Final score: Chelsea 2, Barcelona 2, with Chelsea advancing to the finals in Munich on a 3-2 aggregate score (the Blues beat Barca 1-0 in London last week).

The guys blogging the ESPN GameCast concluded thusly: “One of the best games of football ever.”

My response? Well, depends on what you mean when you say “best.” I might have a little trouble going that far, because in my mind a great match involves two great teams slugging it out. And as much as I love my Blues, this particular Chelsea team is a) old, b) injured, and c) nowhere NEAR as good as Barca. On paper, anyway.

But it was nonetheless one of those remarkable moments that illustrates the value of coaching, of strategy, of fanatical commitment to tactical execution and an equally amazing capability to overcome adversity. If anybody ever asks you for an example of the value of teamwork, you show them the playback of this match.

• One of your starting center backs was out with an injury.
• His replacement, who has played beautifully in recent games, goes down with an injury very early on.
• Then the team’s other starting center back, the captain the backbone and the soul of the team, takes what may be the dumbest, most inexcusable red card I have ever seen by a player at his level in this big a game. It was truly mind boggling.

So there they were. Down to ten men. On the road. In one of the most inhospitable environments anywhere in the sporting world. Against one of the two or three best teams in the game and the defending champions of the most prestigious club competition on the planet. Minus their three top-choice defensive center backs. With Barca’s stingy ball-control offense dominating possession something like 73% to 27% and outshooting the Blues 23-7. And, at one point, down 2-0.

If you scripted it, nobody would believe you. It was Rocky. It was 300. It was Braveheart. I have honestly never seen anything like it, with the possible exception of the aforementioned US hockey victory over the mighty Soviets in 1980. The Villanova and NC State NCAA hoops championships, which most Americans are familiar with, don’t come close. Kurt Gibson’s pinch-hit jack against Dennis Eckersley? Multiply that minute of adrenaline by 90.

In the end, I guess it comes down to how you define “best.” If your terms demand everyone’s consensus top teams (say the Lakers vs. the Celtics in the ’80s) then no, this flawed Chelsea team had to park a bus in front of the goal and pray for luck. Which they got, in spades – time and again, over the two matches, Barca rattled the woodwork (we were joking during the game that Chelsea should give the captain’s armband to the post); one goal today was disallowed due to offsides (a good call, but a close one); and everyone’s candidate for greatest player in the world, Lionel Messi, somehow contrived to gank a penalty. How do you say “shoulda coulda woulda” in Catalan?

However, if your definition of best allows for this level of one-sidedness and places a premium on sheer human drama, then yeah, today’s match was genuinely epic, and you’ll be hearing it talked about with awe for years to come (especially if Chelsea goes on to win in Munich against Bayern or Real Madrid, a question that will be decided tomorrow). They’ll be replaying Ramires’ cheeky first-half break-away chip-shot goal over Victor Valdes for the next century. No, that isn’t hype – it was a goal that would have made Pelé proud.

I don’t know that I have ever heard so much noise in a bar. (Well, technically, half a bar. The Barcelona end was kind of quiet.) The British Bulldog (the Denver home of the Chelsea Supporters Club) surely must have bounced when Fernando Torres put the capper on it. My friend Raf Noboa said there’s a Spanish barbershop on the floor below his office (in DC - Columbia Heights, by 14th St. & Park Rd., if you care about the specifics), full of Real Madrid supporters. “When Torres scored, the whole building literally shook.”

I have already said goodbye to many of my friends, because if the final is this thrilling I won’t live through it.

This post originally appeared on Scholars and Rogues.

Anyway, most years the week leading up to this game is full of sports radio chatter about the big “rivalry.” Which has always struck me as a bit silly, frankly. I know a lot of marketing departments would like for us to think it’s a rivalry, but it really isn’t. Never has been. CU is a tier 1, BCS conference school (even when we suck, like we do this year) and the Rams are members of the second-tier Mountain West. No offense, but just because you’ve played a lot of times and are located fairly close to each other, that doesn’t make it a rivalry. CSU’s real rival is Wyoming (The Border War) and Colorado honestly doesn’t have a true rival. For years the big game was Nebraska, but we were never their big game. Now that they’ve departed for the Big 10 and we’re in the PAC-12 I imagine the marketers are hard at work on our new Big Game^®, which will presumably involve the other new member of the PAC, Utah. (Oh, wait – it’s already happening.)

The point is that for a lot of us purists, the word “rivalry” has a specific meaning, and that meaning explicitly excludes any game where we need to be told that it’s a rivalry. However, in the interests of helping sports fans everywhere speak more concisely, I’ve pulled together a little guide on all the different kinds of “rivalries,” and I have included what I hope will be useful illustrations. (Note – some rivalries fit into more than one category, as I think will be clear.) So here we go.

THE Rivalry. Rivalry with a capital R. The pure rivalry. The blood match. The end of the world for the loser. This is when the game is the game for both teams. It’s the biggest game on the schedule every year, no matter whether both teams are in the hunt for the title or both teams suck or one sucks and the other one is on top and you can throw out the records, etc. You’d rather win this game and lose all the others than win all the others and lose this one. Examples: Army/Navy. Ohio State/Michigan. Oregon/Oregon State (The Civil War). UCLA/USC. Stanford/Cal. Texas/Oklahoma. Harvard/Yale. Indiana/Purdue. West Virginia/Pitt. Clemson/South Carolina. Ledford/East Davidson (the Eagles can go to hell – Go Panthers!) And so on.

The One-Legged Rivalry. This is when it’s the big game for one team but the other team doesn’t really care. Or they care a little bit, but not as much as the other team. Usually it’s a case where one team is a big dog and the other one is a relatively poorer sister. The aforementioned Colorado/Nebraska game is a great case. Former Buff coach Bill McCartney decided that CU needed a big game and that the Huskers were going to be it, so he decreed that Nebraska was our rival. Everything was aimed toward that game and the intensity did, in fact, ramp up once CU beat NU a time or two. Mainly it was one-sided, though. Nebraska was far more concerned about their huge game with Oklahoma. (Of course, as the importance of the Red River Rivalry grew, Nebraska became less important to OU, making them participants in two One-Leggers.)

The King of the Hill Rivalry. Growing up on Tobacco Road I knew all about this one. Everybody else hated Carolina. So UNC was the big game for the other members of the Big 4 (State, Duke and Wake Forest), and it was also a pretty big deal for UVa. The Heels really didn’t care about Wake, though (where I went), so we were always sky-high for any game where there was Carolina Blue on the other bench. This was actually a nice advantage – when one team has rivalry emotion and the other is struggling to stay awake, the weak sister can have an edge. Once upon a time The UNC/State game was an alpha rivalry, but over time that has shifted and now UNC/Duke functions pretty much as a Pure Rivalry.

The Derby. Pronounced “darby,” and also known as the Proximity Rivalry or the In-State Rivalry. Derby is the English term for a game involving close neighbors, like Chelsea/Fulham (who sit a couple miles apart in West London). Sometimes these are the games and other times they’re sort of big games but not really (trust me, Chelsea and Arsenal care a lot more about Man U than they do Fulham and Spurs). Colorado/Colorado State is a good example. So is Michigan/Michigan State (which is also a one-legger).

The Really Big Game. We might also call this one the Gray Area Rivalry, since supporters of the sides involved may disagree. There are games out there that many assume are the game, but that perhaps really aren’t. For instance, Alabama/Auburn is huge, but when you talk to die-hard Bammers they’ll tell you that no, the game is Tennessee. The same goes for Southern Cal/Notre Dame, which is regarded by many as the big game for both (and it probably is for ND). But many Trojan fans see UCLA as the most important game (UCLA certainly does). There aren’t a lot of examples of this one that I can think of (I imagine that when you start looking at that cocktail of SEC East games there are some in there, like maybe South Carolina/Georgia and Georgia/Florida). Also, as a result of two teams getting really good and fighting it out for the title over a period of a few years you’ll sometimes hear people using the R word. This happens in the pros a lot (Indy/New England and Pittsburgh/Baltimore aren’t rivalries at all if the teams aren’t good for an extended period).

The Trophy Game. All across the country there are traditional match-ups where two schools play annually for a trophy. We don’t normally think of, say, Michigan State and Penn State as being a huge deal, but the winner gets the Land Grant Trophy. Iowa State and Missouri play for the Telephone Trophy. And, as if Michigan isn’t busy enough with OSU and Sparty, the Little Brown Jug is on the line when they play Minnesota. Lots more of these here.

The We-Don’t-Know-a-Real-Rivalry-Is. I recall a few years back being told what a huge rivalry the Duke/Maryland game had become in hoops. Bitch, please.

There may be more, but you get the idea. So please, use the R word judiciously, and let me know if there’s a category I have missed.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to head over to the store and pick up some lamb chops….

CBS Sports game analyst Randy Cross believes Tebow haters are bashing him for his outspoken Christian opinions.

“People, especially the media, root against him because of what he stands for,” said Cross.

The 3-time Super Bowl champ added: “My personal belief is there are people in the media, people in the stands, who are predisposed to see a guy like that fail…Just because he’s so public about the way he feels.”

My gut response is to mock Cross for being a barking gongbat. I could say things like “yes, it’s true, America hates Christians. Especially the media. I mean, the mere 85% of Americans who identify themselves as Christian constitutes an almost invisible minority. I know, I know, the president is a Christian and so is the VP and well over 90% of our Congressional representatives are Christian and the Supreme Court features seven Christians and all of our major presidential candidates in both major parties for as far back as anybody can remember have been Christians. And almost all of our past presidents were Christians (you have to go all the way back to Lincoln to find one we can even debate over). Hell, even sports franchises are building their operations around the evangelical litmus test. Still, you can make statistics say anything.

“And sweet hell, on top of this he’s saddled with the crippling disadvantage of being a white male. He’s like a modern-day Job.”

That said, there’s no doubt that Timmy’s PDPs (that’s public displays of piety) get on some folks’ nerves, and it’s also no secret that I’m one of them. So there’s a grain of truth in that part of Cross’s formulation, at least. I mean, hypothetically, if three out of 309 million Americans “root against him because of what he stands for,” then that means Cross is technically correct. Stupid and irrelevant, perhaps, but correct.

My larger problem, though, is this: Cross is subtly propagating a sinister little meme that I’m hearing more and more of in the last week or two, as Tebow’s lack of talent as an NFL quarterback has migrated him further and further down the depth chart. Depending on who’s talking, this myth takes a couple of forms. First, everybody hates Tebow because of his religion. And second, this prejudice is why he isn’t being given a chance to show that he’s truly a fantastic QB on the field.

You don’t hear this last argument being worded exactly that way, for the most part, but listen to Denver sports talk as much as I do and you come to understand that 90% of the conversations about Tebow are being conducted in code. When people are talking about why they love Timmy, they don’t say outright that’s it’s teh Jesus, but the religiosity is the only way of explaining the things they do say. Despite how people talk, Tebow isn’t the only “good kid” in camp. He’s not the only one who’s strong in what he believes. He’s not the only one who works his ass off or who has had to overcome obstacles. He’s not the only one with “intangibles” and “character.” And I’ve already explained in detail what’s going on when they trot out the ultimate code word, “faith.” (It’s not about race, either, because a lot of the other hard-working Christians who have overcome obstacles and have great intangibles are white.) So when the chatter turns to why he isn’t in the Hall of Fame yet, it’s not surprising to hear even more code from a vast, paranoid religious majority that seems to believe the government is going to start rounding up Baptists and shipping them off to concentration camps next week.

There’s so much wrong with what Cross and his ilk believe that it’s hard to know where to start. But I’m going to try.

On point one, that people hate Tebow because he’s a Christian:

• As noted above, everybody’s Christian. I can’t speak to what’s in people’s hearts, but my best guess is that the percentage of NFL players and coaches who claim to be Christian is even higher than 85%. I may be wrong, but I have seen no evidence to suggest that it’s lower. Listen to players talk. Watch the prayer huddles after the game. And think about the culture of conformity that attends any activity involving intense male subcultures. If I were going to hate on Christian athletes because of their religion, I’d have to stop watching American sports entirely.
• I don’t know who all these millions of people hating Tebow are, because his jersey was the #1 seller for much of 2010 (he finished third for the year). That doesn’t mean nobody hates him, but it does suggest that he’s not exactly Public Enemy Number One.
• As for the idea that the media hates Tebow, well, that one made me laugh so hard I nearly swallowed my own nose. Randy, the media I’m familiar with worships Tim Tebow about as hard as Tim worships the Lord, and why not – he’s great for their business. I may not have a full list here, but best I can tell he’s been featured on the cover of ESPN, Men’s Fitness, Sports Illustrated, GQ, 5280, The Beckett Football Magazine and Sporting News. And if you’re keeping score at home, ask yourself this: how many times in the past three years has Tebow been the subject of some story or other on your television? Good, now how many of those, percentagewise, were negative stories? In my case, the answers are “millions” and “less than 2%.”
• Oh, and by the way, Randy, you’re “the media.” Just saying.

On the second point, that he’s not getting a fair shot because of his religion:

• Let’s just say this straight away: if Tim Tebow had been your basic Catholic or mainline Protestant who pursued his beliefs without insisting on reminding us every time he opened his mouth (or every time he appeared on camera with the Bible verse glare patches under his eyes) he’d have been drafted in the fifth round. If he’d been a vocal atheist or agnostic or, the gods forbid, a Pagan or a Muslim or a Hindu, he’d have been lucky to talk himself into a tryout as an undrafted free agent. If you don’t think Skippy McDaniel was overly impressed by the player’s “character” you weren’t paying attention.
• Rick Reilly dismembered Tebow’s game in a much publicized column a couple of weeks ago. Which is what happens when you know a little about football and you watch closely. When Tebow drops back and the receiver runs a seven-yard out, there’s a chance that the ball will be underthrown. There’s a chance it will be behind the receiver. There’s a good chance he’ll hit someone on the sidelines in the numbers and if you’re in the front row or two of the stands you might get a souvenir. There’s also a chance that he’ll hit the receiver, although his statistics don’t recommend that you bet heavily on this outcome.
• More likely, he’s going to be unable to find an open man because he can’t read defenses (he was never really asked to do anything like this at the high school or college levels, and he has the same kinds of problems that other QBs coming from spread and running systems have had). No surprise there at all. In a recent interview with one of the sports stations here, one of the Broncos defensive players admitted that when Tebow is the QB, the defense plays differently – they crowd the running lanes and wait for him to break down and gallop into their waiting arms. He didn’t say it that negatively, but I’ve gotten pretty good at interpreting code lately.
• It’s also a pure joy to hear Tebow’s supporters talking about his ability to “make things happen with his feet.” Yeah, he raised hell at Florida, but there he was surrounded by talent that was usually superior to what was on the other side of the ball. However, his 40 time is in the 4.7 range, which isn’t special by NFL QB standards. Never mind trying to outrun some of the league’s many quick-footed linebackers – there are any number of defensive linemen who are faster than he is, and Head Coach John Fox can’t be terribly excited about handing the reins of the offense over to a guy who might get cheetahed by a nose tackle.
• If you think Tebow isn’t getting a fair chance you’re hallucinating. You don’t think everyone in the Doncs’ organization would kill to have a squeaky-clean Man of Faith^® as the face of the franchise? Think of the marketing potential. Think of the money. Denver is an exceptionally Christian market (and I say that as a guy who grew up in North Carolina, where some neighborhoods have more churches than convenience store). Lots of extremely white suburban megachurch types here, plus a huge Latino Catholic population that feckin’ loves Broncos football. These nuances are not lost on the likes of Pat Bowlen and his front office people. The only guy who might get more consideration than Tebow, despite having even less in the way of obvious experience and qualifications, would be Jesus Christ himself, should he return with an eye toward a football career. So if Tebow is the third-stringer, bet your ass it’s because he’s given the team nothing at all to hang its hat on. (And if you’ve watched him play, either in the pre-season or in three starts last year, you know that’s exactly what has happened.)
• In the end, you hear so much talk about Tim Tebow’s “intangibles.” The main reason is fairly simple: he has no tangibles to talk about. He can’t read defenses. He doesn’t understand how to run a pro passing offense because he’s never run a system remotely like it. And he cannot pass accurately. Period.

So, in summary, I guess I’d answer Randy Cross thusly:

1. Tim Tebow is hardly being oppressed. He’s gotten every chance in the world and then some, and there’s a great argument to be made that this is because of his relentless public religiosity. I can think of no other quarterback in history at this level who has been afforded more opportunities despite such glaring limitations.
2. Those who are sick of Tebow, either as a player or a person, have valid reasons.

Sure, I admit that I personally dislike being flogged by his religious arrogance and presumptuousness. But do you have any idea what a small minority I am, both in general and on this issue in particular?

Randy Cross might do a little math, too. Because we have the hard data on how many Christians there are in the US. If as many people are put off by the 24/7/4ever proselytizing as he seems to think, then it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to conclude that a lot of those who are fed up with Tebow are themselves Christians. That means something, and “they root against him for what he stands for” isn’t it.

I believe in Tim Tebow’s right to believe in whatever he chooses. I also believe in the free speech rights that allow me and everybody else to weigh in on the subject.

I don’t believe that your religion qualifies you to be a quarterback in the NFL, though, and if more people are coming around to my way of thinking then I’m glad to hear it.

The WWE, Hollywood, soap operas and the NBA front office have something in common: they all understand that a compelling narrative requires what the pro wrestling biz calls a “heel.” A bad guy. An anti-hero. A villain. A black hat. The only thing different about the NBA is that they won’t admit they’re in the compelling narrative business.

But trust me, they are. And ever since last summer you have been very good for them. You’ve been Godzilla, Hannibal Lecter, Stefano DiMera, Freddy Krueger, Snidely Whiplash and Andre the Giant all rolled into one, the looming über-evil thug who rigged the game, casting a long, dark shadow over any hope of prosperity and fair play for years to come. For a league that’s built on marketing individual storylines, The Decision was a gift from the gods. At the end of the season, there was going to be one more reason to flip on the TV. Some people love the Lakers. Some love the Celtics. Everybody loves the home team. But even if all those teams were at home on the couch, the Miami Hate Heat was something we could all agree on. And when it comes to ratings dollars, hate spends just the same as love.

I’m not sure it’s been so good for you, though. Yeah, you got out of a going-nowhere situation and became the center of the sports talk universe, but right now you look just as lost as you ever did in Cleveland and you still have zero rings to show for all your remarkable talent.

Part of the problem has to do with the makeup of the Heat, of course. It’s a team built around you and Dwyane Wade, two guys who need the ball in their hands a lot, and once they got through paying you and Wade and Chris Bosh there wasn’t a lot of money left for a top-tier supporting cast (although some of the role players did perform fairly well). ESPN hoop stats guru Dean Oliver points out that the team ranked next-to-last in the league in the points per assist metric – only Oklahoma City was worse about hogging the ball – and for a coach who gets defense as well as the Mavericks’ Rick Carlisle, it really helps knowing that you don’t have to worry about the other team doing a lot of insightful passing into scoring opportunities.

So you went from a team without a lot of talent to one with plenty of talent, but some flaws of nigh-Shakespearean magnitude. Still, this can be overcome. Once Miami turfs Erik Spoelstra and replaces him with a coach who has a track record and some street cred (Pat Riley, maybe, or even Phil Jackson, who says he’s done but I’m not sure I believe him) the on-court issues can be addressed. Besides, these days over-expansion, the AAU system and the one-and-done rule have conspired to assure that every team has flaws. Huge ones. This was never more evident than during these playoffs.

The more immediate problem has to do with LeBron the Human Being. See, some guys are good at being the heel. Some people are born to be bad and they thrive on being booed. Think about Bill Laimbeer, one of the biggest assholes in NBA history. Even Pistons fans had to feel conflicted cheering for him, and you got the sense that being loathed was his only reason for living.

You, though, you strike me as a very different guy emotionally. You have a quick, infectious smile. You seem like a fun-loving guy who enjoys people. Maybe I’m wrong – I don’t know you and maybe what you project through the media isn’t at all like the real you – but I’m betting that underneath it all, the real LeBron James is a more sensitive guy than he lets on. If so, there’s no fault in that at all. Truth be told, I’m the same way, albeit without all the fame and financial solvency. A guy like you might have good reason to want to keep parts of his personality to himself, because we live in a world where too many people treat sensitivity like it’s a disease, and yes, they will take advantage of it.

My guess is that, public bravado notwithstanding, the searing wave of raw hatred that has been aimed at you over the past year has hurt. It’s probably hurt a great deal. If so, that’s natural – I’d wonder about you if it didn’t, honestly.

There’s a lot of haters out there, LeBron, and I have been one of them. I thought you were right to leave Cleveland – as I wrote last year, I’d have criticized you for staying, because I think we all know that the Cavs aren’t going to win any titles, not unless the NBA implements some drastic changes to its free agency rules. You need to be in a situation where you can compete for titles.

But in that same article I inducted you into the Punk Hall of Fame – not for leaving, but for how you left. I’m not going to mince words, Bron: The Decision was one of the most gutless, classless things I have ever seen a public figure of your magnitude pull. If I had been your PR agent I’d have done all I could to talk you out of it, and if I had failed (which I suspect I would have) I’d have resigned.

So I have been a devoted LeBron hater for the past year, but here’s a confession: as I watched you in the Finals, it just felt wrong. I’m happy Dirk got his ring finally, but the look on your face, lost and bewildered and seemingly all alone in the world…I don’t know, I guess I’m sucker for prodigal narratives or something and I feel like we’re about halfway into a great one.

In sum, I don’t think you make a very good heel. I don’t think you’re emotionally cut out for being hated, and I think the basketball public – a lot of it, anyway – wants to like you. Finally, I think that getting positive with the world again will be a big boost for you as you tackle the challenges on the court. Happy people tend to be better at what they do, no matter what that is, and I think you feed on love better than you do hate.

Here’s how it starts. Call your friends at ESPN. Call Jim Gray, too, because after the way he sold his soul last summer he needs some redemption as bad as you do. Tell them you want to do another special. This one is going to be called The Apology. No excuses, no waffling. You’ll man up, face the camera, and say “Cleveland, I’m sorry.” You won’t apologize for leaving: you’ll say that you love Northern Ohio with all your heart. It’s home. But you wouldn’t be true to the gifts you have been given if you didn’t try to win a title, and you’ll say that the way the NBA’s rules are constructed that wasn’t going to happen in Cleveland. You tried to recruit other talent to join you there and nobody was biting.

But you are sorry for how you did it. The Decision was a mistake, it hurt people who had never done anything but believe in you, and if you had it to do over again you’d have gone about things in a more professional, adult manner.

Then you’ll announce a new foundation which will be devoted to helping Cleveland continue its transformation into one of America’s great cities. You may need a little help figuring out how to word this part, and I’ll be happy to chip in. Give me a call.

This is how it ought to go, LeBron. You and me and America, let’s get back together.

Despite an appalling first half, the Americans certainly had their chances to draw even and win the game late, capped by sub Steve Wondolowski swallowing his tongue and club-footing what amounted to a layup attempt into the third deck at the 80:00 mark.

The lingering bitterness, though, has less to do with this particular choke job than it does the overall failure to achieve under current head coach Bob Bradley. Last week, in a tournament tune-up, World Cup champions Spain made the US look like a second-tier rec league outfit. You can sort of accept that, I guess. Spain is the best team in the world (aside, perhaps, from the Barcelona club squad that a majority of them play for) and the US, well, the US isn’t the best team in the world. But tonight? The Panamanians aren’t chopped liver, but I don’t exaggerate when I say that if the two teams played ten times, the worst case scenario should be nine American wins and a tie.

So why the continued malaise of the US national team? I’m not unrealistic. Bob Bradley isn’t the only thing standing between us and five straight World Cup titles. On the contrary. For starters, in most of the nations in the world soccer is the first choice sport, whereas in the US a majority of our top athletes pursue football, basketball and baseball. This isn’t to demean the talents of our national team players, some of whom are truly exceptional athletes by any standard. But it’s a numbers game, and if you triple the size of the player pool you’re going to wind up with more world class players. Period.

Second, there’s the related question of talent development. Brazilian and Italian and Spanish and English and German (and apparently Panamanian) kids play like they were born with the ball on their feet. They can control and dominate the ball in the attacking third in ways that the US simply can’t. Watch Spain. They can trot an army of players out there who can pitch a tent and camp at the top of the 18 while knocking the ball around and you can’t get it off them seemingly no matter what you do. Three of them and five of you and it still feels like you’re outnumbered.

When you make this sort of skills development at an early age your alpha priority you’re more likely to wind up with Xavis and Iniestas instead of…well, I don’t want to name names. Watch the games and draw your own conclusions.

So it isn’t all Bradley’s fault. Not by a long shot.

However, the American talent base is improving noticeably. More and more of our top players are playing meaningful roles on solid teams in Europe and our domestic league, MLS, is providing younger players a viable forum to develop. It isn’t the top feeder league in the world yet, but it’s better than it was even five years ago and it continues to improve. Bradley has more talent to work with than any coach in US national team history.

But he doesn’t seem to have a clear idea about how to use it. I’m not even going to get into his misplaced faith in Robbie Findley, which turned into the saddest, most maddening mini-narrative in the whole of last summer’s World Cup campaign. I am going to mention his steadfast refusal to even attempt a formation with an attacking midfield, though, despite the presence of Clint Dempsey, who has proven (in the best league in the world, I should note) that he can make things happen from both midfield and forward positions. Is he Kaka? Maybe not, but he could pressure the defense in ways that would create opportunities for the team’s other attackers. And he also seems to have some chemistry with defensive midfielder Michael Bradley, who can dangerous when he roams forward.

We can argue the details all night – meet me down at the British Bulldog and we’ll do just that, in fact – but the bottom line is that Bob Bradley’s teams manage to consistently under-perform their talent level. I don’t think Bradley is a bad coach and I’m not drooling for the blood of a good man. I’m simply suggesting that the team has gone as far as it can with him at the helm. Disagree? Fine. What specific evidence can you point to that suggests things are getting better or that we’re about to turn a corner? I’ll take anything you got.

Based on what I see right now, I’d predict that we’ll qualify for the 2014 Cup as the second place team in our region (behind Mexico) and, unless we get a favorable draw, will fail to advance to the knockout rounds. Which, if you’re keeping tabs, is a step back.

Meanwhile, there’s an international coach out there who has proven he can outperform his talent. Last I heard he lived in California. I don’t know that he wants the job, but if I’m Sunil Gulati, president of the US Soccer Federation, I’m going to pick up the phone and find out. Tonight.

Bob Bradley, you have my thanks for all you’ve done. But please, Sunil, can we give Jurgen Klinsmann a call and at least inquire about his availability?

In case you haven’t been tracking along, FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, has been swamped with corruption allegations of late. It began with the decision to award Copa 2022 to Qatar instead of the US. Qatar might not have things like a football infrastructure or a world-class sporting organization or, you know, stadiums, but they did have what mattered the most: a suitcase full of cash. This hasn’t been proven yet, but give it time. You knew the fix was in the instant the announcement was made, and if you didn’t you probably think Anna Nicole married that filthy rich 185 year-old geezer because he made her nethers twitchy. This doesn’t mean you’re necessarily dumb. It could just mean that you’re hopelessly romantic and a tad naïve. Of course, dumb is still a possibility. Either way.

It wasn’t just 2022, either. Russia was awarded the 2018 Cup over England and a strong combined bid by Belgium and Holland. Russia is a far more defensible choice than was Qatar, but England is nonetheless torqued off over the alleged solicitation of bribes by members of the executive committee. Investigations are afoot.

Now, two executive committee members have been suspended over soliciting bribes in the just-concluded FIFA elections. And to cap it off, the organization has re-elected Sepp Blatter as King of the Thieves Guild president for yet another term.

For the American sports fan looking for a means of comparison, we’ll summarize thusly: FIFA leadership has the moral and ethical composition of a Jim Tressel/Pete Carroll prayer breakfast.

Don’t despair, though – Blatter has a plan. Check this shit out. (And no, it isn’t an Onion story. Make sure you’re not drinking anything you don’t want sprayed all over your monitor before continuing.)

Blatter asks Henry Kissinger to clean up FIFA
June 2, 2011

FIFA president Sepp Blatter believes former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger is the man to help clean up world football’s governing body in the wake of recent corruption allegations.

Blatter, who was re-elected unopposed for a fourth term in office on Wednesday, has promised to “put FIFA’s ship back onto the right course in clear, transparent waters”.And the Swiss appears to feel that Kissinger – who was US secretary of state and national security advisor during the Vietnam War – can help improve the organisation’s transparency.

Sweet hell. Henry Fucking Kissinger?! Clean up? Transparency?! Bitch, you have got to be kidding me. A guy many credible people argue is a war criminal? Maybe he’s going to clean up FIFA like he did Vietnam. Maybe he’ll bring transparency to FIFA like he did Cambodia and Laos (and more recently, Iraq).

What kind of narco-voodoo horse tranquilizer is Sepp Blatter injecting directly into his anal glands, anyhow? Enquiring Rational minds want to know. I mean, maybe he wants Kissinger to bomb the FA? But if he does, can he be trusted not to ramp up covert bombing of the Scottish FA and the FFF?

Seriously, what could Sepp be thinking? I can’t find any concrete evidence that he’s a deranged neo-fascist (although the fact that he’s Swiss and born in the mid-’30s raises obvious questions). He’s never been institutionalized that I can tell, although he’s bound to be prone to neo-liberal sex dreams. I did find this bit, which is curious:

In the early 1970s, Blatter was elected president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders, an organisation which tried to stop women replacing suspender belts with pantyhose.

No telling what a TSA search would shake out of that underwear drawer, yo?

In the end, all we really know, from years of empirical observation by men of intellect and sound principles, is that Sepp Blatter is a backwards-thinking baffloon whose record of ineptitude ought to disqualify him for any office more demanding than mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

So he wants to bring in Kissinger to clean things up? Sure. Why not? Nixon is dead, Charles Manson and Jeff Skilling are in prison and that barking gongbat Chuck Colson is busy evangelizing for a New Feudalism. After them, Hank is probably the best man left.

There sure has been a lot of news about cheating in sports lately, hasn’t there?

• The NCAA last week denied the University of Southern California’s appeal against the sanctions it incurred for a host of violations under coaches Pete Carroll and Tim Floyd.
• Admitted cheater Tyler Hamilton joined the growing list of cyclists who say that seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs.
• Just before the MLB season began, two-time World Series champion Manny Ramirez retired from baseball after being busted for PED use for a second time.
• All-time homerun king* Barry Bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice over his alleged* steroid use.
• Roger Clemens is next.
• While diving and high operatic theatrics aren’t as ubiquitous in international soccer as the casual American sports fan believes, the shenanigans in the recent Champions League tie between Real Madrid and Barcelona were widely reported and more than a little embarrassing. This tends not to be an American problem (there’s a lot more flopping in college and pro hoops than in soccer in the US), but it seems worth noting, if only for context.
• Meanwhile, FIFA has just suspended two senior officials for ethics violations and it seems like it’s only a matter of time before the lid blows off over the curious decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar instead of the US. Again, just a little flavor.
• Now even the PGA is mulling testing golfers for HGH use. What next? Elevated fish oil levels in the brains of high school chess players?

Now, today’s top story: Embattled Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel has resigned.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jim Tressel, who guided Ohio State to its first national title in 34 years, resigned Monday amid NCAA violations from a tattoo-parlor scandal that sullied the image of one of the country’s top football programs.

“After meeting with university officials, we agreed that it is in the best interest of Ohio State that I resign as head football coach,” Tressel said in a statement released by the university.

Tressel and school administrators have been wriggling and squirming for months now, clearly hoping that a variety of self-imposed half-measures would ward off NCAA investigators and overly interested reporters. Still, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before Tressel was forced out. Today was that time. The decision may have been forced by a looming Sports Ilustrated feature, due to drop as early as this this evening, which is expected to throw even more gasoline on the flames.

I suppose none of us are surprised, either by the Ohio State case or by the general level of dishonesty in all forms of competition. Our culture valorizes winning above all else. While this is probably true of all cultures, I wonder if we’re not worse than most when it comes to our contempt for the loser. What’s most disturbing is the pervasive “first is first and second is last” mentality that seems to drive us. Technically the word “loser” can be applied to everything from the guy who finished second by a thousandth of a second (posting a time that was better than the old world record) to a child abusing meth addict, but some days it feels like we don’t distinguish much at all. Maybe I’m being too sensitive, but as I noted in a recent post, a lot of people seem to regard the Buffalo Bills, who lost four straight Super Bowls, as the biggest losers in American sports history. Odd, because they dominated the hell out of the rest of the AFC during that period, which suggests to me that it was all those other teams who were the losers. But what do I know.

Whatever Happened to Sportsmanship?

I first noticed it during discussions over steroid use and the Hall of Fame in baseball: there are principled, intelligent people who are in favor of letting them all in. Barry “The Asterisk” Bonds. Clemens. Sosa and McGwire. Rafael Palmeiro. Juicers and liars, the lot of them, players whose disrespect for the sanctity of the game knows few rivals. From where I sit, it’s borderline obscene to allow players who approached cheating their opponents with such malice aforethought a spot in Cooperstown. Sure, baseball has been played by every sort of rogue imaginable since its earliest days. I get that. But baseball has also punished those whose crimes called into question the integrity of the outcome (even, in the case of Joe Jackson, when there’s reason to further question just how badly he was actually cheating in the first place).

Why is this principle so obvious to me, I have wondered, when it seems so alien to others?

Maybe it has something to do with how I was raised. Let’s begin by understanding that I’m a little different front others my age. My parents split when I was three and I got handed off to my paternal grandparents. They had been born in 1913 and 1914 and had grown up in a world that was hard even before the Great Depression set in. I learned that for people like this the Depression never really ended (and sometimes I even joke that I grew up during the Depression). It was a no-frills life for them and theirs, and in households where you don’t have a lot, what you do have takes on even greater importance. Especially if you’re Southern Baptist working class descended from Scots-Irish immigrants.

What people like this have, in abundance, is principle. Morals, ethics, pride, integrity, a code, call it whatever you like, but when it came to me and athletics, nothing was more important than sportsmanship. Granddaddy had played ball and he’d played hard. When I talked to those who’d played with him, they said he’d been a very, very good catcher (up until he threw his arm out and had to move to the infield). In another place and time, maybe he’d have been good enough to have played professionally.

But when he talked to me about playing, he never stressed winning. Sure, he wanted to me to win, and he’d work with me on technique and strategy so that I’d be the best player I could be, but win or lose I was going to do it the right way. I was going to shake the other guy’s hand, I was going to comport myself with dignity, I was going to honor the game. If I didn’t, I wasn’t going to play, and I still remember, vividly, two occasions where he sat me down because of my attitude. One of those times he did it in front of all my friends.

As mad as it sometimes made me, the lessons took. I grew up playing the game the right way, win or lose. I was a serious enough competitor that I still remember all the heartbreaking losses. I can remember playing badly, I can remember blowing shots that might have won a game. But I’m proud of the fact that I didn’t cheat. I’d rather lose fair than cheat to win.

Also, I can sleep better, because there’s a part of me that thinks that if I’d cheated my grandfather’s ghost would climb up out of the grave and come after me with his belt.

Emmanuel Kant in the Age of John Stuart Mill Vince Lombardi

In a way it’s the age-old debate over moral philosophy: do the means justify the ends or vice versa? And the truth of our era is this: fair play is for punks, pussies and losers. Few people better typify our ethics than Vince Lombardi, who could have been the reincarnation of John Stuart Mill. Read a collection of Lombardi quotes sometime. He never stops talking about hard work, about preparation, about commitment. But never, ever, are we allowed to think that these values are the thing themselves. One doesn’t do it the right way because it’s the right way. One does it to win, and it seems clear that if you didn’t win then, by definition, you didn’t do it the right way. Winning is the only thing. If it weren’t, why would they keep score.

Despite the focus on hard work, etc., in this world one can only ascertain what the right way was after the fact, and by the way, in a 32-team league there are, by definition, 31 wrong ways to do it.

Am I exaggerating for effect? Maybe a little. Not every coach out there is Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. While the bad actors seem to get all the press, the truth is that there are hundreds of thousands and millions of athletes who care deeply about sportsmanship and about the valuable life lessons we can learn from competition. This is always one of the joys of watching non-revenue college sports, and women’s sports in particular. Who can forget this incredible moment, from a 2008 softball game between Western Oregon and Central Washington, for instance?

With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.

She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count — an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlKtI7yd_s[/youtube]

I get that the win-at-all-costs mentality tends to thrive in proximity to money. In pro sports, it is about winning. It’s a business, jobs are at stake, your ability to provide for your family (in a business where your career is maybe five years instead of 25) is on the line, and so forth. (Although, a quick side note. I’m sick of hearing LeBron James talk about how he chose to go to Miami because it was the right thing to do for his family. The average American will have to work for nearly 1,162 years to earn as much as The Decision will make in 2011 alone. So with all due respect, Bron, how about chugging a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up juice.)

I just wish we could confine the professional mentality to the professional context. But D-1 colleges are, at this stage, de facto minor league adjuncts to the NFL and NBA. And the corruption is trickling down. Texas is now being forced to conduct steroid testing on high school football players. How long before it’s middle school? With more and more completely unhinged parents grooming Junior for a pro career while he’s in peewees, how long before the term “juice box” comes to connote something far more sinister than it does now?

So it’s goodbye, for now, to Jim Tressel, and here, in all likelihood, begins a several year slog in the wilderness for a program that values winning above all other things. We’ll see in time what kinds of sanctions the NCAA will visit on THE Ohio State University, and we’ll also see if there are broader implications for people like Gordon Gee, whose approach to being a university president has sometimes reminded us more of Vince Lombardi than Robert Maynard Hutchins.

Okay, that’s not precisely true. There has been a bit of comment and analysis. But so far, no controversy. No homophobic ranting, no athletes stepping up to say that Jesus doesn’t approve, none of that. This is a wonderful thing. That the public response so far has amount to a collective shoulder shrug is evidence that America is finally getting over the idea that sports just isn’t ready for gays in the locker room.

That’s what sports talker Jim Rome said back in 2007, when former NBA player John Amaechi came out, and at the time I sort of agreed with him. Subsequent dumbassery from Tim Hardaway and LeBron James lent credibility to Rome’s argument, although perhaps we were underestimating locker room culture because it is by no means clear that Hardaway and The Decision represented a majority viewpoint even at that time.

In any case, we may now be on the verge of a tipping point regarding gay athletes. As today’s Washington Post column from Mike Wise notes: “sports has undergone a very gay spring.”

First the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant was hit with a $100,000 fine for uttering a gay slur at a referee, an incident Bryant later called a “teaching moment” as he and the club partnered with a gay-rights group to educate others.

Then, there was the New York Rangers’ Sean Avery’s endorsement ad for the Human Rights Campaign’s “New Yorkers for Marriage Equality Campaign,” an instigator in the most testosterone-laden of sports, no less.

Over the weekend, Grant Hill and Jared Dudley, coincidentally two Phoenix Suns players, participated in an NBA public service announcement that denounced the use of the term “gay” as acceptable trash talk on the playground.

It was also revealed that former Villanova player Will Sheridan came out to teammates during his career with the Wildcats, with no ramifications whatsoever.

There’s more. Just announced yesterday: “The San Francisco Giants will become the first professional sports team to jump into the burgeoning anti-homophobia campaign with an upbeat ‘It Gets Better’ video designed to bring hope to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender young people.” And while Atlanta Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell unleashed a homophobic tirade against some Giants fans, which is bad, his actions earned him a two-week unpaid vacation to reflect on how he might be a better citizen in the future. That the institutions of the sports world are implementing zero-tolerance policies is a welcome development, to say the least.

Wise interviewed NBA Hall of Fame player and popular TNT analyst Charles Barkley for that story, and Chuck’s thoughts should go a long way toward dispelling the myth that jocks cannot and will not abide an openly gay teammate. Barkley, who just a few days ago praised Sean Avery’s support for gay marriage rights, doesn’t mince words in explaining the salient points:

• On two of the three teams he played for he had teammates he knew were gay.
• It was no big deal.
• They were professionals who contributed to the betterment of the team.
• Talent matters more than sexual orientation.

“I’d rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play.”

So, how many gays are there in America’s pro locker rooms, anyway? In the 2007 post I link above, I ran some numbers.

Estimates for how many gays there are in the US vary wildly, but it looks like the most reliable number for men is in the 2.8% range. So let’s take that as our working estimate.

There are 32 NFL teams, and each carries around 60 players. So that’s 1920.

30 NBA teams, 12-man rosters: 360 players.

There are 30 Major League Baseball franchises (if you count the Colorado Rockies) and they have 25-man rosters for the bulk of the season. So that’s 750.

NHL teams dress a 20-man rosters for each game, and there are 30 teams, so that’s another 600.

Note: I’m being conservative here. If you factor in practice squads, injury lists, minor league call-ups and the like these numbers get significantly larger. But for the sake of discussion, let’s just stick with active roster numbers and see what happens.

By my math, this means we can expect the following to be about right:

• NFL: 54 gay players
• NBA: 10 gay players
• MLB: 21 gay players
• NHL: 17 gay players
• Total in “Big 4″ American sports leagues: 102 active gay players

I don’t know that Sir Charles has done the math, but he clearly understands the reality:

“Any professional athlete who gets on TV or radio and says he never played with a gay guy is a stone-freakin’ idiot,” Barkley said. “I would even say the same thing in college. Every college player, every pro player in any sport has probably played with a gay person.”

Perhaps the two most refreshing insights of the interview came when Barkley linked discrimination against gays to other forms of discrimination and then fingered those responsible.

“First of all, society discriminates against gay people,” Barkley said. “They always try to make it like jocks discriminate against gay people. I’ve been a big proponent of gay marriage for a long time, because as a black person, I can’t be in for any form of discrimination at all.”

…

“The first people who whine and complain is them Bible-thumpers, who are supposed to be non-judgmental, who rail against them. [emphasis added]

As I said back in December, it’s only a matter of time before a major star comes out of the closet. Thanks to the courage of people like John Amaeche, Dave Kopay, Roy Simmons, Esera Tuaolo, Glenn Burke, Billy Bean, Dave Pallone, Rick Welts and dozens of others, I expect the furor to last about five minutes – and that will be due to the “major star,” not the “gay.”

Meanwhile, thank the gods for smart, no-BS media personalities like Charles Barkley, huh? I don’t know that he ever set out to establish himself as a progressive cultural icon, but he always does his best to tell the truth. And, as they say, the truth shall set you free.

_____

Also, if you have a minute, read Frank DeFord’s comments today on gay athletes coming out at NPR.

The Mavs have a 2-16 record in playoff games officiated by Crawford, including 16 losses in the last 17 games. Dallas is 48-41 in the rest of their playoff games during the ownership tenure of Mark Cuban…

Wow. 11% with Crawford in the gym, 53% when he’s somewhere else. At a glance, that does look suspicious, doesn’t it? So I pinged my buddy Dr. Michael Pecaut of Pecaut Lab and Loma Linda University and asked if he’d run the stats for me. He did, and the results are about what I’d expected: these numbers are statistically significant at the .05 level. Which means that you’d only get this kind of variance by random chance one time in 20.* (Actually, Pecaut’s analysis says that the variance is actually higher than .05, so the odds are less than 5%, but that will work for purposes of this discussion.)

Okay. So what does this mean, in practical terms. I see three possibilities.

1. It could be random chance. There’s a one in 20 (or whatever) chance. Over the next 20 games Crawford calls involving the Mavericks, they could win 50-55% of the time, which would lend credence to the idea that we’re seeing an anomaly here. Or it could mean that this story becoming public caused him to reflect on his performance in Mavericks games and make changes to how he approaches them. Hard to say unless we have someone who can read minds.
2. It is theoretically possible that Crawford is calling the Mavericks straight-up and the NBA’s other 50-60 refs are badly biased in Dallas’ favor. If so, and we had a way of replacing fallible human refs with infallible refbots, we’d expect the Mavericks win percentage to be closer to 11% than 53%.
3. Or it’s possible that Crawford is biased against Dallas, either intentionally or unintentionally. The numbers don’t allow us to accuse the man of anything untoward, obviously, but they do allow us to assert that something is up and to suggest that we find out what it is.

The league has faith in Crawford:

“We have no concerns about the fairness of Danny Crawford’s officiating in Dallas games, whether in the playoffs or regular season,” NBA senior vice president of referee operations Ron Johnson said via email. “And there has never been any consideration given to not scheduling Crawford or any other referee to a particular team’s games.”

Of course, we’ve seen how the NBA handles criticism of its officiating in the past, so this is about what we’d expect them to say if a ref were caught on video fixing the game with the Gambinos at halftime.

What to Do, What to Do?

The NBA would do well to wake its dumb ass up. Those numbers are fact. They either mean something really bad or they appear to mean something bad in a way that defies easy explanation. Now they’re out in public. And the league’s fans already have plenty of reason to suspect the worst about its officiating. My guess is that if you ran similar tests on all of the league’s refs you’d find statistical indicators of potential bias in a number of places. It might not always be as stark as what we see in the Crawford/Mavericks case, and statistical variation might not always mean conscious bias, either.

If the league were bright, it would be running these kinds of analyses instead of waiting for ESPN to do it for them. And when they detect a potential issue – say, a ref’s results with a particular team vary at the .75 level, for instance, you pull the ref in for a talk. You don’t accuse, you just make the ref aware. If the refs are honest, as the league assumes, then they’re going to appreciate warning signs suggesting that their objectivity needs a tuneup. If a ref is working out a grudge, well, this kind of program is just the thing to scare him or her straight.

In the meantime, you might want to keep refs whose impartiality is statistically in question away from the teams they appear to have issues with, especially, you know, during the playoffs. Just saying.

UPDATE: As of this moment, Dallas is leading Portland by seven in the third period and Crawford just called three seconds on the Blazers.

(Notice how I did a whole post on NBA officiating and didn’t once mention Tim Donaghy?)

_____

* If you’re a stats wizard and want to subject this case (or any other involving NBA refs) to some analysis, let me know.

I did, in fact, turn the game off. At about the 12:00 mark in the second half UConn had built a seven-point lead that was clearly insurmountable, and life is too short to flush precious minutes on two teams making a mockery of a sport you love above all others.

And please, let’s not have any silliness about the intensity of the game and how hard the defenses were playing. Yes, it was intense (as desperate flailing about in quicksand often is) and yes, the defenses played well. But the defenses succeeded because of the abject ineptitude of the offenses. Anybody who has played the game can tell you that an athletic guy who works hard can defend a player with no particular offensive skills. And when the other team only has one player with offensive skills, you can absolutely minimize their effectiveness by loading up on him and making the other guys beat you.

This is something that critics of the NBA (where “nobody plays any defense”) fail to grasp. The defense in the NBA is even better and more intense than in college, but it doesn’t look as effective because NBA players can score. Event the worst among them were pretty good offensive players in college.

In a way, the UConn/Butler debacle was the most fitting finale possible for the 2010-11 season, in which I watched the least college hoops of any year since I was a kid. Part of my disinterest results from the haplessness of my alma mater, Wake Forest, which bumbled to its worst season in memory. But beyond that, the sad truth is that college basketball just keeps getting worse. And worse. And worse. An unwatchable title game was an appropriate cap to an unwatchable season.

But why has the quality of the game deteriorated so badly? The short version is that we have evolved a system that underdevelops talent at the high school level and then quickly siphons the top players into the NBA.

• In a radio interview the other day, Louisville’s Rick Pitino talked about the challenges of being a college coach these days. He described recruiting, where he routinely encounters players that weren’t good enough to play for the Cardinals, but who think they’re ready for the NBA. These players are nearly impossible to coach, he says, because they don’t see the need to put in the work required to excel.
• These kids have such badly informed ideas about their ability because the high school and AAU systems do nothing but tell them how great they are. They never hear “you aren’t good enough” or “you need to buckle down and learn some fundamentals” – it’s all about the show-dunk.
• The top players in high school may have NBA level raw talent, but they lack the experience and the seasoning required to succeed. Back in the old days these players would spend three or four years in college learning the game from top coaches, and when they then entered the NBA they were able to contribute. Think about – who’s more prepared, an 18 year-old high school graduate or the same player after three years under the wing of a John Wooden or Dean Smith?
• Now, though, it’s one-and-done – put in a year because you have to, listen to the coach if you feel like it, and then cash in. The coach isn’t going to jack you around because if he does he’ll never be able to recruit another prima donna talent for the rest of his career.

This structure produces two problems. First, it damages the college game. You now have college teams comprised of a couple types of player: the phenominally talented physically who have no clue how to actually play the game; and players who know how the game works but who lack top-flight talent. There are exceptions, but make no mistake – upperclassmen who are high draft picks are the exception, not the rule. In last year’s draft, for instance, seven of the top ten picks were freshmen or sophomores and the first senior wasn’t taken until #23.

Second, it hurts the pro game, and every time the subject comes up you hear analysts, players, former players and coaches talking about how they wish players would stay in school for two or three years before turning pro. To understand just how much things have changed, compare last night’s teams to, say, UNC’s 1982 championship team, which featured Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, James Worthy and Matt Doherty. Kemba Walker is a good player, but it isn’t clear that he could have even started on that UNC team.

Sure, that’s one of the greatest teams ever, but look back through the history of NCAA champions. How many teams from before the one-and-done era could the 2010-11 Connecticut Huskies beat?

This time yesterday I could have made a case for some structural reforms, and that case would have been in line with what a lot of the experts are saying. Step 1: adopt an NFL-style rule requiring a player to wait until three years after his high school class has graduated to enter the draft.

An NCAA official, charged with toeing the company line, could have responded by saying that this year’s tournament was one of the most exciting ever, so what’s all the carping about? Today, though, the all the talk is all about how horrible the game was. Nobody is going to remember the exciting 66-game preliminary – all they’re going to yap about for at least the next year is the debacle of UConn/Butler, a game so bad that the people being paid to call and analyze the game couldn’t find anything nice to say about it. It was like a Miss America pageant with Tommy Davidson as the MC and Wanda as the winner: “Theeere she is….Miss Amsweetgodamighty!!” They couldn’t even pretend. If next year’s final also underwhelms, you’re going to have a trend on your hands.

The unfortunate thing, if you’re the NCAA, is that this is primarily your problem, but you need the NBA to solve it for you. And they might – the one-and-done rule is likely going to be on the table as The League wades into its forthcoming collective bargaining process. The thing is, while there are going to be some who prefer the NFL’s approach, there are others who are likely going to lobby to let players enter the draft straight out of high school, a strategy that will assuredly make a bad situation worse.

I’m not sure how hopeful to be, even though both NBA and NCAA management seem clear on what is in their shared best interest. But I’m going to be hopeful, just the same. I grew up in North Carolina, where college hoops is religion. I got my BA from Wake Forest, the school responsible for two of the NBA’s top stars, Tim Duncan and Chris Paul.

So I love NCAA basketball. And I’d like to be able to watch it again with a sense of joy instead of disgust.