Whitlock: Why did Duke receive favorable seed? Because CBS needs a ratings boost.

[|Zach|]

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/14/260...favorable.html

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The experts on CBS and ESPN were not at liberty Sunday night to explain to you why the NCAA Tournament selection committee treated Duke like the No. 1 overall seed rather than Kansas, the nation's best basketball team.

The explanation is simple: Duke is television ratings gold, and the NCAA is in the process of negotiating a new TV contract for its prized tournament.

CBS, the current rights holder, and ESPN, America's 24-hour national sports network - along with several other networks - are currently participating in the contract negotiations. It's a high-stakes affair. CBS paid $6 billion to exclusively broadcast the event for the last 11 years.

In an effort to hoodwink a TV network into again overpaying for the Big Dance, the NCAA is considering expanding the tourney to 96 teams.

So it's only logical that the selection committee provided the Blue Devils - tournament-chokers for most of the last decade - a relative cakewalk to the Final Four. Duke, the alleged third No. 1 seed, is in the bracket with the weakest No. 2 (Villanova) and No. 3 (Baylor) and No. 4 (Purdue).

Meanwhile, the Jayhawks draw No. 2 seed Ohio State, the team many believe deserved a No. 1, and No. 3 Georgetown and No. 4 Maryland. Every expert I heard Sunday stated the obvious: Kansas is in the toughest bracket in the tournament, and Duke is in the easiest.

Why?

"Duke and (North) Carolina bring big built-in audiences to TV sets," CBS programmer Mike Aresco told a USA Today reporter last year in explaining CBS' 2009 tournament ratings bump.

The NCAA needs another bump.

During the last 15 years, the NBA has stripped the college game of name-brand, ratings-generating players to showcase. Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James skipped college ball altogether.

Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley and Stephen Curry - to name just a few - could all conceivably still be looking for one last shining moment in front of Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg. Instead, they're NBA millionaires, leaving the NCAA to promote legendary coaches and tradition-rich programs.

No coach and no team move the needle better than Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke Blue Devils.
They're the Tiger Woods of hoops, a squeaky-clean fantasy that sports fans love and love to hate.

Short of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, Coach K and his All-American Boys have been the NCAA's best box-office draw. Duke's 1992 victory over Michigan is the second-most-watched championship game after Magic-Bird. Duke's loss to Arkansas in 1994 is fourth.

I know. Around here, we're quite proud of Kansas' rich tradition. The Jayhawks produced Dr. Naismith, Wilt Chamberlain and Danny Manning. Kansas owns three NCAA titles. And just about everyone agrees Bill Self is as good a coach as there is.

Kansas fails the squeaky-clean charade.

Larry Brown hired Danny Manning's dad and left the program on probation. We still don't know for sure how Darrell Arthur passed 10th-grade algebra. And then there's that whole thing about Kansas being the favorite team of porn stars.

On a more serious note, Duke (and North Carolina to a lesser degree) score higher on the old "eyeball" test. Fewer tattoos and more white guys.

I just made many of you uncomfortable. Sorry. But it's a fact.

It's no different from Tiger Woods' brown skin in a traditionally white-skin sport sending golf ratings (and sponsorship dollars) skyrocketing. Coach K and his band of Boys Next Door are the Great White Hopes of Hoops. Three of Duke's five starters are white. Their top two scorers are white.

I'm not complaining. I'm not anti-Duke at all. I would love to have a son play for Coach K. It would mean that my son excelled athletically and academically. Plus, I respect Coach K.

But let's deal with the reality of why Duke was given a favorable draw. The NCAA is desperate for television ratings. The $6 billion CBS paid over 11 years financed a lot things the NCAA likes to do - stuff like propping up non-revenue sports.

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if the NCAA mandated that Christian Laettner, Grant Hill and Shane Battier referee all of the Blue Devils' tournament games.

This is the price of television being in total control of the sports world. At contract time, the NCAA Tournament isn't much different from "American Idol."

[sedated]

Originally Posted by RJ

Maybe, but Maryland just beat Duke two weeks ago.

...in Maryland...on senior night.

and Oklahoma State beat KU around that same time.

[RJ]

Originally Posted by sedated

...in Maryland...on senior night.

and Oklahoma State beat KU around that same time.

I'll go out on a limb and say that Duke would rather play Purdue than Maryland.

But I've been hating Duke for at least 30 years so I'm a bit biased. I officially started hating them when a couple of Dukies undercut Maryland's Buck Williams at the buzzer to win the ACC tourney back around 1980 or so. There was, of course, no call on the play. There have been a lot of those plays since. F@cking Duke. They're right up there with the Raiders, Donx and Yankees for me.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by sedated

yeah, having to play the overwhelming favorite in the final four was our lucky day. and the hottest player in the tournament in the elite 8. and the #1 overall pick of the draft in the championship.

typical ku hate.

You played nobody higher than an 8 seed to advance to the Final 4 and yet still refuse to acknowledge that you had about the easiest run to the NCAA title in history. Unreal.

Sure, beating UNC and Memphis took some doing, but UNC pissed itself in the first half and Memphis is simple FTs away from sending you guys home.

Look, you beat who you had to beat, KU couldn't have done any more than that. At the same time, it's laughable to me that you folks still won't acknowledge that you got butt-****ing lucky through the first 4 rounds of that tourney and advanced to the final 4 fresh as can be because you never faced a true test.

I'm sorry that you guys may actually have to beat a quality opponent to get to the final 4 this year. Sure sucks for you guys.

[WilliamTheIrish]

Whitlock must be the gold bullion Lew carries that Can was talking about. Carry that water JW!

[Pants]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

You played nobody higher than an 8 seed to advance to the Final 4 and yet still refuse to acknowledge that you had about the easiest run to the NCAA title in history. Unreal.

Sure, beating UNC and Memphis took some doing, but UNC pissed itself in the first half and Memphis is simple FTs away from sending you guys home.

Look, you beat who you had to beat, KU couldn't have done any more than that. At the same time, it's laughable to me that you folks still won't acknowledge that you got butt-****ing lucky through the first 4 rounds of that tourney and advanced to the final 4 fresh as can be because you never faced a true test.

I'm sorry that you guys may actually have to beat a quality opponent to get to the final 4 this year. Sure sucks for you guys.

Damn dude, there are better things to be bitter about. Who wore down UNC and Memphis that year? And I like how you give no credit to KU for demolishing UNC - they just pissed themselves. Cole Aldrich and the bigs man-handling Psycho T might have had something to do with that. It's also nice that you give Davidson no credit, considering they had a guard that's absolutely lighting up the league right now.

If anything, that was one of the hardest NC's a team had to earn.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Metrolike

Damn dude, there are better things to be bitter about. Who wore down UNC and Memphis that year? And I like how you give no credit to KU for demolishing UNC - they just pissed themselves. Cole Aldrich and the bigs man-handling Psycho T might have had something to do with that. It's also nice that you give Davidson no credit, considering they had a guard that's absolutely lighting up the league right now.

If anything, that was one of the hardest NC's a team had to earn.

HAHAHAHAHA

I cannot believe you can say that kind of crap with a straight face. "The hardest NC a team's had to earn..."

Gimme a break. Stephen Curry is a mindless chucker that shot Davidson right out of that game. Had he not shown up at all, they'd have had a better shot at winning it. I couldn't care less what he's doing in the NBA (though he's doing the same thing, still a mindless chucker). He was a complete liability that night.

And yeah, Aldridge crushed Hansbrough. But did you actually watch UNC play that game? They were flat out dropping balls and dribbling the ball off their feet in the open court (twice). Had KU played that game the way UNC did, you'd be saying right now that they lost the game rather than UNC won it. It was possibly the worst half of basketball I've ever seen from a strong club. And again, Memphis outplayed KU and then choked. Once again, switch roles and you'd be saying that KU gave the game away, not that Memphis won it.

[L.A. Chieffan]

wow duke gets a favorable seed because of tv ratings. shocking.

next thing youll tell me is the nba wants kobe and lebron in the finals. crazy talk!

[sedated]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

You played nobody higher than an 8 seed to advance to the Final 4 and yet still refuse to acknowledge that you had about the easiest run to the NCAA title in history. Unreal.

Sure, beating UNC and Memphis took some doing, but UNC pissed itself in the first half and Memphis is simple FTs away from sending you guys home.

Dude, whoever wins and advances to the next round deserves to be there. Ask all the teams the Davidson knocked out whether or not they were legit. You get stuck on the seed number next to their name, but go back and look at who they played in the regular season and what the final scores were.

KU would have...and did...beat anyone and everyone they had to that year. Hopefully this year is the same.

If its so easy to get the the F4, why hasn't MU done it? Ever? You'd think in all these years they would have "gotten lucky" too.


Keep on believing whatever gets you to sleep at night. You're just bitter, and I'm sorry for that.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

HAHAHAHAHA

I cannot believe you can say that kind of crap with a straight face. "The hardest NC a team's had to earn..."

Gimme a break. Stephen Curry is a mindless chucker that shot Davidson right out of that game. Had he not shown up at all, they'd have had a better shot at winning it. I couldn't care less what he's doing in the NBA (though he's doing the same thing, still a mindless chucker). He was a complete liability that night.

And yeah, Aldridge crushed Hansbrough. But did you actually watch UNC play that game? They were flat out dropping balls and dribbling the ball off their feet in the open court (twice). Had KU played that game the way UNC did, you'd be saying right now that they lost the game rather than UNC won it. It was possibly the worst half of basketball I've ever seen from a strong club. And again, Memphis outplayed KU and then choked. Once again, switch roles and you'd be saying that KU gave the game away, not that Memphis won it.

Holy shit, dude. That is borderline bat-shit crazy type bitterness.

[Extra Point]

It'll be moot when Louisville beats Duke.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Metrolike

Holy shit, dude. That is borderline bat-shit crazy type bitterness.

Holy shit, dude - that is like borderline bat-shit crazy type non-responsive.

Yet again, you've come out completely devoid of a point and have resorted to calling folks bitter. You've done it to me twice and I've seen you do it a couple other times to others.

You might want to start actually bringing some substance to a debate, you'll sound a lot less like a broken record that way.

To each their own...

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Metrolike

Holy shit, dude. That is borderline bat-shit crazy type bitterness.

You saying Memphis didn't choke away that game?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by vailpass

You saying Memphis didn't choke away that game?

Evidently.

And the whole "Arizona State knocking off 3 #1 seeds that actually played good basketball" thing evidently pales in comparison to the Greatest Championship Run in History pulled off by KU's mighty destruction of a bunch of bottom half of the bracket squads. I'm sure Memphis having to get through an 8, a 5 and a 2 to even make the Final 4 (while KU was playing a Villanova squad that shouldn't have made the tournament and Davidson's 1-man army) had nothing to do with their legs not being under them when they were shooting those FTs.

He'd need to actually resort to bringing fact to the party in order to rebut any of that, though.

[HC_Chief]

Originally Posted by Metrolike

Holy shit, dude. That is borderline bat-shit crazy type bitterness.

LOL

No doubt. I especially like the "Memphis outplayed KU then choked" line. Apparently DJ did not watch the game... KU led for ~30 minutes; they jumped all over Memphis early. Memphis took the lead with 8 minutes to go in the second half; they led for under 10 minutes.

KU tied the game with SEVERAL great plays (Collins steal, Collins three, Chalmers three to send it to OT). They then proceeded to kick Memphis' ass in five minutes of OT.

Check the game line: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=284000063

[Pants]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Holy shit, dude - that is like borderline bat-shit crazy type non-responsive.

Yet again, you've come out completely devoid of a point and have resorted to calling folks bitter. You've done it to me twice and I've seen you do it a couple other times to others.

You might want to start actually bringing some substance to a debate, you'll sound a lot less like a broken record that way.

To each their own...

Dude, the things I have to say are completely obvious to anyone who's not acting reeruned. Memphis choked? Yeah, they missed some freethrows, the fact is, KU staged one of the most epic comebacks in NCAA history against a very strong opponent. And even if you disregard that effort, ere you going to discount every NC that was won/lost on freethrows? Because freethrows, my friend, are a part of the game as is dealing with pressure. KU outplayed Memphis in the last 7 minutes of the game which was enough to win the NC and rightfully so.

Same goes for UNC, they were shell-shocked in the first half, they had sloppy plays and so did we. The fact is, they got DOMINATED when they were favored to win the whole thing.

Davidson - my point stands, they got to EE because Steph was, clearly, a liability and is still a liability to the NBA team that drafted him. JFC.

And as far as the useless bit of the quoted post, I remember admitting I misread your post regarding KSU freethrows, but way to bring it up anyway, champ.