January 07, 2002
Um, that's why they play the games, Lee. Just got to a oddly unsporting sports column posted on The Weekly Standard site last Thursday, going over the college football BCS vs. playoff system controversy. Lee Bockhorn makes the usual anti-BCS arguments before discussing the obstacles to a playoff system. Again, some familiar points, before this strange paragraph:
"And for all their virtues, playoffs aren't perfect either. Many people argue that playoffs reward teams "that are playing the best right now," as Colorado was before Tuesday night. But rewarding teams who luck into getting hot at season's end (instead of excelling consistently over the whole season) can also lead to ridiculous outcomes. Recall the 2000 NCAA basketball tournament, when a moderately good Wisconsin squad got on a hot streak...and made it all the way to the Final Four. Was Wisconsin really one of the top 4 teams in college basketball that year--or even one of the top 8 or 16? No way."
Apart from the fact I've never heard anybody talk about teams getting hot at playoff time (or "lucking into getting hot") as an argument against the playoffs themselves, I guess Bockhorn's point is that playoffs would be a perfect system if only those darn underdogs wouldn't keep mucking things up by winning when they weren't supposed to.
"And for all their virtues, playoffs aren't perfect either. Many people argue that playoffs reward teams "that are playing the best right now," as Colorado was before Tuesday night. But rewarding teams who luck into getting hot at season's end (instead of excelling consistently over the whole season) can also lead to ridiculous outcomes. Recall the 2000 NCAA basketball tournament, when a moderately good Wisconsin squad got on a hot streak...and made it all the way to the Final Four. Was Wisconsin really one of the top 4 teams in college basketball that year--or even one of the top 8 or 16? No way."
Apart from the fact I've never heard anybody talk about teams getting hot at playoff time (or "lucking into getting hot") as an argument against the playoffs themselves, I guess Bockhorn's point is that playoffs would be a perfect system if only those darn underdogs wouldn't keep mucking things up by winning when they weren't supposed to.
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