An Unstable Mind
College Basketball, College Football, Football, Major Sports
Posted by Obiora, February 22, 2008 - 4:48 am
Last Friday, I posted a story previewing the weekend’s big college basketball games. I decided not to make predictions - the last reason of which is that I am not overly fond of making predictions. But had I done so, I would’ve gone 3-2.
Here’s how I would’ve predicted the games:
Indiana over Michigan State, 68-62. Pitt over Marquette, 77-73. Stanford over Arizona, 76-70. Georgetown over Syracuse, 71-62. Vanderbilt over Florida, 74-69.
3-2 isn’t too bad but let’s second guess for a minute. I’m never sure of myself in predicting a Pitt game - was I too hard in my analysis or too much of a homer? Maybe I should’ve allowed that Georgetown has been playing badly and it would catch up to them against the Orange. In my defense, Indiana put the Kelvin Sampson saga away (at least for another game) and took down a struggling Michigan State team. Stanford overcame Jeryd Bayless’ 31 pts to get a crucial Pac-10 win though only by 1 point. And Vanderbilt took care of business against the youngster Gators.
So the Big East alumnus got smacked in the two games he should’ve known best.
My point is that college athletics are inherently unstable. Talent always matters but passion isn’t that far behind. The cynic may view major college athletes as quasi-professionals and in many ways they are but we’re still dealing with 18-23 year old kids. Remember your first few years after high school and then add the pressure of performing in front of thousands upon thousands of spectators. They may relish the attention but college athletes are still susceptible to the same breakdowns in maturity and whips and scorns of passion that we all encounter as we grow up. This instability is one of the very reasons I love college sports.
Sure, there are upsets in professional sports. Although the New York Giants Superbowl win over New England was monumental, the line was ‘only’ 13 1/2 points. The very popularity of the NCAA basketball tournament is built on the premise that there will be huge upsets. Last season in college football, there were at least three high profile upsets (that I can recall off the top of my head) where the line was 28+ points. Appalachian State beat Michigan, 38-35. Stanford beat USC, 27-26. Pitt beat WVU, 13-9. This is no way I would’ve predicted Pitt football beating Pat White and the Mountaineers in Morgantown that night.
Photo Credit: AP/Kevin Rivoli
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