This guy's opinion about the conference tourney in the smaller conferences

I totally agree with him.

Other Conference Tournament stuff:
It is clear the NCAA’s “non-elite” conferences now play the entire season to determine only where teams will be seeded in the conference tournament, from where the regular-season champ regularly is bounced from inclusion in the NCAA Tournament.
Saturday on ESPNU, Princeton, 14-0 in the Ivy League’s regular season, was a missed free throw — Penn, 6-8 in the Ivy, missed it with 12 seconds left in regulation — from being bounced. Princeton won in overtime at the Penn-friendly Palestra.
Monmouth, 18-2 in the MAAC, was eliminated from an automatic bid when it lost to 12-8 Siena in the conference tournament.
Texas-Arlington, which won the regular-season Sun Belt Conference at 14-4, Saturday lost to 11-7 Texas State, which Sunday played Troy, 10-8, for the automatic NCAA Tournament bid.
Akron, the one-seed in the MAC at 14-4, was out Saturday, after it lost to six-seed Kent State, 10-8 in the conference season.
So these conferences play an entire season only to determine their seeds in a conference tournament, in which the winner goes to the NCAA Tournament — strength of non-conference schedule counting for nothing, regular-season conference success too often counting for nothing.
And if it doesn’t seem right, there’s a reason: It’s not right.

nypost.com/2017/03/13/colleges-bring-som...ks-never-do-defense/

TV’s loss of practical sense has become epidemic.
If, say, you were seated next to a fellow at a game, play on, he tapped you on the shoulder to have you read a stat that a player has “averaged eight rebounds in his past two games,” you would insist he cut it out while reaching into your pocket to show him your pepper spray.
Yet, Friday night, with play on in a tight West Virginia-Kansas State game, ESPN did just that.
Such graphics, though no viewer needs or wants them, are posted to be read by all viewers. They’re designed to distract us from watching the game. Why? Because TV folks think it enhances their game acumen, when it only underscores their thoughtlessness.
Saturday, 2:10 into the Minnesota-Michigan Big Ten semifinal — in a half-empty arena in Washington — CBS felt it was important to interrupt our viewing to read Michigan was 3-for-4 on field-goal tries; Minnesota was 1-for-3.
Such needless, impractical screen clutter has become a regular part of NHL telecasts on NBC, the latter having added, over live play, a digital “shift-time” clock, to show what we simply could be told or already knew: Better players, such as the Blackhawks’ Duncan Keith, Sunday against the Wild, play the most.

nypost.com/2017/03/13/colleges-bring-som...ks-never-do-defense/

Thanks, Port! This link had ALL KINDS of interesting articles, in addition to the items u pointed out.

Ten thousand years ago when I was in grammar school, Friday afternoon was "art class." I'm a miserable artist but loved it none the less.

You gonna have Mr Port's pep rally today? Complete w rock chalk chant --please train them right. Posters--back to back to back........ fight song? A bunch of what, 10 and 11 year olds, throwing some serious mojo toward our beloved Jayhawks....woo hoo!

ROCK CHALK!

Glad you liked it, WSG. What's funny is that the author, Phil Mushnick of the NY Post, is, very often, the opiner who likes to say outrageous things just to get a rise out of people. He happened to make some sense in this case.

As for today, showed the kids (yep, 10-11 yrs old) the KU logo, told'em about the mythical Jayhawk (including the evolution of the mascot: www.kualumni.org/wp-content/uploads/2014...ews_vote_jayhawk.jpg ) and told them if you see that image on your TV screen, keep that channel on and root hard for the Jayhawks. Of course their eyes lit up and the prospect of having no HW so in the end, that'll be the main reason they'll watch and cheer.

The end justifies the means!


RC

Let me preface this story by saying that girl (my student) and her mom are both wonderful people.

So there's a girl in my class who's mom is from Kentucky and is a huge UK fan. There's some very light ribbing that has gone on over the course of the year with mom, but overall we're very respectful to each other in our college basketball banter, including when speaking about our respective teams. For example, she congratulated our guys when we won at Rupp and spoke of the shortcomings of her UK team.

On Tuesday, I received this email from her:

I think we have a really tough road, especially with UCLA and UNC in our region. I should tell you that in the house we each fill out a bracket and Caroline has picked Kansas to win it all. I guess she has decided that buttering you up is more important than making me happy! Needless to say, she is out of the will.

Good luck. I’ve said it before, I think your guys have a really good chance. But its going to be a fun tournament no matter what.

I laughed out loud at that "will" comment!

Anyway, game's about to start. Let's hope we kick some arse early and get to see Self, Vang, et al for those last 4-5 minutes.

Toooooooo funny!


RC