The Bubble

For the month of March, Tenfingers6Strings will be covering college basketball for the NY Times with the aim of helping the average reader to understand the greater implications.

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The atmosphere is foreboding, but as I look around, there are very few displays of anticipated secatrian strife. Yet, the future does not look so promising as we head into the first storm of many: NCAA Bubble Watch.

After Googling NCAA Bubble Watch, I found in disturbing quantities, entire websites devoted to promoting predictions on which teams will be included or excluded from the Tournament. These were not just websites created by "bloggers" who opine about everything under the sun from the comforts of their home in pajamas, but by enterprise level media organizations such as ESPN, CBS and SportsIllustrated. Imagine my shock to find that a swimsuit maganize has devolved into furthering this madness.

Some sites devoted to "Watching the Bubble"

ESPN - Bubble Watch
SI - Bubble Watch
Projecting the Field- CBS Sportsline
Joe Lunardi's "Bracketology"

"The Bubble" is an element within the dynamics of American culture that unnecessarily adds to a seemingly endless strife pervading already established rivalries. It is regrettable, yet understandable that friction would occur between traditional rivals such as USC v. UCLA, Kansas v. Texas, Philadephia's Big 5, Georgia v. Georgia Tech, Pitt v. West Virgina, Indiana v. Purdue, Duke v. Carolina and the entire Western World, and University of Anchorage v. The Native Village of Eyak. But, this decay in our culture reaches epic porportions as normally innocuous relationships are inordinantly strained by this systematic imposed "Bubble."

The Michigan Wolverines were confidently riding a much improved Hoops season on the back of 1st Team All-Big Ten Guard, Daniel Horton. In mid-February they were 16-3, but then proceeded to lose 6 of their next 8 games, effectively putting their chances of playing in the NCAA tournament at risk. I discussed this point at length with freshman Deepak Alannahanannaabad, engineering exchange student from India:

"Michigan basketball deserves a place in the tournament. We've played in the toughest conference in the country (referring to the Big Ten's top ranked RPI rating) and have finished at .500 record, and beat Wisconsin and Michigan State. We definitely own a spot over those criminal elements that play for the University of Cincinnati," he said violently shaking his finger at me, "and what the (heck) are they doing with a player on their team with the name of Jihad Muhammed? If they make it to tournament and not Michigan, I convert to Islam and wage jihad against NCAA and the city of Cincinnati."

The University of Cincinnati? While I understand his argument against them, why would someone who normally reserves such vitriol towards their traditional rival Ohio State, be so utterly consumed with rage against a small school in Cincinnati, that he'd be willing to change his religion for the sole purpose of actually going to war? The other disturbing piece of this phenomenon is that it seems to be taking on a foreign element.

There is only one culprit: the Bubble.

Throughout the basketball season, schools who have already been excluded from playing football in a bowl game, stew over their lack of inclusion, and are given one more chance by making it to the college basketball tournament. There are 326 teams that must compete for 64 spots (20%) with the larger schools typcially holding the advantage over smaller schools. In 2006, a small evangelical school in burgeoning Tulsa, Oklahoma, founded by televangelist Oral Roberts, gained its first automatic tournament bid in 22 years yesterday.

Guard Michael Tutt vividly remembers being excluded last year:

"We didn't want to go through what we went through last year. It was a horrible feeling," said Tutt, with a freshly cut basketball net dangling from his neck. "I would say that has been in the back of my mind this whole season. Every time I went in the gym, I just thought about that loss."

"The desire to feel included is a natural part of the human psyche," said Dr. Laidlaw, a licensed psychologist specializing in culturally sensitive psychotherapy with children, adolescents, adults, couples and families, "and putting the human psyche through such trauma in a cultural system where the outcome presupposes exclusion, will cause rival factions to ebb and flow as their future is influenced by the other. In the end, the dejection felt by those striving for inclusion can cause long-term feelings of inferiority and lowered self-esteem. A common symptom of these underlying root-causes are bouts with rage, self-initiated conflicts with others and increased memberships to dwarf tossing organizations. Mememberships at these types of sick clubs always peak in April."

I went to Kendell White, a graduate of Northwestern University, a school who has never made it to the NCAA tournament, to ask if he felt the symptoms described by Dr. LaidLaw above, "I'm a big sports fan, and of course it stings when you root for your school and they fall short each year, but I'm also a Cubs fan, so I'm used to annual disappointment."

We asked Kendell how he managed to cope with 42 years of disappointment, he said, "It's called being a grown up."

"Utter nonsense!" Dr. LaidLaw scoffed on the other end of the phone, "There isn't even a clinical term for 'grown-up', and I wouldn't expect a non-specialist to understand the complex environmental factors challenging the human psyche. We are all like little children, and I would bet that inside of Mr. White is a suppressed child waiting to cry or lash-out at someone. If he was my patient, we'd do some roll playing to bring that anger to the surface with scarves."

The beaten down, the trodden. Society's forgotten element. The Bubble exists to provide an additional ray of hope intended for those who seek inclusion to the "Big Dance." Sadly, the Bubble is going to pop for a number of teams seeking the college basketball's metaphorical Mecca. But are their hopes greatly misplaced? They seek inclusion to an arena where the words "single elimination" means, "Pack your bags, you're going home, Pal," and not just for the participants, but for the fans as well. If the experts are right, we could be on the verge of a division not seen since 1861.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at March 8, 2006 12:23 PM | TrackBack