- The NCAA Tournament (or more specifically the bracket for the NCAA Tournament) as we know it is about to change. Yesterday the NCAA released information on the changes it is set to make starting with the 2014 NCAA Tournament. The changes revolve around seeding being altered by the conference affiliations. The details involved in the changes goes beyond the normal space of this column, but it essentially boils down to three things: (1) timing of potential NCAA Tournament intra-conference match-ups will be determined by how often teams have played; (2) ease the restrictions on placement of multiple highly seeded teams from the same conference; and (3) essentially eliminating the possibility of intra-conference match-ups in the First Four. These might not seem like huge changes to most observers, but it could have a profound impact by creating more fair seedings rather than unnecessarily boosting/dropping teams because of their conference affiliation to help organize seeding.
- One of the NCAA’s proposed reform took effect yesterday with relatively little fanfare. Yesterday was the first day that the NCAA’s new and improved enforcement policies were in place. In theory the idea that the NCAA will be stricter and more expedient with its sanctions seems like a good idea as does the idea that there will be tiered system of handling infractions. However, we remain skeptical of the people who will be carrying out the enforcement. We have already seen that the NCAA is a deeply flawed organization and perhaps the most important factor in governance is whether the populace trusts that governing body is acting in an appropriate manner. With what we have seen over the past few years we doubt that they do.
- Over the past three years, Luke Winn has written several articles examining the transfer phenomenon at both the high school and college level. The latest iteration looks at the transfer habits of the top-100 players from the last seven years. Outside of the usual stuff (players who transfer more in high school are more likely to transfer in college, etc) and the rate of transfers in high school is startling, but that was not the most interesting part of Winn’s article. The most interesting part was that while 34.3% of top-100 recruits transfer (a ridiculous number) that number is not that different from the average college student (32.6% of them transfer). So the issues of transferring might be an interesting one for college sports fans it is a much larger academic one.
- With all of the outcry over conference realignment one of the things that has been largely overlooked is that it creates some really interesting potential rivalries. One of the biggest if not the biggest new rivalry will be Duke and Syracuse at least in terms of basketball powerhouses. For all of Cameron Indoor’s charm the one thing it cannot do is produce a massive crowd, which is something that the Carrier Dome can certainly do. So while the date for Duke’s trip to Syracuse may not be set yet (at least publicly) there are certainly big plans for it as there are reports that the school is looking at having more than 50,000 fans in attendance. Outside of questions as to how well they could actually fill those 50,000+ seats there are obvious logistical/electrical issues that would likely derail this crazy idea before it gets started. We would be interested to see what kind of buzz a game of this size would create although having seen how far away a court can appear in a huge football stadium we are not sure that increasing capacity to this size would be such a wise idea.
- At a time when professional teams in many cities are taking the cities hostage by requesting either improvements or entirely new stadiums largely paid for by tax payers it is somewhat refreshing to see that Wake Forest is going in the other direction. Yesterday the school announced it was completed its purchase of Joel Coliseum from the city of Winston-Salem for a total of $8 million with a plan to spend an additional $10 million on renovations. We are assuming that this $18 million is coming from the athletic department and booster money rather than being diverted from the school’s other funds so it seems like a perfect model for how sports teams and cities should interact.
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Bargain basement price on the Joel..city has been losing money on it for years and can't afford needed repairs / renovations. Thanks to ESPN for funding this...
Of course our most needed repair is on the bench.