Hoop it up

NFL training camp can’t come soon enough. Of course, there’s a chance it won’t come when scheduled as the threat of a lockout continues to loom. But the fact that the NFL has extended the current collective bargaining agreement twice already is cause for optimism. Hopefully a deal gets done soon, because college basketball will be over before we know it, and baseball doesn’t have the capability to hold my attention for 162 games plus playoffs.

Speaking of basketball, we could be in for one of the more interesting NCAA tournaments in recent memory this season. There are a lot of very good teams, but no great teams, which means we could see more upsets than usual, and those are always fun. I’m also curious to see how the 68-team format will work. Letting 65 teams in was dumb, so 68 seems even more extraneous, but we’ll see how it goes. It seems like only a matter of time before the Big Dance undergoes a major expansion, to 72 or 128 teams. There’s too much money to be made and it will be hard to convince the NCAA that more is not always better.

The “more is better” philosophy is quite prevalent in high school sports in Rhode Island. The mantra of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League seems to be: Win, or move down until you do win. There are entirely too many divisions, but apparently the goal is for every team to be able to compete for a “championship” every single season. If you can’t do that for a couple years, move down a division. If there isn’t a lower division, one will be created.
Success is cyclical. Some years will be good, others will not. Other than private schools that can recruit top players year after year, every team goes through ups and downs. And some schools just don’t have the talent pool in certain sports at certain times. There’s no shame in that, it’s just life. We’re all good at some things and not so much at others. Being bad at something doesn’t mean you deserve special treatment.

Take, for instance, the Miami Heat. They’re great at smacking around lousy teams (i.e. Wizards, Kings, etc.), but can’t cut it when playing with the big boys (i.e. Bulls, Celtics, Spurs). But the NBA isn’t going to create a Division II for the Heat to compete in. They might as well go cry to their moms.