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First there was Gonzaga; now Butler. What do other mid-major basketball programs have to do to follow in their shoes and build a nationally ranked program year-in, year-out?

Building a Successful Mid-Major Basketball Program

For the second time in five years, a true mid-major has made it to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s Final Four. Of course, this year’s entrant, the Butler Bulldogs, are no George Mason Patriots, the team that shocked the world with its upsets of Michigan State, North Carolina and Connecticut en route to its appearance on college basketball’s biggest stage.

Coming into this year’s tournament, Butler had already achieved several years of March Madness success. Following the model provided by the Gonzaga Bulldogs (what’s in a name?), Butler has parlayed that success, and hence recognition, into becoming a true mid-major national power, spending much of the 2009-2010 campaign in the Top 25 of both polls and finishing at #11 in the AP and #8 in the ESPN / USA Today Coaches Poll. After Saturday’s vanquishing of Kansas State, Butler’s win streak stands at twenty-four games, by far the longest in the nation.
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Debates are an ever present part of sports as in politics.

Debating

Thinking of sports, this question is often asked, “Who is better?” The comparison is made through individual accomplishments as well as championships, but there are great players who never become “champions”. Should they be considered great players because their stats show that they played in the zone and showed off their individual talents, or should they be thought of as selfish and thoughtless in regards their team’s strategy to win? Dan Marino, Warren Moon, Barry Sanders, Eric Dickinson, and Earl Campbell are all among the countless individuals who were extraordinary at their positions, holders of NFL records who nonetheless still missed winning that elusive championship.
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Tiger Woods’ pitiful excuses are only worth of the South Park kids who have lampooned him.

Tiger and His Tail: The Edge of Infamy

You know you’ve been pushed to the cliff of condemnation when your predicament is satirized on South Park, one of the longest running animated series in cable history.

For those who don’t know the show, it’s about four kids in South Park, Colorado, eternally trapped in the fourth grade. The show’s creators use the boys’ adventures and the local milieu as a vehicle to drive their weekly target through a hilarious and often brutal gauntlet of satire and ridicule.

No one is immune to South Park’s turbo-powered mockery. The most recent episode featured caricatures of athletes accused of sexual assault–Tiger Woods, Ben Roethlisberger, Kobe Bryant, to name a few–attending rehab for “sexual addiction”.

I put the phrase in quotes because I share South Park’s writers’ doubt that any such addiction exists, or, more accurately, let me state, in no uncertain terms:
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March Madness is living up to its billing in the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

Oh, What a Sweet Sixteen It Is!

Sweet Sixteen, indeed!

After serving up one of the most exciting opening weekends in years, who else can’t wait to see what the 2010 NCAA Tournament dishes out for an encore?

Three double-digit (and four lower-half of the bracket) seeds will play on the second weekend. Only half of the Top 16 seeded teams who were “supposed” to advance actually did so. The overall number one seed Kansas Jayhawks have been vanquished. Eleven conferences are still represented, including 5 mid-majors: the Atlantic 10 Conference, the Horizon League, the Ivy League, the Missouri Valley Conference, and the West Coast Conference (represented by Xavier, Butler, Cornell, Northern Iowa and St. Mary’s, respectively).

[To be fair, I've always though the Atlantic 10 was one of a select few conferences (including Conference USA, at least prior to the great Big East defection) that deserved some kind of designation between major and mid-major conference. The Atlantic 10 overall is obviously on a level above the Horizon League or the MIssouri Valley Conference but not on the same tier as one of the BCS Conferences... which is the most salient point in this discussion, of course.]
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Sports Bright story about Patriot defensive lineman Ty Warren finishing his degree.

NFL Player Goes Back to School

Defensive lineman Ty Warren is foregoing the first round of the New England Patriots’ voluntary offseason workouts to complete his degree at Texas A&M, according to this Yahoo! Sports story. In doing so, he’s also passing up $250,000 bonus. His reason (to quote the quote in the article:

I try to put the kids in the best educational system possible and I think there is something to be said for their father, who has been blessed to play in the NFL and do something he’s loved to do, going back and finishing what he started. In the big picture, I think it’s important for me to do what I’m doing. I can sacrifice that bonus for that.

Continue Reading Sports Bright: New England Patriot Ty Warren Completes College