Downsize the Final Four, please

The NCAA Tournament Final Four was played in a dome for the first time in 1971 at the Houston Astrodome. And, in 1982 the event returned to a dome (the New Orleans Superdome) and has been in a dome ever since 1997.

Jason Gay, in today's Wall Street Journal, urged the NCAA to go back to an arena setting for these final three games versus dome venues. His rationale is that basketball is meant to be played in an arena - an intimate setting designed for the game versus a stadium designed for Monster Truck pulls.

While I get Gay's point, the economics and logistics of trying to configure an arena for fans, media, sponsors, coaches (the coaches association convention takes place during Final Four weekend) and the general public is impossible given the demand for tickets. You're not going to put that genie back into the bottle. What needs to change isn't the dome locations but rather the configuration of how the dome is used for the Final Four.

The 2009 Final Four at Ford Field in Detroit was the first where the floor was placed in the middle of the stadium, thus providing additional seating. In the process, the number of quality seats declined dramatically and the number of restricted view seats increased even more dramatically.

The solution is to return to the prior dome configuration where the court was situated at one end of the stadium floor and temporary bleachers supplemented the natural arena seating on the other three sides of the playing surface. This approach, which was in place from 1997-2008, required a minimum of 40,000 seats, based upon the NCAA's venue selection criteria at the time. Last year's attendance of 73,340 for the national championship game in NRG Stadium, Houston, means that the NCAA would lose about 40% or so of the seats that it could sell if returning to that configuration.

The downside of this downsizing is that there is obvious demand for tickets and the experience of being "in the building." The upside is that the fan and student-athlete (you see what I did there) experience would more than make up for the lost revenue - those who do have tickets would be more likely to have good sight lines; the players on the floor would have a less cavernous space in which to suddenly adjust with their shots.

It's a conundrum that is a good one to have if you're the NCAA. Having experienced both the smaller set-up in a dome and the larger configuration, there is no comparison as to my preference - my "good" seats as defined by the NCAA in 2012 in New Orleans were horrid in comparison to my same section in 2008 in San Antonio. And, the spectacle would still be a spectacle on TV.

Let's downsize, shall we?

I love...no I hate, this tournament

On Thursday, March 16, I wrote a post in this blog about "choking." And, 10 days later I need to stay off of Twitter as all I read are the plentiful sentiments about Kansas "choking" in the Elite Eight...again.

If fate is a cruel mistress, what does that make the NCAA Tournament?

You know the story line by now - Kansas, a number one seed, playing at "home" (actually, in Kansas City's Sprint Center 45 minutes from campus), with the Player of the Year (Frank Mason) and a once-in-a-generation freshman talent (Josh Jackson), losing to Oregon, a team who hasn't been to the Final Four since 1939 - a year when the NCAA Tournament consisted of all of eight teams.

This is what college basketball has become - a sport where the entire country takes notice for three weekends in March and early April. And, it's about what you do over those three weekends that defines your season for many fans and all but the true experts in the basketball media.

Look, I get it, it is what it is and it reinforces the magnitude of this tournament as a sports phenomenon every year. Even with all of the hubbub about the Super Bowl each year, there is no other annual sporting event that generates casual interest and even changes in work behavior as does March Madness.

It's the fandom generated by March Madness that suddenly becomes the source for opinions about choking, bad coaching and unfair comparisons. It's the reason why an adult fan leans over the railing and chastises Devonte Graham, a kid who went 0-7 from the field in what may be his final game in a Kansas uniform. It's why Landen Lucas, Kansas' big man, felt compelled to post an apology on Twitter for the team's performance last night.

I wish Oregon well in the Final Four. They deserve the berth and their coach, Dana Altman, is suddenly going to get his well-deserved due. But, as Altman would probably tell you, he's not a different coach today than he was yesterday afternoon before the tip of the game with Kansas.

For Oregon, the achievement was making the Final Four. What the Ducks had better prepare for are the future expectations that will build because of their 2017 success. For Kansas, the script is all too familiar - a one seed entering the tournament with a loss before the Final Four, thus piling on to the building narrative of Bill Self as a tournament "choker."

The NCAA Tournament is, indeed, a cruel mistress.

Choking

Get ready - in about three hours, you'll have a chance to hear an announcer utter the word "choke" for the first time over the next three weeks of college basketball, a k a March Madness.

"Choke" has become the convenient term to describe what a team, player and/or coach does when said team fritters away a lead or doesn't make the needed play. Some labeled New Orleans' loss to Mt. St. Mary's a "choke" on Tuesday night when coach Mark Slessinger inexplicably did not have his team foul late in the NCAA Tournament game when conventional coaching wisdom dictates that as the strategy.

In reality, the team or player or coach may be "choking up," but they're not choking. (Look it up.) And, this word has been used far too often as the convenient rationale for why a team gave up a lead and lost.

Did the Atlanta Falcons choke in the Super Bowl? Maybe. Or, maybe they just got beat by a super hero quarterback named Brady. Did Providence choke last night in the play-in NCAA Tournament game versus USC? Maybe. But, don't tell Bennie Boatwright as that would diminish his 24 point effort and big-shot making for the Trojans.

If you haven't guessed, I'm tired of the use of the word and as the easy path to explain away a loss by someone who was expected to win. To use it so cavalierly is to diminish the reality and the drama of sports - if everyone who was supposed to win always won, sports would be pretty boring and March Madness wouldn't be March Madness.

Start the madness!

It's pretty delicious, isn't it, this thing called March Madness? Where else in sports can you watch hours upon hours of coverage of pundits debating why a certain 12 seed will beat a 5 seed, or why so-and-so Tech deserves a spot in the field of 68?

We get oodles of coverage, of course, on the Super Bowl and other major sporting events. But nothing matches the over-abundance of debate, hand-wringing and predictions that immediately commence upon the reveal of the bracket on Selection Sunday. The bracket was unveiled yesterday around 4:45 p.m. CDT/5:45 p.m. EDT and the Twitter-sphere immediately went into hyper-drive. ESPN devoted two hours of broadcast coverage AFTER CBS' 90 minute show and that doesn't even count what was going on across other media outlets.

It's the blessing and the curse of college basketball - March makes fans of almost every human being in our country but only a fraction of those actually viewed a game during the regular season.

So, lemming that I am, let me join the chorus of those writing, posting, blogging and weighing in on this year's 2017 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. (Yes, that's the official name of the tournament.)

Duke did not get screwed. There is one simple criteria that needs to be implemented immediately in the selection process - it's that only regular season conference champions are eligible to be a 1 seed in the tournament. North Carolina won the regular season ACC conference championship. The ACC is arguably the best league in the country. Thus, they deserve the 1 seed - not Duke. Yes, I know that Duke won two of three games this season against the Tarheels...but they did not win the regular season conference crown. Argument over...move on.

Wichita State did get screwed...and so did Kentucky. It's easy to say that Wichita State, and teams of its ilk, should play a tougher regular season non-conference schedule in order to boost their tournament bonafides. But, c'mon, if you're a Power Five conference school, are the Shockers someone that you want to take on? Absolutely not! Wichita State won the Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament championships but, to their detriment, lost to tourney teams Louisville, Michigan State and Oklahoma State during the regular season. For that, they're seeded 10th. And, for that, Kentucky can look ahead to a likely second round matchup against - yep - Wichita State.

Pay attention - this may be the best freshman class yet. While Washington's Markelle Fultz, the consensus #1 pick in the June NBA Draft, is not playing in the tournament, there are plenty of impact freshman who are hoping to use the tournament to further showcase their skills. Kentucky's duo of Malik Monk and De'Aron Fox, Josh Jackson (Kansas), Lonzo Ball (UCLA), Jayson Tatum (Duke), Harry Giles (Duke), Jonathan Isaac (Florida State) and Lauri Markkanen all figure to play prominent roles with their team's title hopes. And, all will very likely declare for the NBA Draft once the tournament is over.

Intriguing matchup possibilities? You bet! The tournament never disappoints in the various storylines that develop in the early rounds. Kansas alum Danny Manning will lead his Wake Forest team against former in-state rival Kansas State in a play-in game. Florida State will have its hands full with Dunk City, a k a Florida Gulf Coast University. Former Southwest Conference rivals SMU and Baylor could meet in the round of 32. And, how about intriguing 4 seed versus 5 seed matchup possibilities like West Virginia-Notre Dame and Purdue-Iowa State, both games offering teams with very differing styles of play?

What the heck is a KenPom? Ken Pomeroy brought the world of advanced analytics to college basketball. And, if data is your thing, then take note that Kansas is the lowest KenPom ranked 1 seed at #10, and that teams like West Virginia (4 seed/5 KenPom), Virginia (5 seed/7 KenPom) and Wichita State (10 seed/8 KenPom) are under-seeded.

Who does Vegas like? In the always-interesting 5 versus 12 seed matchups, Vegas has Minnesota versus Middle Tennessee State as a Pick 'Em. For national champion, two different sports books disagree - one has Duke as the favorite and another has North Carolina.

It's March. It's here. Let's start the madness!

Yeah, but... (on Kansas' streak of 13)

The Kansas Jayhawks beat TCU on Wednesday night, assuring KU of their 13th straight Big 12 conference championship, tying the program with UCLA's streak of 13 straight in 1967-79. Yet, for the past week I've been hearing many talking heads and others pulling out their "yeah, but..." arguments.

So, in an attempt to be as objective as possible, let's see if this writer (who, in full disclosure, has witnessed approximately 90 of those conference games in Allen Fieldhouse during the streak) can take a crack at answering the skeptics.

"Yeah, but...the Big 12 is a weak league"

This argument is the easiest to debunk. During the 13 year streak, the Big 12 has had the #1 conference RPI on four occasions, has been #2 three times and #3 twice.

Coaches in the league during Kansas' run have included dudes named Bob Knight, Bob Huggins, Tubby Smith, Lon Kruger, Rick Barnes, Shaka Smart, Bruce Weber and Kelvin Sampson, all who took or have taken teams to the NCAA Final Four during their careers.

The Big 12 has consistently been a tough basketball league.

"Yeah, but...KU played in the Big 12's North Division, which was weak"

Be careful, my friend.

Back in the day when the Big 12 had two divisions, the South dominated (tongue planted firmly in cheek) the North at a 271-269 clip. In other words, there was no major difference between the winning percentages of the two divisions.

Kansas was 128-22 (85.33%) against their colleagues in the North, and 73-17 (81.11%) against teams in the South in the years when there were two divisions. In contrast, Texas was 55-35 (61.11%), Oklahoma State was 53-37 (58.89%) and Oklahoma was 48-42 (53.33%) against the North.

The bottom line is that Kansas did not gain a major advantage by playing schools from the North twice and schools from the South once during a season.

"Yeah, but...Kansas has tied for a share of the title on four occasions"

Guilty as charged. The four shared titles came in 2005 (Oklahoma), 2006 (Texas), 2008 (Texas) and 2013 (Kansas State.)

In '05, Kansas lost in Norman to Oklahoma and did not have a rematch in the Big 12 Tournament, marking the only time in this streak where KU did not beat the team that it tied for the crown.

Texas tied Kansas in '06 and '08, beating the Jayhawks both of those years in Austin. KU rebounded in 2006 to beat Texas in the championship game of the Big 12 Tournament in Dallas. In 2008, the same happened, only this time in Kansas City at the tournament.

"Yeah, but...Kansas has under-achieved in the NCAA Tournament during these 13 years"

Okay then, go ahead and change the topic and the argument. But, if you want to go there, here's the data:
- Kansas has a 27-11 record in the past 13 NCAA Tournaments, or a 71% winning percentage.
- The Jayhawks have a national championship and a national championship game appearance during that span.
- Only Duke, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Gonzaga have made every NCAA Tournament, like Kansas, during the past 13 seasons. The records: Duke = 26-10/72%; Michigan State = 27-12/69%; Wisconsin = 23-12/66%; Gonzaga = 15-12/56%.

For every Bucknell, Bradley and Northern Iowa is someone else's Lehigh, Mercer and Middle Tennessee. In other words, Duke and Michigan State have had early round flameouts too.

"Yeah, but...it's John Wooden!"

In reality, it's not. UCLA's streak of 13 straight league titles in 1967-79 featured three coaches - Wooden, Gene Bartow and Gary Cunningham.

The college game in 1967-79 was different than today and thus it's hard to compare the two streaks. UCLA played in the then Pac 8 conference (formerly the Athletic Association of Western Universities until 1968) along with USC, Cal, Washington, Stanford, Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State. Arizona and Arizona State would join in 1978 to make it the Pac 10.

Scholarship numbers were different in the 1960's and '70s compared to today and, of course, the NCAA Tournament was different as well - the expansion to 68 teams would not occur until 2011. (In contrast, the tournament during the 1967-79 stretch was comprised of 22-25 teams and expanded to 32 in 1975.)

One thing remains that will not be duplicated - eight national titles for UCLA during the 13-year span from 1967-79.

"Yeah, but..."

No more "buts." The streak of 13 straight shared or outright conference championships is a feat that is unprecedented in modern day American sports. And, what's perhaps even more amazing is a Kansas streak that rarely gets mentioned - KU now has been to the NCAA Tournament for 28 straight years (counting this season). No other school in NCAA Tournament history has accomplished that level of consistency, much less at the marquee level of Kansas - 11 times a 1 seed, seven times a 2 seed and three times a 3 seed, during this 28 year span. (The lowest seed was an 8 in 2000.)

In a time when everyone focuses on March Madness, my hope is that the magnitude of this accomplishment - winning a tough league over the course of an 18-game schedule - can be appreciated not only by those in the Big 12 but nationally as well.

Best KU guard ever?

I was in one of those email discussions recently and the topic was pretty compelling (at least for me) - where does Frank Mason rank among the best all-time guards in the modern era at the University of Kansas?

Hmm, there are a lot of options to fuel that debate! I dug into the archives and decided to make this as fact-based as possible using the following criteria (in no particular order):

- Where does the player rank on all-time scoring, assists and steals lists at Kansas? To a lesser degree, where do they rank on the all-time three-point list? (The caveat on this latter criteria is that guys like Jo Jo White and Darnell Valentine, who both played prior to 1986-87, did not have a three-point line to beef up their scoring totals.)
- Did the player reach a Final Four?
- Did the player reach a National Championship game?
- Was the player on a team that won a National Championship?
- Postseason honors, e.g., All-Conference, All-American
- And, of course, the intangibles - did the player have a propensity to make the big shot, the game-changing steal, etc.

Here (drumroll please) is the list - the best Kansas Jayhawk guards in the modern college basketball era.

1. Sherron Collins. Collins was a two-time All-American, engineered one of KU's greatest comebacks ever (versus Texas in the 2007 championship game of the Big 12 Tournament in Oklahoma City) and arguably hit the second most important shot in recent Kansas history with his three during the comeback in San Antonio over Memphis in 2008. Collins also made the huge steal versus Memphis that led to his three-point shot. And, he's been acknowledged as perhaps the best team leader in the Bill Self era. Collins won a national championship in '08 and is the all-time leading scorer for guards in KU's illustrious basketball history.

2. Mario Chalmers. The shot. Mario's Miracle. While known for making the biggest shot in Kansas history in the 2008 national championship game, he had his share of other huge games and shots during his three years at Kansas. He had huge games versus Texas in the conference tournament championship games in 2006 and 2008; he's second all-time on the steals list and seventh on the three-point list. His jersey hangs in the Allen Fieldhouse rafters.

3. Jo Jo White. White was an All-American at Kansas and is in the Naismith Hall of Fame. He had a short career at Kansas, given his transfer status, where he led the team in scoring in 1968. He was part of perhaps the biggest heartbreak story in KU history when the Jayhawks lost to Texas Western in a regional final in 1966. (White made a game winning shot but it was ruled that his foot was out of bounds prior to the basket.) His jersey hangs not only in the Phog but also in Boston Garden.

4. Darnell Valentine. The only thing Valentine didn't do was go to a Final Four. He led the team in scoring for three years, is KU's all-time free throw leader, is the school's all-time steals leader and is fifth in assists. He was a four-time all-Big 8 selection and an All-American. He only trails Collins for most points by a guard at Kansas (in an era with no three-point line) and his jersey also hangs in the fieldhouse. One more thing - the guy was an Academic All-American.

5. Kirk Hinrich. Two Final Fours, could play both point guard and off guard, was a terrific defender, and had a late game block in 2003 against Arizona that was the deciding play in the West Regional Final. Hinrich is third in all-time three pointers, fourth in assists and sixth in steals. He ranks third in all-time scoring by a guard at Kansas.

6. Frank Mason. Mason is sixth, with a bullet, on this list and is the only guy in this esteemed group who has his own Twitter hashtag (#BIFM.) He may end up as Kansas' first consensus Player of the Year in the modern era and will certainly be a consensus first team All-American for this season. Lightly recruited, Mason shares many of the same leadership and will-to-win qualities as the guy who's number one on this list.

7. Jacque Vaughn. This Academic All-American was the best leader of the Roy Williams era at Kansas. He's second all-time in assists, an All-American and a great on ball defender. Sadly, Vaughn never made a Final Four.

8. Kevin Pritchard. Pritchard may be a surprise at number eight but consider this - he's fourth in all-time scoring by Kansas guards, led the team in scoring in 1990, is 12th all-time in three-pointers and has a national championship (1988). That's not a bad resume.

9. Tyshawn Taylor. An under-appreciated guard given his sometimes loony off-court behavior, Taylor was an incredibly athletic guard who was a very good on-ball defender. He could, at times, take over a game offensively given his ability to get to the rim and finish. He turned into a very good shooter by the end of his career and, with Thomas Robinson, led his team to the national championship game in 2012. He's sixth all-time in assists and fifth all-time in points by a guard.

10. Aaron Miles. Miles it the best assist man on this list and is third all-time in steals at Kansas. And, he went to two Final Fours.

11. Rex Walters. A deadly shooter and a guy who loved taking the big shot. Walters isn't as good a defender as others on this list; went to a Final Four in 1993.

12. Adonis Jordan. Walters' partner-in-crime and the guy who sports the best name on this list. He's sixth all-time in points by KU guards and eighth in three-pointers. He went to Final Fours in 1991 and 1993.

There you have it - the best dozen guards in Kansas history since the mid-1960s. Who did I leave off? How about guys like Wayne Selden, Dale Greenlee, Tony Guy, Tom Kivisto, Jeff Boschee, Elijah Johnson, Jerod Haase and Calvin Thompson? Like I said, there's a lot of options here to discuss.

Discuss...

Putting 10 defeats in context

If you're a fan of college hoops, you've heard the stat all too often - Bill Self has more conference titles at the University of Kansas than he does home defeats. And, after the Jayhawks' home loss yesterday, that stat still holds true.

Let's dig into the amazing winning record at Allen Fieldhouse during Self's tenure there:

- Self has 10 losses at Allen Fieldhouse as head coach at Kansas; Scott Drew has 10 losses at Allen Fieldhouse as head coach at Baylor.
- Kansas has only lost six conference games at home in the Self era. Iowa State has done it twice and both times in overtime - February 19, 2005 and February 4, 2017.
- The Jayhawks should be wary of the Saturday prior to Super Bowl - in 2007, they lost to Texas A&M on that day; in 2013, they lost to Oklahoma State on Super Bowl Saturday; and they lost yesterday to Iowa State.
- There are two years when Kansas has lost twice at home, but not the same season - in 2005 (Iowa State and Nevada) and 2006 (Kansas State and Oral Roberts.)
- Only twice has Kansas lost two home games in the same season under Self - in 2005-2006 to Nevada and Kansas State, and in 2006-2007 to Oral Roberts and Texas A&M.