Does Every Team Really Deserve a Shot?

There have been a lot of stories in this past year about coaches getting in trouble for 'blowing out' other teams. I'm not talking about a Jersey Shore hairstyle here (although I think Bruce had something similar to that circa 1992) rather I'm talking about coaches and teams getting in trouble for putting too many points on the board. There is a huge difference, for me at least, between being successful and being downright mean. And right now during basketball sub-states I feel like it's not the coaches but KSHSAA that's being hurtful. I'll explain.

My cohort Jeffrey Graber and I were just going over the sub-state brackets for this week to kind of try and predict which teams will win and which games we should be ready to cover this Friday and Saturday. Pre-planning is our forte here at Catch it Kansas. Anyway, while looking at some of the first round games in the brackets there are a few matchups that stick out like sore thumbs. One of them being the top seeded Andover Central girls facing 4th seeded Wichita West. Central has a record of 20-0 this year while West is exactly the opposite at 0-20. So what is going to be the reaction if/when Tiffany Bias and co. ends up beating West by 60 or 70 points? We're simply setting West up for failure. To me it seems like those game people who say every team deserves a chance are the same people who complain when some teams get beat by 50 plus points. You can't have it both ways.

Perhaps the best example of this type of dilemma comes to us from Wichita Collegiate School. The boys and girls basketball teams for the Spartans are elite, and I don't use that word lightly. Last night the boys won their first sub-state matchup by a score of 86-26. You have to ask yourself, did that game really need to get played?

Trust me, Coach Mitch Fiegel is one of the kindest and most hard-working coaches I know. His problem is talent: he's got a TON of it on his team. In most every single game Fiegel takes his starters out at the half and puts in his second and third string guys. The problem is that even those guys can put up points, and they do it extremely well. Coach Fiegel's team has only lost one game this year but still they can't win. Other teams get upset with him for beating them 'excessively' while parents and players get upset about their kids' playing time. Once again begging the question: when it comes to sub-state do we really need everyone to play?

In the NCAA tournament, a number 16 seed has NEVER beaten a number 1 seed. We play the game because there is always a chance that it will happen. But since the field got expanded to 64 teams in 1985 (now 65 since 2002) it has never happened. Do you ever look at your bracket and give the 16 seed a chance because well, there IS a chance or do you go ahead and write them off and have all four number one seeds advance?

When I was in high school I never expected to even be in the running to be considered to get to state. My soccer team just played every game because we wanted to win. If we weren't good I didn't think we deserved to play anything beyond a regular season. Also, we didn't want to play anything beyond a regular season because that season was embarassment enough. If a team put up 8 goals on us we took it because that meant we didn't play well. We didn't get mad at the other team for being good. Am I the only one who seems to think this way anymore?

In my opinion I say save us the time, the travel expenses and the trouble of this first round of sub-state. I say save these teams the embarassment of getting 80 plus points dropped on them by a B-team. I say stop blaming these very talented teams for being so talented. They've worked hard to be that good.