Heat Loss

Well, the Heat's 27 win steak is finally over.  While this was no doubt an impressive streak (that'd be an undefeated season for most high school teams), I'm glad it's over.  I think nearly everyone that isn't a Heat fan will agree with this.  I'm not glad they lost because I hate the Heat or even care about the NBA at all.  I'm glad they finally lost because I, along with the rest of America, am tired of that story being the only thing ESPN ever covers.  So now, here's to (hopefully) proper coverage of March Madness!

Homemade Bracket

Last week, I was lucky enough to travel to Florida, Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Mexico for the Spring Break.  Unfortunately, this meant that there was no Wifi or computers to get a bracket and print it to fill out on Selection Sunday.  Fortunately, I was able to catch the choices on Sunday and write them by hand before I lost cable connection.  My homemade bracket is shaky, messy, and hard to read.  After the true madness going on during this March Madness, it is also pretty far off already.  Gonzaga and Georgetown losses threw me off, so now I'm just banking on Duke making it the whole way through to win it all.

Go Blue Devils!

Control the Game

As I watched ESPN after the Duke vs UNC game Saturday night, I saw some footage that was bizarre to me.  In a baseball game between Canada and Mexico, there was an all out brawl.  The entire team, coaches, and staff of both teams was in the middle of a huge mob of a fight.  After it was finally broken up, there were some injuries, and they continued on with the game!  I understand that if only one player is in a fight that they should just be ejected and the game played on, but this was everyone!  From the stands, water bottles were thrown at the first base coach and trash onto the field.  This was not only such a poor display of sportsmanship to me, but I feel like the managers at the stadium needed to take better control of the situation and react to it differently!  It just is not something I hope to keep seeing frequently in sport.

Until next time,
Jayme

March Madness App

Happy Tuesday!  While completing the technology assignment for Sport Communication, I came across an app for the iPhone that I think is very cool.  It is called ESPN BracketBound.  It has information about nearly every aspect of college basketball - and only college basketball.  I prefer this to the regular ESPN app because I could care less about the NBA and NASCAR.  There are schedules, rankings, news, video clips, rosters, and more for every single team in every single conference.  After Selection Sunday, which is this Sunday, there will also be features added to create your own bracket for March Madness.  If someone is not a huge basketball fan but still likes to participate in the excitement of the tournament, there is an option for the app to complete a bracket for you based on what you find important (rank, schedule toughness, conference, and more).  This is definitely a very neat app that I will be using throughout March Madness.

--Jayme

See Ya, ______. Hello, ACC!

Conferences in college sports are, in my opinion, an absolute mess.  It was previously announced that both Syracuse and Pitt would be leaving the Big East and joining the ACC for next season.  While this was very exciting to me because Duke will now be playing in Pittsburgh once every basketball season, it all seems absurd to me.  Just recently, it was announced that if Notre Dame chose to leave the Big East, the ACC would accept them for the summer.

The entire concept of conferences needs re-evaluated in college sports.  A team's conference should be based on its location so there isn't all of this switching around.  Of course they can travel to play other teams for non-conference play, but conferences should be based solely on location.  In Pennsylvania, how are Pitt and Penn State in different conferences when they are located this close in location?  Changing the conference system would also save schools a great deal of money on travel and accommodations for the teams.

With all these recent moves and negotiations I don't see the system changing anytime soon, but it is something that should be changed.

--Jayme

March Madness

It is newly March and that only means one thing to many Americans - March Madness.  Personally, March Madness is my absolute favorite time of the Sport Year and I am very excited for it this year.  This college basketball season seems so different than the rest in that the National Championship could go to nearly any team in the Top 15.  Obviously I want Duke to win it all and I believe they can with Ryan Kelly's recent return, but it's exciting knowing the brackets will be crazy this year.  With no undefeated teams and multiple Top 5 upsets, it's anybody's year.  And that's what the madness is really about.

Now I just have to wait for Selection Sunday brackets on March 17th!  Get those pens ready.

--Jayme