March Madness All About Money For The NCAA

AP Photo

A great many of us get excited this time of year
as March Madness and the Tournament of 64 68 is
about to begin, but at the risk of being redundant,
I can't help but get annoyed at the newest format
the NCAA has installed. As you can see I almost
wrote that there are 64 teams in this tournament
when if fact this year we go from 65 not 64 to 68.
It's obvious that the powers that be at the NCAA
felt it necessary to add a play in game a few years
ago so that one of the #16 seeds would have to earn
the right to get play a #1 seed, this still wasn't
enough. Enough what you ask? I say $Money$, they
say excitement. They even considered doubling the
size of the tournament and making it 128 teams.

The greediness here is certainly nothing new, and
nowadays it's almost expected, it's just that it
would be nice if institutions like the NCAA would
be a better example instead of standing for the
very same things they punish student athletes for,
GREEDINESS. College basketball & football create
so much revenue for schools and the NCAA it's mind
boggling, and yet whenever a student athlete is
caught trying to make a few extra dollars on the
side in a non illegal way, the NCAA punishes the
school and the athlete. It's way overdue that the
folks at the NCAA start looking in the mirror and
instead of worrying about the BCS or whether the
the tourny needs 64, 68 or 128 teams, they worry
about showing these kids a better example and also
finding a way to help them better financially.

Some of you out there may be rolling your eyes,
and wondering what the big deal is, or why I am
such a spoil sport, but this is about sports too.
When was the last time a #16 team beat a #1 seed?
You know the answer, NEVER. Will it, or could it
happen again? Sure, but it's not very likely, and
though the #15 has beaten the #2 seed four times,
the odds are still slim that this will happen again
anytime soon. These new play in games are for teams
that basically aren't even good enough to be seeded
sixteenth, so how do you expect them to provide any
thing more than a scrimmage for a #1 seed?
It's clear that this wasn't about anything other than
money, and given time you will see this tournament
either expand to the previously considered 128 team
format or another format that was considered a that
time as well, 96 teams. Welcome to the NCAA watered
down tournament of March (you to death) Madness.


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College Bowl Season Underway With A Few Cupcakes

(AP Photo/Andy Carpenean)

If you've been missing your college football, chances
are today is a good day for you, but if you have other
things on your plate and enjoy college football casually,
today is a little bit of a warmup of sorts.

Temple vs Wyoming kick things off at 2:00pm ET in the
Idaho Potato Bowl, at 5:30pm ET Ohio & Utah St try to
spice things up a little, and finally the New Orleans
Bowl features San Diego St against LA Lafayette.
Now these games aren't exactly a who's who of what
college football has to offer, but there are always
bound to be a few diamonds in the rough here that will
wind up on someones NFL roster, and might even play a
huge part next year.

This is only the beginning as the rest of the week will
have more interesting games for some, as the end of the
year starts to come to a close, but it will be mostly
like this until about the last week of the year.
The next one I'm looking forward to won't happen until
Notre Dame meets up with Florida St on the 29th.
Seventy teams in 35 games, that's 58% of all the teams
that play in the first division compared to 37.5% for
the NFL playoff format, but there aren't any playoffs,
so that's why it gets diluted sometimes. Enjoy!


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BCS Games & Non BCS Games Worth Tuning In To

By David Minton, Denton Record-Chronicle via AP

Football, football, and more football, and yet not all
these games on Thanksgiving Friday are worth tuning
into, but these games are definitely worth a glance
at the very very least.

1. Houston v Tulsa - at #8 Houston is still flying under
the radar at can improve their position if anyone falls

2. Nebraska v Iowa - Iowa can really put a nice cap on
their season. Nebraska has been fairly disappointing

3. Arkansas v LSU - This one can be an instant classic,
or a real dud if the Razorbacks don't show up for this.

Saturday is sure to hold some more gems, but let's start
with these to wet our appetite.


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Ranting With Rizzo Replay 11-21-11

With all the talk of improprieties going on at
some of our best and worst schools, the show
tried to put some of this in perspective and
addressed their sudden appearance. We also
took a look at the NFL and college football.
Have a listen to the podcast.




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College Football: The Weekend After

A new feature here lately has been College Football
games I think are worth keeping an eye on, and just
one week after the debacle at Penn State it seems
that their game against Nebraska toady may have alot
more eyes on it than last weeks feature event of
1 vs 2 with Alabama, LSU. Sports can sometimes be
a welcome distraction, so I hope that as hard as it
seems to fathom that it may be for the victims and
their families, I hope it is, and their days get
brighter as opposed to darker moving forward.
Here are a few games besides Nebraska Penn State
that you may find interesting.

1. Michigan St vs Iowa
Ask Michigan if Coach Ferentz was welcoming last week
2. W Virginia vs Cincinnati
A 1 Loss Cincy team can really make some late noise here
3. Florida vs S Carolina
Spurrier can forget his teams underachieving with W here
4. Oklahoma St vs Texas Tech
Can the Red Raiders slay 2 Oklahoma giants in 1 season?
5. Miami vs Florida St
BIG game once, now a possible Al Golden audition
6. Michigan vs Illinois
Illini can save some face after three straight defeats
7. Auburn vs Georgia
Georgia surging after early season heat for Mark Richt
8. Maryland vs Notre Dame
Battle of weird uniforms this game, and ND needs this
9. Oregon vs Stanford
WOW, #3 vs #6, this is HUGE for both teams BCS title hopes

These ought to keep you pretty busy flipping channels, so try
and enjoy the games and your weekend


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