Nov. 21, 2014
Those local schools our men’s basketball team has been playing add some spice to the gym’s environment. While there is a risk in playing underdog locals – just ask the coach who has lost one – the University of the South, Trevecca and Lipscomb fans came to support their team. These games make more sense than scheduling unknown directional schools from afar.
A big Anchor Down to our women’s cross country team, the champions of the Southeast Regional for the first time and a wish for good luck in Saturday’s NCAA Championship. This program is a fine example of being built slowly but surely; it won the SEC in 2011 (second this fall) and is running in the NCAA’s for the fourth straight year.
If you are wondering why our women’s basketball team is playing St. Louis Monday at 11:30 a.m., it’s not about television. The game is being billed as “Education Day” and there will be about 4,000 Nashville area elementary students attending the game as part of a field trip.
Last week Baylor’s athletic director called for expanding the college football playoff to eight teams, even before the four teams for the first expanded playoff have been identified. Others echoed the idea. We’ve written about this several times and it seems so obvious that bragging about being right is akin to boasting that you predicted the sun would rise in the morning. When will people understand that in sports, it is easier to identify the two best teams than it is to fairly pick the FOUR best teams, or the EIGHT best teams? The farther down the ladder, the harder it is to define separation. We’ll grant that this new system generates interesting weekly stories and there is money to be made in a playoff but just wait for the howls when it’s finalized and teams 5-10 realize they didn’t make the cut. For those expansionists, there is already a big playoff in place – it’s called the regular season!