Someone recently informed me that he prefers college football to college basketball because “the regular season counts.”
Oh, really?
The importance of the regular season in every sport but college football is to determine which teams are worthy of playing for a championship. Every February and March, college basketball bubble teams jockey for an invitation to the NCAA Tournament. (For college football fans unfamiliar with this three-syllable term, a tournament is a competition in which more than two teams actually gather together and play each other to determine a winner.)
For the dozens of teams that have their bubbles burst in a single game, and, sometimes, on a single play, the regular season most certainly counts.
Villanova could miss the tournament by a controversial fraction of a second. The Wildcats, tied at Georgetown in the waning moments, were whistled for a debatable touch foul 75 feet from the basket, with literally a tenth of a second remaining. They lost on the ensuing free throws; that victory against a top-10 team might have punched their ticket to the tournament.
Syracuse recently experienced the bipolar nature of the bubble. In 2006, the Orange elevated from bubble status to No. 5 seed in a memorable four-day run. Last year, they were shockingly omitted from the field of 65, despite having a stronger resume than many of the teams that were included.
This year, at 7-8 in the Big East, Syracuse is again walking the tightrope between invitation and rejection. Two-point losses against Georgetown and Connecticut could prevent them from lacing up their dancing shoes.
While UCLA is decidedly not on the bubble, its Pac-10 brother to the north, Cal, sits squarely ““ or more appropriately, roundly ““ on the capricious spherical globule. Along with Oregon and Arizona State, the final two weeks of the season will determine who dances and who will be wallflowers. For any of these schools, a single game could determine their fates.
True, any football regular season will be magnified because of the short season. The relatively small number of games makes it difficult to determine the actual strength of teams, especially when they don’t face common opponents.
Yet the season only culminates in meaningless exhibitions called bowl games. This year’s college football campaign, littered with twists and upsets, was heralded as spectacular by fans and pundits. It still ended with the same arbitrary and hollow conclusion.
Unlike in college football, even basketball’s bubble teams will be afforded the opportunity to play for a title. Two teams won’t merely be crowned by computer ratings and a group of so-called experts to play for an artificial “national championship.”
Instead, they will have the opportunity to be unleashed into a three-week festival that mesmerizes campuses all across America and gives schools such as Saint Mary’s and Davidson something college football could only dream of: hope.
Hope for any so-called mid-major to capture the magic of Valparaiso, Gonzaga or George Mason.
Hope for Indiana, who can follow Michigan’s example in 1989 and turn a broken season into a championship run.
Hope for any bubble team to emulate Villanova in 1985 and conquer the tournament as a No. 8 seed.
Hope for UCLA, where being outside of the AP poll’s top two doesn’t prohibit a 12th banner from hanging in the rafters of Pauley Pavilion.
So bring on the bubble-bursting excitement of college basketball’s regular season. College football wishes it were this exciting.
E-mail Taylor at btaylor@media.ucla.edu.