The Eh! Gap Volume 10
The NBA and NHL are on fire metaphorically, while the NCAA is a literal dumpster fire
It’s been a hot minute since I did one of these, and so much has happened in that 6 weeks. I hope everyone is having a great spring, that my American readers are prepping for a fun Memorial Day weekend, and that my Canadian brethren had a great May Two-Four weekend. If my American friends don’t know what that is, your loss. Anyway, let’s get going.
THE NCAA CONTINUES TO GIVE US THINGS NO ONE ASKED FOR
In case you missed it, the NCAA decided that both the Men’s and Women’s March Madness tournaments were getting a refresh, and by refresh, I mean they’re making them worse. Yes, starting in 2027, the tournaments will be expanding from 68 to 76. Now, if reading that sentence makes you feel like I’ve covered this topic before in a previous instalment, it’s because I have. In fact, I covered this all the way back in Volume 3 of this newsletter! In that I broke down the fact that: 1) no one outside of those working at CBS wants the college basketball tournament to expand, 2) that most college fans would prefer to go back to the original 64, and that even the current 68 is too much and how; 3) per SB Nation, no guarantee expanding the tournament makes anyone any more money. That was in October. Yet they went ahead and did it anyway, because the next time the NCAA and the TV networks do anything for the betterment of the product and fan enjoyment will be the first time.
They can masquerade it as a good thing because “more teams get a chance”, but if you honestly think that a second team from the MAC or a mid-major at large, like say, the University of Saint Louis, will get in over a South Carolina team that won 9 games, I have a bridge to sell you. This is so that one of the Big 10 or SEC can claim in a few years that every member of their conference made the tourney. Small schools will still get screwed over. This is so Bruce Pearl doesn’t have to cry on national television that his son didn’t get in the tournament, meanwhile, Miami of Ohio, who lost 1 game all season, did. It’s appeasement for the big boys, because after years of the SEC having their slogan be “it just means more”, they actually want the regular season to mean less, so that they don’t actually have to try all that hard.
Funny enough, the SEC is the lone holdout from keeping the College Football Playoff from expanding to 24 teams. The rest of the conferences couldn’t help themselves. They’ve meddled in the process each of the last two years since the initial expansion to 12. They didn’t like that Boise hosted a playoff game, so they meddled and got rid of their own initial seeding system. Then two non-power conference teams got in, and the P4 schools freaked out, making sure that under the new rules, Duke, who lost 5 games last year, remember, would have been automatically given a place in the new system. Oh, and Notre Dame needed appeasing as well since they didn’t get their way either. Everyone threw their toys out of the pram instead of taking last year for an anomaly; they needed to ensure they’d never have to deal with the mythological PTSD of not getting their way ever again.
Now, the Big 10, which initially brought to the table the 24-team playoff with autobids, was shut down by everyone, but as soon as they scrapped the idea and made everyone have an equal at-large bid, all of a sudden, the ACC and Big 12 were all on board. Not to mention the coaches in the SEC are all on board with this idea. For years, the coaches talked about how expansion would be seen as a participation trophy, however, as soon as Iowa or South Carolina or Nebraska realize that they only need to be one of the top 20 or so teams in the country instead of a perennial top 10 team, NOW participation trophies are ok, because it means, yet again, that the barrier to entry is lower. Does it kill the importance of the regular season? Yes. Does it make conference championships irrelevant? Yes, however, that was the case once the expansion to 12 happened, if we’re being honest with ourselves. Instead, now you have AD’s at schools like Oklahoma and Alabama talking about how the sport has grown beyond the need for conference championship games. Get fucking real.
I’ll link to the episode of Andy and Ari from a couple of weeks ago where they break down what the 2024 and 2025 seasons would look like without conference championships and with the proposed 24-team format, and it’s just depressing. The issue is, and always will be, that there has never been a season where 24 teams have a legitimate chance at a title. The most we’ve ever seen is probably somewhere between 8 and 12. Frankly, twelve is too many for me. I’d like to see it be at 8 teams. Or even 4. Hell, the longer this fucking nonsense goes on makes me miss the old BCS days where a computer spat out who the top two teams were, they faced off, problem solved. I hated hearing how Vandy or Texas or Notre Dame got screwed over and didn’t get handed a spot in the playoff, and when this inevitably happens, where Greg Sankey is ousted by his constituents in the SEC and the new SEC Commisioner caves and we have an expanded CFP playoff that for some reason wraps up after the Super Bowl, because it can’t be done efficiently- because nothing in college sports ever can be done efficiently- I eagerly awaited winging and whining from fans of 8-5 NC State that they didn’t get in because they were ranked 25th.
THE BRANDON SORSBY DEBACLE- SWEET CREAM ON AN ICE CREAM SAMMICH
What an absurd month and a half this has been in college sports. Brendan Sorsby, the former Cincinnati QB who transferred to Texas Tech, for an absurd amount of cash- how’s 5 million sound- was deemed ineligible to play in this upcoming season because of an investigation by the NCAA on bets he made while a member of Indiana. Honestly, I had no idea he ever was a part of the Hoosiers, let alone in the pre-Cignetti days, but it was his redshirt freshman season. Sorsby claims the bets were to “feel more connected to the team” when he couldn’t impact the outcomes of the games. That right there is one of the dumbest things I have ever read in my entire fucking life.
Not only that, after completing a month-long rehab program- yes, only a month- Sorsby did what everyone does when they don’t get their way in college sports- SUE THE NCAA. Yes, it’s how Trinidad Chambliss got to return to Ole Miss. When Sorsby and Texas Tech announced they were going to seek immediate eligibility, they did the same thing Ole Miss did, JUDGE SHOPPING- finding a biased judge who donates to the program. At least in this case, unlike Ole Miss, the Lubbock judge, a Texas Tech alum, recused himself in the end. The overseeing judge is now a Baylor Grad. I think we’re going to get an interesting judgment after all, and it will likely result in Sorsby being selected in the NFL Supplemental Draft after the NCAA denied his appeal on Tuesday. Texas Tech will appeal, because of course they will. Why would anything go smoothly in this sport?
LSU’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL TEAM OF CURRENTLY INELIGIBLE PLAYERS
We go from one ineligible player to essentially an entire roster of ineligible players. LSU, as it currently stands, has several players who are ineligible to play.
LSU has 2 former French league players, both age 23, former Israeli prospect Yam Madar (drafted in 2020 by the Celtics), who is 25, and RJ Luis who was drafted by the Celtics last year, and is 23. The average age of his new brigade is 23. That’s older than the age of a college graduate.
What chaps my ass is the blatant disregard for any form of integrity in the sport. Do you have any idea how unlikeable you have to be as a coach, to be employed by the same school that has Lane Kiffin roaming the sidelines for football and Kim Mulkey as their women’s basketball head coach, and still be the least likeable?
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. College basketball is fucking dead.
THE NBA AND NHL PLAYOFFS HAVE ROCKED
Hey, something good for a change! I love playoff sports. The NBA playoffs got off to a great start. The Raptors shocked the Cavs by taking them to 7. The Cavs blew a 3-1 lead, the Magic almost completed an 8 seed over 1 seed upset if it hadn’t been for them blowing a 3-1 lead of their own.
The NHL proved once again that they have the best first round in all of professional sports. The Oilers, fresh off back-to-back Stanley Cup appearances, were upset by the upstart Anaheim Ducks. The Stars and the Wild had an all-timer of a playoff series. Top to bottom, everything was awesome.
The highlight of the second rounds was seeing the absolute wagon that the Avalanche became as they steamrolled the Wild. The Canadiens won a second straight game 7 to keep the Canadian hopes of a Stanley Cup alive. Absolute perfection.
The Conference Finals in both sports have given us so many gifts. The Spurs and Thunder in the NBA are landing haymakers on one another, trading wins back and forth. ’d like to congratulate the New York Knicks on making the NBA Finals. I’m pretty sure the Cavs forgot that they needed to actually show up to play- especially in Game 4. Cleveland would have been better off putting out a press release that their flight to Cancun conflicted with the tipoff time. Going out with your season on the line by 37 is embarrassing. Especially when you have the highest payroll in the league.
On the ice, the Avalanche seem to have fallen victim to the President’s Trophy Curse, where the league’s best record comes up short before the Stanley Cup. The wheels fell off, and they were swept by a Vegas team that many didn’t believe would make it this far. At least the Hurricanes and Habs are making up for it.
No off-field section this month. We’ll talk again soon