I love Pilates

Hello Hambino Hounds!!!!!!! Let me start off by explaining what I was doing during my little blogging hiatus. I spent some of my time studying for finals, writing papers, watching television, applying for jobs and of course, watching Television.

I spent most of my time however, learning how to play Backgammon, doing Tae-bo and Pilates, and practicing on my unicycle. Turns out, unicycling is one of the most difficult types of cycling one can attempt to do and I badly bruised my coccyx.

I’m not going to lie, some of that list was fabricated, but the unicycling stuff was definitely true. I’m thinking of joining the circus. Also, thanks to Tae-Bo and Pilates, I now have a delicate blend of flexibility and bulk, which is really paying off in my gymnastics classes. Enough about what I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks, I’d like to talk about what I’ve been THINKING for the past couple weeks.

I was actually thinking about sports for a little bit and I think it was blogworthy.

I want to chat about the NCAA Tourney, which has been pretty amazing this year, unlike the past couple years, where there were very few upsets. Saturday Northern Iowa defeated Kansas, the overall #1 seed in the tournament. Northern Iowa had a terrific regular season and won the Missouri Valley Conference.

Kansas, on the other hand, had an even better regular season in a power conference, and was widely considered the best basketball team in the nation. If this were college football, these two teams would never have come within 100 miles of each other, but it isn’t. If this was college football, I could have watched Eastern Michigan, the MAC champion, play Eastern Carolina, the CUSA champion in the GMAC Bowl, and I wouldn’t have been less interested. Suppose this game started at 7:00pm EST. I would have watched Jeopardy, and probably dominated most of the show, and then I would have missed the final question, because I never get it right. I would probably have started to flip through the channels around 7:28, since Jeopardy just finished and realized there was a football game on ESPN2 between two teams that I don’t care about. At 7:30 I would have switched to Wheel of Fortune and rocked every puzzle until the last one, I can also never solve the last puzzle on Wheel. At 7:59 I probably would have looked around my kitchen and, provided it was my lucky day/birthday, I would have eaten some ice cream/ice cream and chocolate cake. After my cake/ice cream fiasco, I would have found it necessary to take a generous nap. I would arise around 9:00pm to go back to the only sporting event on Television, only to find that the GMAC bowl wasn’t even close, at which time I would probably pop in one of my Tae-Bo VHS’s and let Billy Blanks sculpt my body into a chiseled-masterpiece that would surely have made Michelangelo proud.

My point is, if Northern Iowa had a football program and won its conference, they would never have been able to play the #1 team in the postseason. They would have played in a crappy bowl, which basically wouldn’t matter. The NCAA Tourney is one of the greatest events in sports and I don’t even really like basketball (just ask me about the NBA). The tourney is filled with excitement and every team has a chance to win. Teams get to play the best and you have to beat the best to win, the way it really should be.

I get the argument that the lack of a tournament makes the college football season better because once you lose; you’re most likely eliminated. It makes every regular season game important, we sports fans have to watch every game. Here’s the thing about that argument, unless you’re in the SEC, 1 loss could mean that you finish outside the top 8 (I would propose an 8 team playoff), so that argument becomes irrelevant. Once a team were to lose its first game (teams rarely go undefeated in college football) the rest of the season would be crucial because 2 losses could definitely put teams on the outside looking in, so the small, 8 team playoff, could make the regular season even more exciting.

Boise State argument… Some proponents of a playoff, site that Boise State gets an unfair shot at the national title, they go undefeated and get passed over for a one loss Big-12 or SEC team. That is not what’s wrong with the current BCS system. The real problem is if Boise would actually make the Championship Game. If we just leave Boise out, who cares, there isn’t that many Boise fans and they wouldn’t bring much revenue for the game anyway. The real trouble would be if Boise does make the championship. What if a one-loss SEC or different power-conference-team gets passed over by Boise because Boise going to start at #5 preseason this year? It would be terrible; the championship would be a sham. If a non-BCS conference team could survive an 8-team playoff, I could definitely deal with that because they would have earned it in the postseason. It would be a tough pill for millions to swallow if we watch a Boise team beat Roast Beef Tech. over and over and then get lucky in a championship game.

I want to applaud NCAA Basketball for putting together such an amazing event.

GO BUCKS!