent years. Starting in 2009, national champions will be determined by computers and sportswriters the way they are in Division I football. Ahhh, sweet relief.

A news conference has been scheduled for 12:65 p.m. today to make the announcement formal.

"If we as leaders of such a popular sport claim that our sport is for the fans, it's time we heed their call," said an NCAA insider who requested anonymity because he has no business speaking publicly about the story. "The fans have spoken -- America has spoken -- and we've finally listened."

Division I basketball officials said they've observed the great success football has enjoyed over the last decade, what with allowing sports writers and computers to determine who plays in the BCS bowl games, including the season-ending championship game. It's time for basketball to move to the same system so there can be a "decisive, clear-cut champion," an athletic director from one top university said.

"I think the days of determining the champion on the court are over, and we couldn't be more pleased," the athletic director said. "It's 2008; we can admit that we should get with the times. It only makes sense to reward those teams who played weak schedules throughout the regular season by giving them the best chance to win a championship."

That's good news for college hockey marketers. The sport calls its final weekend the Frozen Four, but now can use the once trademarked Final Four on T-shirts and other paraphernalia. And isn't that what college sports are all about? Trademarked terminology, sponsorship and souvenir sales?

"We don't like to be so simplistic, but yes, we need to think about revenue opportunities for all involved," one university president said. "Well, all except the athletes themselves. I mean, that would be, like, fair, or something. And we certainly don't want that."

The formula for determining postseason matchups would be similar to that of football's BCS rankings, but exact calculating procedures have not been finalized. Using the current BCS math, however, shows that this weekend's Final Four would not consist of No. 1 seeds UCLA, Memphis, North Carolina and Kansas. Instead, we'd see Duke, Tennessee, Notre Dame and Butler, with Duke and Notre Dame the probable co-champs.

We wanted to hear from you, America, and the commentary has so far been quite interesting:

Bill S., from downtown Iowa, says: "Finally. I'm so tired of promoting inter-office camaraderie with those NCAA brackets. Now, without the tournament format, I can stay at my desk without any interruptions each day throughout the tournament, thus maximizing my productivity and increasing the likelihood of a promotion to middle management."

Susan T., from California, says: "It's still not fully settling things on paper, but it's a step in the right direction."

Neither Reality nor Logic could be reached for comment.

Sweet Sixteen Notes

CARACTER REVEALED? -- Louisville's Derrick Caracter announced this week he's turning pro after this season.

The full-figured sophomore has NBA strength, hands and feet, but playschool judgment. He has the potential -- upside, we call it -- to be an excellent pro player, but not the ambition to tap into it. He will have a very short career in the NBA before spending his life in scenic Europe for another decade. At least he'll learn about history.

But before firing up the jabwagon -- oops, they already did here -- don't jump to the conclusion that Caracter thinks he's ready for the NBA game. Could be he's just ready to leave college.

Don't think for a minute that coaches are afraid to make a guy miserable enough that he'll leave and free up a scholarship for someone more deserving. Caracter was heavily recruited -- and just plain heavy -- long before his senior year of high school. But then he didn't play his senior year, when he committed to Louisville. And then he got to school overweight and you know how much Rick Pitino loves out-of-shape guys. Caracter even earned a suspension at one point, and never came close to reaching his potential. You think Pitino was hopeful he'd come back for his junior year? No way. I guarantee he ran him out of there.

MILLER TIME: It's pretty interesting seeing a boy turn into a man. I went to some basketball camps in high school, and at least two of them had a special guest named Sean Miller. Once a child phenom who with his dad took their basketball circus on late-night television -- Miller was a whiz with an array of ball-handling tricks -- Miller grew into a serious high-school recruit and eventually played at the University of Pittsburgh.

And I've been following him ever since. And it was cool seeing him lead Xavier to a nice defeat of Bob Huggins' surprising West Virginia team in Thursday's Sweet Sixteen. For the sake of my bracket, I hope UCLA beats the Muskies in Saturday's Elite Eight game. But for the sake of sentimentality, I'd love XU to get to the Final Four.

GUMBLE FUMBLE: Surprising that CBS Sports -- which hasn't only owned the NCAA Tournament forever, but they do a great job with it too every year -- let an error get by its video editors. Greg Gumbel's taped 30-second VO during Michael Beasley highlights late in the first half of the UCLA-Western Kentucky game included the erroneous excerpt, "Beasley led all freshmen in rebounding this year with 12 points a game."

Pardon The Imitation

CBS trotted out its version of "PTI" during halftime of Sunday's second-round game between Villanova and Siena, and it was fairly weak.

Studio analysts Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis took questions from host Greg Gumbel, and when one of the analysts disagreed with the other's answer, he was able to hit a Timeout button or an Airball button.

It was a terrible attempt to steal something from ESPN's quite successful "Pardon The Interruption" or "Around The Horn." CBS has done a masterful job doing the NCAA Tournament for more than two decades, so it was surprising to see such a gimmick. Just go back to doing games and decent feature stories at halftime, and leave the gags to the other nets.

Duke Basketball

Had Belmont held on to upset Duke yesterday, college basketball nation would have rejoiced and ignorant fans everywhere would be overheard at the sports bar shouting "Duke sucks" in between gulps of draft beer and bites of chicken wings.

It turns out the latest research shows ... Duke does not suck. Coach K does not suck. I'm not a huge Duke fan, but I appreciate and respect anyone who maintains that level of success over a lengthy period.

Coack K has won three national championships. In the current era, that's pretty darn close to a dynasty. Not one title, or two. But three. He won two in a row, then waited nine years, and won a third. That's impressive and not at all easy to do.

When people rail against Duke, their argument includes flawed logic: "Yeah, they're good, but that's because they always get the best kids." So does that make their success any less respectable? Should we put an asterisk next to Duke's 1991, 1992 and 2001 national title years in the record books? No. Of course they get the best kids. Want to know why? It's because Duke is the best program out there and kids want to go there. Folks call Duke the Yankees of college basketball, but the playing field is obviously far more level in NCAA hoops than it is in baseball. There are far more teams and, oh yeah, college basketball doesn't pay its players tens of millions of dollars.

If your favorite team won the way Duke did, then maybe your coach would get the commercials that air every March. Survival of the fittest, yo.

Duke is successful indeed because it gets the best kids, which is a byproduct of its success, not an unfair advantage. There are no unfair advantages. Fair to me kind of means equal, balanced or level, and everyone is trying to get an advantage, so if you're winning more consistently than most of the other teams in your sport, you've achieved a fair advantage. Unless, of course, you're doing things illegally in recruiting or in other areas; only in such a case would we use the term unfair advantage.

When one program has an advantage over another, that program wins games and maybe championships. And last I checked, that's what every team is trying to do -- recruit the best players, win games and hopefully championships. Duke just does it better than everyone else. That should be respected, not ridiculed.

An Open Letter

Dear Digger Phelps:

You weren't terrible as usual during the regular season with your analysis, but now that I'm glued to the set the last eight days or so, please stop with your annoying habit of asking yourself rhetorical questions.

ESPN's studio analysts just went around the horn with their picks for today's top games: "I think Duke wants to win today to get a rematch with who? North Carolina in tomorrow's ACC final."

Oh, really, does Duke want to win today? Is that what you think?

"Oklahoma is a good team but not good enough to win today. Why? Because Texas' guards didn't play well yesterday and I'm sure they want to redeem themselves, and they'll get it done today against the Sooners."

Dude, the questions and the "get it done" line have been incredibly tiresome for years. Get some new game please.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Everyone

Fear Factor

When you see or read interviews with people who've achieved at least a small degree of success in any area of life, routinely there's a question about failure. We all know that old expression about how it's not considered failure if you learn from it and so forth.

But it's interesting that the opinions about failure seem to vary among these successful people. Many say they're not afraid to fail, which explains their ability to block things out and focus only on the current task. In athletics, coaches will tell their players, "If at the end of the game we come up short on the scoreboard, but we all know we gave it our best, then we'll still walk out of here a winner." That might sound so very Disney, but there's a significant amount of truth to it.

On the other hand, I just watched a short interview with UCLA freshman phenom Kevin Love, who in a few weeks will lead the Bruins to their first national championship since 1995 (as long as another starter's ankle injury heals soon). But Love said he's actually afraid to fail. And that surprises me because the majority of the time you hear folks say they're not afraid, yet Love has been a success story his entire young life.

He suggested that comes from his perfectionism; he's always trying to do everything the right way. Perhaps when you set the bar so high for yourself and you're still achieving your goals, than maybe there's no such thing as failure, so he has no idea what he could possibly be fearful of.

Random Rants

I've developed a solid interest in "Pardon The Interruption" over the last year, but the show before it, "Around The Horn," can certainly be annoying.

At one point today, the scribes were talking about whether NBA superstar LeBron James deserved to be on the cover of iconic women's magazine "Vogue." George Clooney and Richard Gere are the only males to ever appear on the cover before him.

"I'd like (James) to win a championship before he's doing Vogue magazine and Saturday Night Live and all that," Jay Mariotti said. "Is he really a cultural icon?"

Yes, Jay, he is a cultural icon. Want to know why? Because sports reporters like you made him one nearly 10 years ago. Expectations are no longer set naturally or realistically. They are set by the very media that begins covering phenoms when they are 12 years old. And then we tear them down when they get mixed up in the wrong things -- you know, drugs, girlbeating, not winning an NBA championship -- before they're 20 or 25. No teenager should have to live his life on camera, yet we expect it routinely, and then we express shock when the once-coddled star athlete has difficulty adjusting to adult life.

Another rant . . . I used to be down with Bruce Bowen and his pesky defensive habits. But you don't put your arms in the air as if you've done nothing, all the while simultaneously dropping your knee on the dome of Chris Paul, the new face of the NBA who was on the floor battling for the loose ball that you yourself didn't fight hard enough for. Bowen deserves his suspension.

Finally . . . I've long been and will always be a fan of Bob Knight. When you only know one career for four decades, and in that career you've often been combative with those who cover you, once you join those who cover you, there might be a critic or two. But Knight isn't asked to be cutesy on ESPN's college basketball set this week, so that's why it might look a little awkward or stiff. I think he's doing as good a job as you'd expect from a half-crazy former coach who's probably doing his old buddy Digger Phelps a favor more than he's actually enjoying his new gig. He's not a TV guy by any stretch, so just listen to the words that he's speaking, and you'll find that his honest and insightful takes are actually pretty interesting. How could they not be?

Review: OSU-Florida

This is a true story:

Florida had a couple of guys in foul trouble as it led by 14 points midway through the second half of Monday's impressive championship game defeat of Ohio State.

As you know, I root for Ohio State.

But I received a text message from a friend and Florida fan complaining about the officiating. Remember, this fan's team was ahead by 14 points, and I was the recipient of a strongly worded note about how OSU star freshman Greg Oden was getting away with physical play and how he'd have to pay the officials after the game. Then I got another. Then a THIRD text message. All in the second half, a half in which Ohio State never led, never got to within less than six, if I recall.

Read the rest of my NCAA tournament blog. Scroll down toward the bottom of the page.

Flawless Four

To answer the question that thousands of you are asking yourselves today ... it's true, I did pick the Final Four correctly. I was the only one to do it in my office pool.

But unfortunately, what is also true is that the one person ahead of me in the office pool has, like me, UCLA winning it, and this is a winner-take-all event. The funny thing is that I try to pick a second- or third-most obvious pick to win the tournament in case I find myself in the situation I'm in right now -- close to the top. Because when everyone piles on like they did, understandably, about Florida in this year's bracket, I didn't want to go Gators like everyone else. But I clearly would have been better off, both stategically and realistically, as I think Florida will beat UCLA.

Anyway, no winnings in sight for me, so don't expect an invitation to summer on my newly purchased yacht just yet. Maybe next year.

Here's the proof, and the blog (scroll down toward the bottom). Drop me a line there or here and tell me who you think comes out on top.

NCAA: Here Are The Answers

I like to unveil my bracket as late as possible, in case the suckers at work want to parrot my picks. Anyway, I've posted the answers to this year's NCAA tournament on my blog on the MyFox network. You can take 10 seconds to register -- name, email address, password -- and leave your comments. In fact, I dare you to.

NCAA Tournament Talk

Here's a story I wrote Monday morning about the NCAA tournament.

And remember, my NCAA blog is right here. Spend 20 seconds and register so you can add comments. Thanks for the support.

NCAA Tournament Blog

I'm now writing a college basketball blog for the MyFox network, just in time for the NCAA Tournament. Click here when you're ready for the answers to all your March Madness questions. And you can post comments yourself. It just takes two seconds to register. All you have to do is type in your name, then create a username and password. Seriously, two seconds.