Covering the Cards

I'm honestly not trying to be an asshole in this post, but I do want to start out with a caveat: If you're the type of sappy sports fan who wishes that every game ended like a made for TV movie, this post might not be for you.  If you love the way the Olympics cuts away from live event coverage to bring you a story about how some cross-country skier from Slovenia spent a year living in his car, you might want to go back to reading a Rick Reilly article. After all, what I'm about to do is, in most people's minds, worse than criticizing Mother Theresa, Gandhi and Sesame Street combined.  I'm going to criticize the media's coverage of injured Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware.

Kevin Ware's injury was undoubtedly one of the more gruesome things I've witnessed in 20+ years as a sports fan, and I cringe every time I think about the freak accident - not to mention the long path to recovery that awaits Ware as he works to return to high-level college basketball.  That being said, I feel that the coverage of Ware's injury - and of the Louisville team's response to it - has been overblown.  Players suffer significant injuries that require them to miss games all the time.  While Ware's injury was clearly more severe, traumatic and unusual that your typical high ankle sprain, broken wrist or concussion, does the severity of the incident make it any more worthy of extensive press coverage than any of these others?

CBS cut to a shot of Kevin Ware approximately once every 10 seconds (hyperbolic estimate).

The media has talked a lot about how Louisville's national championship victory in Ware's absence signifies that the Cardinals are a "team" in the truest sense of the word.  In reality, though, don't teams in both college and professional sports win in the face of injuries all the time?  There's no doubt that Louisville's ability to roll past Duke, Wichita State and Michigan without the services of a key bench player is impressive - I'm the first to acknowledge that role players are much more critical to a team's success than most star-obsessed fans give them credit for.  But Louisville is far from the first team to have players step up for a fallen colleague.  Granted, most of those fallen colleagues didn't have their bones sticking inches out of their skin - but the fact remains that Ware's injury is different from so many others only in terms of its gruesomeness, not in terms of its significance.

Do I believe that the Louisville players truly like and care about each other?  Sure.  Do I think that's the reason they were able to overcome Ware's injury and defeat Michigan in Atlanta last night?  Not really.  At the end of the day, the Cardinals were 2013's best college basketball team, and a potent combination of guard play (Peyton Siva and Russ Smith), clutch shooting (Luke Hancock) and an inside presence (Gorgui Deng) propelled them to victory.  While I feel for Kevin Ware and wish him the best in his attempt to recover from an injury that I can't even really imagine, to say that the team "won it for Kevin" is a bit much.  Unlike the athletes who have been removed from their sports to battle life-threatening illnesses like cancer and AIDS, Ware will surely recover fully and resume his athletic career.  In an attempt to write a compelling personal story, the media failed to provide enough coverage of the players who actually made the 2013 national championship happen for the Cards - the ones that actually played.

March Badness

If you root for upsets, then the first second round of the 2013 NCAA tournament was for you.  Ten higher seeds won games on Thursday and Friday, including one 15, one 14, one 13 and three 12s, and trendy Final Four selections like New Mexico and Georgetown were sent home early.  Like most college hoops fans without a team to root for, I love to see all of the upsets - it's a large part of what makes this tournament so exciting.  And while it's true that parity in college basketball in increasing, I'd argue that it's not so much that teams like Harvard or LaSalle are much better this year than 13 and 14 seeds normally are.  Instead, this year's high-seeded victors seemed to take advantage of some ugly basketball by their heavily favored opponents, making this year's major upsets a little less satisfying than the Cornell-esque runs we've seen in the recent past.

That's not to take anything away from the likes of the Crimson, Explorers, the Oregon Ducks, the Ole Miss Rebels or the Cal Bears.  Each of these teams came into tournament weekend ready to play (and, is LaSalle's case, had to meet another tournament worthy team just to get a shot to play on Friday) and got the job done.  But as I watched at least part of each of these upsets, I wasn't particularly impressed with any of these supposed Cinderellas.  While Harvard played solid defense, it was really New Mexico's inability to hit a shot that lead to their demise.  Ole Miss managed to win despite a terrible game from their star guard Marshall Henderson because Wisconsin simply can't score consistently.  The only major upset team that actually looked aggressive, cohesive and threatening was, shockingly, Florida Gulf Coast, who used their athleticism and intensity to beat up on Georgetown.  For their part, though, the Hoyas and Big East Player of the Year Otto Porter Jr. looked dazed and confused from the opening tip to the final whistle.

The Big East sent eight teams to the 2013 NCAA Tournament and is supposedly the strongest conference in the country.  Of those eight, only Syracuse, Louisville and Marquette (barely) survived; in addition to Georgetown, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and were knocked out by higher seeds the Cincinnati and Villanova were pushed around by beatable opponents.  We spent the year talking about how the Mountain West had the highest RPI of any conference, but of its five tournament teams only Colorado State and San Diego State made it through, while New Mexico and UNLV were upset badly.  Meanwhile, LaSalle had to beat the Mountain West's Boise State just to get a chance to play Kansas State, which suggests that the NCAA tournament selection process isn't as efficient as it needs to be.

If the NCAA is trying to create drama by matching overrated Big East and Mountain West teams against sneakily strong mid-major opponents, they're doing a great job.  In reality, however, this week's upsets are as much about overrated NCAA favorites getting matched up against feistier, psyched-up opponents with nothing to lose.  As much as I'd like to credit teams like Harvard for rising to the occasion, I find it hard to believe that a team that recently lost to Columbia and Princeton is all of a sudden evenly matched against the Lobos, the best team in the supposedly toughest conference in the nation, despite not playing particularly well.  Instead, the Crimson were the beneficiaries of some sloppy seeding by the NCAA and took advantage of it - like any group of smart Ivy Leaguers would do.

Make It Count

In just a few short hours, Selection Sunday will commence and we'll know the names of the 68 schools that will participate in the 2013 NCAA men's college basketball tournament.  The majority of the schools in the bubble, however, are from the NCAA's power six conferences - teams that, after a long regular season filled with RPI top-100 opponents, still have a chance at the Big Dance despite having flamed out of their conference tournaments earlier this weekend.  Living in Manhattan, the home of the Big East tournament, most of the talk and media coverage this weekend has revolved around schools live Georgetown, Notre Dame, Louisville and Syracuse, schools that are locks for the NCAA tournament.  But while most college basketball fans have spent the last couple of days watching the top teams in the country battle for the BCS conference crowns, I'm much more interested in watching the desperate teams fighting for the postseason lives in the smaller conference tourneys.

Don't get me wrong - I've caught parts of a number of BCS conference tournament games this week, and enjoyed some great college basketball from the likes of Georgetown vs. Syracuse, North Carolina vs. Miami and Kansas vs. Kansas State.  And while it's great to watch the best players in the country represent the nation's biggest schools, the downside for the losers of these major conference tournament games is pretty limited.  While there's no doubt that the players for North Carolina wanted to win today's ACC championship game, the Tar Heels ultimate goal for 2013 - as it is every year - is to take home an NCAA national title.  As soon as the final buzzer sounded in Greensboro today, UNC undoubtedly began to look ahead to a Thursday or Friday matchup in Round 2 of the newly-reformatted Big Dance.

As a result, these BCS conference tournament matchups lack the desperation and fight that you can find from the smaller conference playoffs.  Unlike North Carolina, tournament finals losers like Vermont (America East), UC Irvine (Big West) and Morgan State (MEAC) certainly won't be headed to the NCAA tournament next week.  Like most of the country's Division I teams, their chance at the NCAAs depended entirely on their ability to win their conference postseason tournaments - their failure to do so will result in, at best, a trip to the NIT and, at worst, an abrupt end to the 2013 basketball season.  While the quality of basketball in the America East might not be able to match what you find in the Big East, the added passion and emotion generated by the win-or-go-home mentality more than make up for the discrepancies in shooting ability or ball-handling skill.

By this time next week, virtually every mid-major basketball team will be eliminated from the NCAA tournament - most of the small conference schools that have made it this far will serve as little more than second round prey for the nation's traditional basketball powers.  Before we reach that point, I've enjoyed another opportunity to see schools for the Patriot League, the MAC and the SWAC compete on a national stage.  There will be plenty of time to watch Duke, UCLA and Michigan State play throughout the rest of March - hopefully you were able to enjoy some do-or-die mid major basketball before it was too late.

Stepping It Up

One of the main reasons that I will never like college football as much as the NFL is the wide variation in the quality of teams.  During the conference schedule, you'll regularly see the likes of Ohio State beat up on an Indiana by three-plus touchdowns; the more I follow the Pac-12, the more I notice the talent discrepancies between the haves (USC, Stanford and Oregon) and the have-nots (Washington State and Colorado).  And if you think the conference schedule includes too many duds, then you undoubtedly feel that the non-conference games are almost always a total joke.  At least a team like Duke has a chance (however slim) of upsetting a Florida State - for the majority of non-conference matchups, a 30-plus point victory for the favorite (always the home team) is a virtual lock.

The worst of these non-conference games, of course, are the ones against FCS opposition.  Earlier today, however, University of Wisconsin Athletic Director (and 2013 Rose Bowl interim head coach) Barry Alvarez announced that Big Ten teams would stop scheduling games against FCS schools starting in 2016.  Wisconsin in particular has filled its schedule with cupcakes in recent years - in 2012, the Badgers' non-conference games included a trip to Oregon State and home games against FCS Northern Iowa and FBS "mid-majors" Utah State and UTEP - and will again play a FCS school (Tennessee Tech) in 2013.  As a whole, the Big Ten conference is no stranger to FCS opponents; its schools have already scheduled a number of such games for 2013, 2014 and 2015.

So while Alvarez's announcement is surprising, it's undoubtedly also a great thing for college football.  Americans are hungry for as much high-quality football action as they can get, and gone are the days when NCAA gridiron fans only cared about the conference schedule.  Arguably the NCAA's biggest advantage over the NFL is its start date - college teams get a two week jump on their NFL counterparts, so there are two weekends where college teams compete only with baseball for viewers.  Instead of scheduling games against Hofstra during that period, Big Ten programs will now play smaller FBS programs (at worst) or big time BCS conference teams (at best).  Either way, it'll be better than the Northern Iowa game that the Badgers scheduled last season.

Big Ten schools like Wisconsin will run past the likes of Northern Iowa no longer.

It's hard to tell if the Big Ten's announcement was in any way caused by the NCAA's move to a college football playoff system, but it couldn't have hurt.  Now that teams no longer need to go undefeated in order to compete for a national championship, schools like Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan can challenge themselves a bit more with higher quality opponents without worrying about having their seasons ruined in September.  This is exciting news for college football fans, and hopefully other conferences will soon follow the Big Ten's lead.  The more solid college football we can get in early September, the better.

Part of the Action

Though I've been to Cameron Indoor Stadium previously, this Saturday was my first chance to attend a game at what is arguably college basketball's mots famous venue.  After more than two seasons of unsuccessfully trying to get to a Duke home game, I finally got my chance to see the Blue Devils take on current ACC rival (and future Big Ten afterthought) Maryland for a Saturday matinee.  Heading into the game, my expectations for the experience were sky high - there was seemingly no way that the contest could possibly live up to the lofty expectations that I had developed over the past few seasons of watching Duke basketball.  And yet, somehow, it did.  I can honestly say that my first experience at Cameron Indoor was one of the more memorable sports experiences of my lifetime - something I suggest that all sports fans put towards the top of their Bucket Lists.

When you get to an NBA arena about 30 minutes before tip-off, even if it's Miami at Los Angeles, the building is virtually guaranteed to be empty.  At Cameron Indoor, however, the energy level was high well before the game started.  The student section - or Cameron Crazies as they are affectionately known - were in full force from the moment we walked in, and remained engaged in the game throughout.  Even as Duke began to pull away in the second half, the fans never got bored.  No one left even a minute early, despite the fact that the Blue Devils built a 20-point second half lead and emptied the bench in the final minutes.  It was really quite different from the NBA and college basketball experiences that I'm used to, almost as if the fans were there for more than just a basketball game.

For one of the last times as a member of the ACC, Maryland visited Cameron Indoor Stadium.

If there was an overarching theme that emerged from my first Cameron experience, it was the sense that the Duke fans feel like they are truly part of each individual piece of the game.  Whereas the fans at an NBA contest are there to watch their favorite stars, the Cameron Crazies (and, by extention, the rest of the fans in attendance) are themselves part of the show, working hard to affect every single play.  From their in-game rituals to their clever signs and chants, the Crazies work hard to make an impact on the outcome of the game.  Combine the student section with the band and the mascot and you get a multi-sensory game experience that was unlike any basketball game I had ever been a part of.  As you can see from the picture above, I had a great seat - but even if you're sitting in the last row, I bet you'd feel connected to the rest of the fans such that it wouldn't really matter.  At a Duke game, it's more about feeling than it is about watching. 

View from my seat just beyond the outstretched arms of the Cameron Crazies.

Aside from a small pool of Maryland red located just beyond the Terps bench (see above), the entire arena was a sea of Duke blue and (unfortunately, for the uniform purist in me) black.  Perhaps it was the fact that I had a great view of the game, or maybe it was because the Dukies were coming off of a terrible road loss at Miami, but never before had I seen so much emotion from athletes playing in a regular season game.  After being there, though, it makes a ton of sense - the roar of the crowd, the tightness of the arena and the magnitude of the game (a CBS-televised weekend afternoon game against a conference rival) had clearly rubbed off on the Duke players, propelling them to a higher level.  Take a look at Duke's results this year and you'll notice that they lost convincingly to both NC State and Miami - both on the road.  When the Wolfpack and Hurricanes have to come to Cameron Indoor Stadium later this season, however, I'm betting it'll be a much different story.

In Can Only Get Better

Last night, with Notre Dame trailing 28-0 at halftime of the BCS National Championship game, I flipped over to the Knicks versus Celtics game on MSG and never flipped back.  Granted, I'm a big Knicks fan and try to watch as many games as I can - especially big Eastern Conference matchups against rivals like Boston - but the fact that I completely lost interest in the second half of what should have been the most exciting game of the college football season says a lot more about the current NCAA postseason system than it does about my growing obsession with New York basketball.  Without a doubt, last night's championship game was a total embarassment for the NCAA, for ESPN and for the schools involved.

Most people seem to be placing the blame on Notre Dame for its admittedly pathetic showing against a vastly superior Alabama team.  I, however, refuse to blame the Fighting Irish.  Sure, they could have played a lot better, and their much-talked-about defense - which was compared constantly to Alabama's during the weeks leading up to last night's game - didn't come close to living up to its reputation.  The blame, however, lies with the BCS system that allowed a Notre Dame vs. Alabama national championship game in the first place.  Clearly, hindsight is 20/20, and it's now easy to say that Notre Dame wasn't the second best team in the country this year despite its previously unblemished record.  But the fact that Notre Dame never really had to be tested on its road to Miami (minus a home game versus Stanford where the outcome was very much in question) is just another glaring failure of the pre-playoff BCS system.

It's not just the National Championship where the NCAA and the BCS failed college football fans, however.  Take a look at the other BCS games this season, and you'll see a recurring pattern.  The Stanford victory over Wisconsin was at least close, even though anyone who watched the game will tell you that the Cardinal manhandled the Badgers - and the 3-0 second half lacked the big moments you hope for from the Rose Bowl. For some reason the BCS felt compelled to get a non-BCS conference school into a BCS game again - even though there wasn't a Boise State-type of mid-major team this year - and as a result Northern Illinois got smacked by Florida State in the Orange Bowl.  The Fiesta Bowl between Oregon and Kansas State wasn't much better, as a Wildcats team that slowed down the stretch ran into the buzzsaw that is Oregon's offense.  The Sugar Bowl was admittedly somewhat exciting, with underdog Louisville topping SEC powerhouse Florida, but even that game wasn't as close as the 33-23 final score suggests.

If there was a playoff this season, all of these games could have been first round matchups.  Rather than ending the season on the uninspired note that was last night's 42-12 Alabama win, we could have been headed for a semifinal round featuring some combination of Florida State, Stanford, Oregon, Alabama and Louisville (maybe).  While the BCS's inadequacies have been much talked about, this season's BCS bowl season was perhaps the best illustration of the system's many weaknesses.  When the NCAA moves to a playoff system in two years, fans and analysts will undoubtedly start complaining about the new system's shortcomings - just like people complain when the March Madness brackets emerge each Selection Sunday.  While airing these future complaints, though, don't lose sight of how bad this year's BCS bowls were.  Going forward, it can only get better.  

Time For A Change

For those of you that know me, you've probably already heard what you're about to read at least half a dozen times - if you want to go back to reading TMZ or something, I won't blame you.  After Tuesday's Rose Bowl game, though, its time to finally get it down on paper.  So, here it goes: I HATE the Stanford band.  At this point, the reasons as to why I hate the Stanford band aren't really that important, though they include - but are hardly limited to - a) the fact that all of the "musicians" are absolutely terrible at playing musical instruments, b) the group's annoying and tired anti-establishment, "we're too good to organize ourselves" style and c) the way the percussion section substitutes sinks, trash can lids and just about anything else made of metal for drums.  We get it - you can hit pretty much anything with drumsticks and it will make a sound.

I mean . . . What the hell is this?

There's nothing wrong with being weird.  Ask anyone close to me and they'll likely tell you that, at times, I can be as weird people come.  If the kids in the Stanford band want to get together and put on bizarre outfits while jamming on their saxophones, tubas and, yes, garbage can covers, that's fine with me.  After spending two years in Palo Alto, I can say with confidence that there are tons of weird people doing tons of weird things pretty much all the time at Stanford, and I have absolutely no problem with it.  So what's my beef with the Stanford band, you ask?  Well, unlike the underwater hockey squad, the juggling association or the quiddich team, the band gets a completely unearned national audience in front of which to unveil its collective weirdness.  As a result, the Stanford band consistently damages the Stanford brand, and it's really starting to drive me nuts.

All of this comes at a time when Stanford University is seeking to add "football powerhouse" to a list of collegiate accolades that includes top-notch academics, beautiful campus and near perfect weather.  After weathering the losses of coach John Harbaugh and later quarterback Andrew Luck to return to a third consecutive BCS bowl game - Tuesday's 20-14 victory over B1G champion Wisconsin - you'd be crazy not to consider Stanford a top-ten college football program.  Unless, however, you watched the Stanford band perform during halftime or after the end of the Rose Bowl.  In that case, you're probably wondering "how can I take a football program seriously when its band looks like, well, that?"  And you know what?  I don't have an answer for you.  Watching Stanford's band perform on the same field as Wisconsin's was like watching Colorado play football against Stanford this year - it was mostly embarrassing, with a little bit of sadness sprinkled in for good measure.

I have some thoughts about what Stanford should do about the band situation.  My top option consists of blowing up the band (not literally, of course, though I'd be willing to consider that too) and replacing it with a giant walking DJ robot.  It might sound dumb at first, but I challenge you to argue that a technologically-advanced, Gangnam Style-blasting robot would do Stanford University less justice then the current monstrosity that calls itself the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band.  No matter that Stanford decides to do instead, it's time to stop trotting the band out onto the field for another nationally televised performance.  The Stanford players, coaches and - most importantly - fans deserve much better.

The GenericCorporateSponsor.com Bowl

Because I work in the sports world, go to a lot of games and am engaged to a sponsorship and marketing expert, I've become somewhat of an advertising snob.  In fact, my first true post on Caught Looking was about how Citi Field's outfield is completely plastered with ads, and how the Yellow Pages-esque view takes away from the ballpark's otherwise beautiful look and feel.  This isn't to say I'm some sort of old fashioned geezer who wants all corporate references removed from my sports - I understand that corporate affiliations are a vital part of each professional sports team's business, and find that in some instances sponsors can actually add value to the game experience.  All of the random sponsored college bowl games that have cropped up over the last several years, however, are not examples of sponsors adding value to the sporting events they attach their names and logos too.  In an effort to grow revenues, the NCAA has over expanded its bowl schedule and lessened the significance of making it to the college football postseason.

Last night I tuned in to ESPN for some of the Belk Bowl between Duke and Cincinnati, and I learned a couple of things.  First, I learned that Belk is more than the name of a random college bowl game played in Charlotte, NC - it's actually a chain of department stores with locations throughout the southeast.  Interestingly, I ddn't learn this from watching the Belk Bowl - not once did anyone mention what Belk was or why they were sponsoring one of the NCAA's 35 college bowl games.  In my Googling spree I also learned that while Belk does have over 50 locations in Duke's home state of North Carolina, they don't exist anywhere in Ohio and only have a few locations in border state Kentucky.  Why the Belk Bowl wouldn't include two teams from within Belk's regional footprint (the company has 16 states with stores to choose from), is beyond me.  Last, I looked up the Belk Bowl on Wikipedia and found out that  the game, which matches the ACC's #5 team against the Big East's #3 team, has changed names three times since its inception in 2002.  Originally founded as the Queen City Bowl, the game rotated through two other sponsors (Continental Tires and Meineke Car Care) before shifting to Belk for the first time last year.

A small crowd watched Cincinnati toak home the 2012 Belk Bowl title in Charlotte.

I'm picking on the Belk Bowl here because it's a game I actually watched, but a similar story is true for all of the NCAA's fringe bowl games.  They all feature random sponsors that are in no way integrated into the flow of the game, with no logical relationship to the teams playing or geographic regions represented.  There's zero fan recognition because the title sponsors change so often, the games are rarely memorable and there are too many of them to keep track of.  To top it all off, different bowls have sponsors that are arguably competitors - like Little Caesars and Chick-Fil-A, for example - that makes things particularly confusing.  The NCAA has created a college bowl landscape that is littered with random corporate tie-ins, which has made it very hard to create any sense of history or tradition.  Unlike NCAA basketball's post-season tournament, which is filled with memorable moments throughout its history, few of college football's bowls are thought of for more than their funny names.

What does it mean to win the Belk Bowl?  Is this something for Cincinnati to be proud of, or should they be disappointed that they're not playing in a bigger postseason game?  Should Duke be content with breaking the school's 18-year-long bowl-less streak thanks to the Belk Bowl invite?  Because of the inflated number of college bowl games and the inconsistency of the matchups from year to year, it's nearly impossible for players, coaches or fans to truly weigh the significance (if any) of a lower tier bowl game.  College football's current bowl structure leaves every bowl champion (except the national champion) with an unsatisfying feel of "what could have been," and despite the photo above I can't believe that Cincinnati is overjoyed with the way its season ended.  Unfortunately, if companies like Belk, AdvoCare and TaxSlayer.com keep putting up money for bowl title sponsorships, we won't be getting rid of these irrelevant postseason games in favor of a better system any time soon.

Brooklyn's Barclays Center

A few weeks ago, I had a charity meeting at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan.  As you might have been able to guess - I do write a "sports fan experience blog," after all - I'm not much of the clubbing type, and had never been to Jay-Z's establishment before.  I have to say, it was a pretty awesome spot - giant HDTVs everywhere showing (mainly) basketball games, tons of rare sports memorabilia on the walls and cool lighting that gave the club a very unique feel.  Surprisingly, I enjoyed my time in the 40/40 Club.  But while I can now officially say that I visited Jay-Z's club, in a way I wasn't really there.  Sure, I was physically inside the building, but the lack of a true club atmosphere makes it impossible for me to say whether or not I'd like the place at midnight on a Saturday.  Places like the 40/40 Club can't be judged solely on looks.  They need to be felt, and I can't say I've ever really felt what it's like to party with the 40/40 crowd (I imagine I'd hate it).

The reason I bring up this anecdote is because on Saturday afternoon I made my first trip to New York City's latest Jay-Z-inspired establishment, Brooklyn's Barclays Center.  I visited Barclays over the summer before construcution was finished, but this was my first visit to the arena for a real event.  Overall, I was extremely impressed with the building even before I walked inside.  The subway ride from the east side of Manhattan was incredibly convenient - a ~25 minute ride (tops) dropped us literally just steps from the building's main entrance - and upon exiting the subway we were immediately greeted by the Barclays Center's impressive and unique facade.  The staff was especially friendly - everyone we spoke to, from the people at Will Call to the security guards to the ushers in our section, was really sociable - and the building looks new, fresh and clean (as you'd expect from an arena that opened just weeks ago).

Thanks to a connection at the area, we had particularly good seats in the fifth row of the lower level (see the picture, below).  The arena is pretty small, both in terms of capacity and footprint, so virtually every seat is right on top of the court.  The upper level seats are stacked tightly, so that they seem simultaneously very close to the court (horizontally) but extremely high up (vertically).  Just like Jay-Z's 40/40 Club, Barclays has a modern, dark, sleek look - it's not bright and friendly like Indiana's Bankers Life Fieldhouse, but is instead chic and dark, like a bar. Our seats also came with access to one of the arena's eleven "Vault Suites," which are basically ultra-luxury boxes located under the arena with no view of the court.  We didn't hang out in ours for long - there were no other people there and there was no food, so we didn't have much of a reason to spend more time there - but it was apparent that the Vault Suites could be an awesome place for someone rich and/or important to host guests before the game or during halftime.

Check out the empty seats in the background - it looked like that in every single section.

While I loved the building, it's still hard for me to picture what it's really like to attend a big-time sporting event at Barclays.  I went for a Princeton basketball game versus Fordham, and at opening tip there weren't more than 1,000 people in the place (it might have been closer to a few hundred, realistically).  Never once did the crowd get up on it's feet, you could hear every sneaker squeak on the court, and I had dozens of empty seats on either side onto which I could stretch out, lay my coats, etc.  I'm guessing that, for a Knicks vs. Nets game or even the A-10 Tournament finals (coming to Brooklyn in March), the place could get loud and exciting, but I really can't say for sure.  In fact, the crowd was so sparse that I got selected for an on-court promotion (a shooting contest that I'm sad to say I lost) because I was virtually the only person in the entire lower bowl who was a) in my seat right after the opening tip, b) wearing a Princeton shirt and c) young enough to avoid having a heart attack under the basket.  The new Barclays Center has a ton of potential - I can't wait to see, hear and feel what it's like to be there for a "real" event.

      Replace "Ian Hummer" with "Deron Williams" and Barclays Center might feel a lot different.

Battle 4 Atlantis: Part II

While I don't typically love watching sporting events at bars, I do appreciate the camraderie and the opportunity to spend time alongside fans of teams other than my own.  When I used to watch the Giants games every Sunday at a bar in Palo Alto, CA, I learned to appreciate the atmosphere and grew to enjoy being seated next to other diehard NFL fans (assuming they weren't rooting for the Eagles, Redskins or Cowboys, that is).  Now that I'm back in New York, sometimes I wish that I could take in a differentiated fan perspective a bit more often - I've returned to watching most games at home this fall and, when I do go out, I'm usually surrounded by other Knicks or Giants fans.  Along those lines, the Battle 4 Atlantis was the perfect remedy for my suddenly-insulated sports lifestyle.  Not only did I get to watch some great basketball games alongside energetic and passionate fans from VCU, Duke, Louisville, Missouri, Minnesota, Northern Iowa and of course Stanford (I never saw Memphis play), I also had a great time talking to many of these people while at the resort's many restaurants, beaches and water slides.

Even before we reached the Bahamas, we ran into countless college basketball fans.  On our connecting flight to Nassau from Orlando, I struck up a conversation with a couple of retirees from Jacksonville who were heading the the Atlantis to cheer on Memphis; they both attended the university back when it was still known as Memphis State.  The shuttle bus that we took from the airport to the hotel was filled with fans from each of the tournament's eight schools, and we spent the 45-minute-long ride mocking a couple of Minnesota Golden Gophers fans for snapping pictures of everything from the bus window, as if they had never left their cul-de-sac in St. Paul before.  While sitting in an inner tube, riding a conveyor belt built to take people to the top of a water slide, I got into a conversation with a guy from Missouri about their game against Stanford from the day before.  The entire weekend was filled with random conversations with college basketball fans about the tournament and occassional run-ins with the players and coaches themselves.  While playing blackjack in the casino we spotted Coach K and his Blue Devils, we saw Stanford and assistant coach Mark Madsen on the way to dinner, and passed the rest of the teams while walking in and around the Imperial Arena.

Stanford prepares for its first game of the tournament versus Missouri.


Often, when we think about college basketball fans, we think about college students - the Cameron Crazies at Duke, for example.  Interestingly, there were virtually zero college students at the Battle 4 Atlantis, likely spending their Thanksgiving holidays at home with family and friends or at a more wallet-friendly vacation destination.  Instead, the Battle 4 Atlantis fans fit into a few main categories.  Of course, there were lots of young and middle-aged alums, including myself.  There were also lots of retirees, eager to find an excuse not to cook Thanksgiving dinner and find some warm weather in the process - I was constantly running into a giant pack of elderly Minnesota fans wearing matching t-shirts made specifically for the trip.  Then, there were the super-fans -some of whom might've also have been alums - who never miss a game regardless of what country it's played in.  Last, there were a few locals sprinkled in here and there - Bahamas residents excited enough about the sport of basketball to spend money to watch kids from colleges they've almost certainly never been to (or, in the case of Northern Iowa, heard of) before.

Neutral site tournaments are always fun, from college basketball's March Madness to the FIFA World Cup, and the Battle 4 Atlantis was certainly no exception.  With only the most diehard fans willing to pass on a traditional Thanksgiving in favor of non-conference college basketball, I spent five days in a beautiful setting talking about sports with some of the country's most intelligent and passionate college hoops fans.  While I would have loved to have seen a larger Stanford contingent with which to talk about Dwight Powell's inside game or Aaron Bright's injury - as usual, the Stanford fans left much to be desired in the attendance department - it was kind of fun to be part of an underrepresented fan minority.  After two straight months of being surrounded by fellow Giants and Knicks fans, it was great to get away from New York for a few days and be the token cardinal red-clad Stanford fan in the Bahamas.

Battle 4 Atlantis: Part I

In the sports world, Thanksgiving is seen as a holiday for NFL football.  But while most turkey-eating Americans were watching Houston and Detroit go to overtime, New England destroy the lowly Jets and RGIII tear up the

Cowboys secondary, I was at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis, a college basketball tournament made up of eight of the nation's top programs (including the eventual champion, Coach K-led Duke).  Over the three days of the tournament I went to four full games and saw parts of four others (out of 12 total) - not to mention interacted with a ton of college hoops fans of Louisville, Missouri, Northern Iowa and more while exploring the resort grounds - so my coverage of the tournament will spill over into a second post to come later this week.  Today, let's talk about what has to be one of the most unique sports venues I've ever been to - a basketball arena erected inside a hotel ballroom.

Last season, Harvard took the first ever Battle 4 Atlantis championship, defeating Central Florida in the finals while highly ranked UConn and Florida State played in the consolation game.  While following that tournament, all anyone could talk about was how difficult it was to shoot at Atlantis' Imperial Arena, and now I can see why.  The resort converted its largest ballroom into an arena, laying the hardwood in the center and surrounding it with 15-20 rows of temporary seating which holds ~2,500 fans.  Rather than looking up into a sea of people while shooting, the players see only a few rows of seats and a black curtain behind them, as well as two old-school scoreboards hanging in the corners of the room (see below).  If you watched any of the games on NBC Sports Network, you'd have seen that the seats were covered in purplish-blue lighting, making the shooter's background especially dark.  It's unlike any other venue I've ever seen, and the first day's games were low scoring (and somewhat ugly) as players adjusted to the conditions.

Duke vs. VCU in the semis, with the famous black curtain and scoreboard in the background.

For the fans, though, the conditions really couldn't be better.  We had seats in the fourt row right at center court - which obviously would have been great seats at any arena - but at the Imperial Arena all that stood between us and the court was a narrow aisle and the media table.  The only way to get to your seats is to walk right around the court (while rounding the corners, you actually had to step onto the hardwood), so you're always right on top of the action.  With the seats only extending ~15 rows deep, even the worst seats in the house would be in the middle of a lower level section at a typical NBA or large college arena.  And, despite the black curtain surrounding the entire venue, the Imperial Arena held in the noise really well, making it sound like there were more people there than there really were.  This was particularly helpful during some of the consolation bracket games (like Stanford vs. Northern Iowa on Day 2), when the stands were mostly empty as people stayed at the beach and pools during the afternoons and saved their basketball consumption for the big games in the evenings.

The Atlantis also did a great job in converting the conference area of its Coral Towers into a makeshift basketball venue.  The convention center lobby and hallways were turned into a temporary entry gate and concourse, and the surrounding ballrooms were converted to concession stands and merchandise stands.  Unlike typical stadiums, all of the bathrooms and hallways were clean and open, and the area wasn't cluttered with a ton of advertisements (other than the courtside signage, there was virtually no corporate branding at all).  As for in-game entertainment, the tournament did a great job of adding local flavor to the event, as each game had some form of Bahamiam entertainment at halftime - from a steel drum band to a sea lion that dances to "Gangnam Style."  From the moment that I walked out from behind the bleachers and got my first look at the court to the championship trophy presentation (featuring indoor fireworks and streamers shot from air-powered guns, below), the Battle 4 Atlantis was incredibly unique.  And the uniqueness of the tournament extended far beyond the arena itself - stay turned to Part II, to come.  

Glass Half Full

Note: Caught Looking will likely be on hiatus this week while I'm out of the country for Thanksgiving break.  When I return I'll post coverage of the Battle 4 Atlantis from Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and I'll have another special surprise to unveil toward the end of the month.  Stay tuned!

After witnessing two consecutive crushing defeats at the hands of the Oregon Ducks, I was thrilled to see the Stanford Cardinal take down the nation's second-ranked team and give themselves a legitimate chance at a Pac-12 championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl.  Once the final whistle sounded, I started to process all this might mean for the Cardinal program - the first league championship since the 1990s, a third consecutive BCS bowl bid (to three different bowls), and the continuation of the program's top-ten status post Andrew Luck's departure for the NFL.  Eager to relive the game, I turned on SportsCenter when I got home and was looking forward to hearing some commentary about the win's significance for Stanford.  Instead, all anyone was talking about was how Oregon blew their shot at the National Championship game, and how Stanford excelled in their role of spoiler.

Now, there's no doubt Stanford played the role of spoiler on Saturday night.  The Ducks are no longer really part of the National Championship picture, and I'll admit that there was an essence of "sweet revenge" to this win.  After all, Oregon ruined Stanford's last two seasons - both years, the Cardinal were undefeated before meeting Oregon, and both times Stanford left the game licking their wounds.  But for me, this win was about much more than just getting back at a Pac-12 North rival.  Traditionally when we talk about the role of spoiler, we think about an underdog team with nothing to play for except for the thrill of ruining a season for a team otherwise destined for great things.  That wasn't the case on Saturday night, though, when the Cardinal had a lot to play for above and beyond knocking the Ducks a few rungs down the BCS ladder.

Earlier in the evening, an unranked Baylor team knocked off previously top-ranked Kansas State, and sports commentators everywhere basked in the glory of the Wildcats' suddenly flawed season.  In this case, though, Baylor (and its partially empty stadium) wasn't playing for much -at 5-5 with two games remaining, the Bears are scrapping for bowl eligibility and a trip to a lower-tier bowl.  Stanford, however, is in a completely different situation.  After grabbing Oregon's top spot in the Pac-12 North standings, the Card deserve to be talked about as more than David to the Ducks' Goliath.  The Cardinal have established themselves as a program that can compete with anyone in the country, and they should be considered  more than a footnote in the story of Oregon's 2012 season.

I've been critical of the Cardinal all season, from their struggles throwing the ball to their questionable play calling in key situations.  But despite the team's uninspired early season loss at Washington and a controversial defeat at Notre Dame, I have to admit that I was wrong about this 2012 Stanford team.  I figured they'd struggle severely this season, but with just one regular season game to play (next week at a tough UCLA team) it's clear that this is a legitimate college football powerhouse.  Now that I've admitted I was wrong, it's time for the sports media to start talking about Stanford as if they're more than the little engine that could.  This is a big, powerful engine that might be a few weeks away from adding another BCS bowl victory to its resume.

Why Basketball Is An Indoor Sport

Last night, I watched the second game of the State Farm Champions Classic, which pitted Duke against Kentucky in Atlanta, GA.  The game, which followed Michigan State's thrilling victory over Kansas, was an exciting contrast of styles - a well-played, high-profile non-conference matchup that we don't get enough of prior to March Madness.  If there was a downside to the first game between the Blue Devils and the Wildcats since 2001, it was the fact that the Champions Classic organizers held the event in the cavernous Georgia Dome rather than (at worst) an NBA building like Atlanta's Phillips Arena or (at best) a classic college venue like Cameron Indoor Stadium or Rupp Arena.  While playing the game in a football stadium undoubtedly increases paid attendance, allowing more people to see the contest live (reported attendance was 22,847) and generating more revenue for the event organizers and the participating schools, it diminishes one of the best parts of college basketball - the in-arena atmosphere.  Buildings like Cameron, Rupp and Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse are what distinguish college games from the most-homogenous NBA variety, and moving Duke vs. Kentucky to the Georgia Dome definitely took away from what could have been an even more intriguing matchup.

Clearly, the Georgia Dome was not meant to host a basketball game.

While Duke vs. UK would have been a lot more awesome if it was played on a college campus, it could have been worse - at least the game wasn't scheduled to be played on an aircraft carrier.  Since North Carolina played Michigan State onboard the USS Carl Vinson last November, the NCAA and its schools have become obsessed with scheduling non-conference games where planes should be landing.  Despite the fact that, last year, a Michigan State player injured his knee when he slipped on a wet spot on the floor (who would have thought that a court built atop a floating vehicle might have moisture issues?), three additional aircraft carrier games were scheduled for this past week.  Mercifully for the players, two were cancelled - Florida vs. Georgetown on the USS Bataan in Jacksonville, FL and Ohio State vs. Marquette on the USS Yorktown in Mt. Pleasant, SC.  Florida and Georgetown actually played a hideous first half, after which the game was called for moisture with the Gators leading the Hoyas 27-23.  Syracuse and San Diego State got their game in on the USS Midway in San Diego, but the game was postponed two days from Friday to Sunday because of weather.  Even when it was played on Sunday, though, "the gusty winds on the deck of the USS Midway were so strong that the outside shooting in Syracuse's 62-49 victory wasn't quite so pretty" - San Diego State shot 1 of 18 on three pointers and 14 of 33 on free throws. 

Long sleeves!  Pants!  It's Syracuse vs. San Diego State on the USS Midway!

In my mind, there are three main reasons to hate these suddenly-en-vogue aircraft carrier games.  One, there's a real injury risk here - playing on a moist wooden surface is extremely dangerous, and these outdoor matchups put all of the players at risk.  Second, the quality of play during these games is bound to be consistently terrible - between the wind, the cold and the sun, players can't calibrate their shots and the games are sloppy and low scoring as a result.  Third, and perhaps most unfortunately, these games come at the expense of battles that could be among the highlights of the non-conference college basketball season.  The teams invited to play in these nationally televised aircraft carrier games are all top-tier schools; matchups like Florida vs. Georgetown or Ohio State vs. Marquette would be intriguing regardless of where they are played.  The best case scenario here is that the game will be ruined by the outdoor elements and an otherwise great matchup turns into an ugly one, like in the Syracuse win over San Diego State.  The worst case scenario is what happened with the other two aircraft carrier games - they get cancelled because of weather, they don't get rescheduled and the fans lose out on the opportunity to see two big time programs play each other during a mostly uninteresting November of college hoops.  Going forward, I hope the NCAA and its schools get smart and move these games to indoor venues, both for the sake of the players and the fans.  

Hoops in the Hoosier State

Before this week, I had been to the state of Indiana twice - once when I drove across the country and spent a night in the South Bend area (right off I-80) and another time for a business trip to the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis.  While the latter trip was highlighted by a visit to Bankers Life Fieldhouse (then called Conseco Fieldhouse) for a Pacers game, I never got a glipse at "real" hoosier state basketball until this week.  Not only did I get a second, more casual look at Bankers Life Fieldhouse - this time for a WNBA Eastern Conference Finals game between the hometown Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun - but I also got to play pickup basketball at Hinkle Fieldhouse, home of Butler Bulldogs basketball and the place where they filmed much of the classic sports film Hoosiers.

First, let's talk about Bankers Life Fieldhouse, one of the NBA's hidden gems.  You don't hear much about the home of the Pacers, mainly because Indiana hasn't been overly competitive since the arena was built, but it's one of the best NBA arenas that I've been to and supposedly served as an example for what the Brooklyn Nets wanted the brand new Barclays Center to look like.  It's got a great old-school, retro feel to it that does a great job of showing respect for Indiana's rich basketball history, and is also extremely well-designed.  The seats are packed in tight, making the arena feel louder and more crowded than it really is (especially relevant during the sparsely attended Game 2 of the WNBA Eastern Conference Finals), and the building has a clean look that makes is easy to navigate.  It's also located in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, right by Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the Colts) and the majority of the city's large hotels.  Overall it's a great place to see a game, and will be even better starting this NBA season when the Pacers install a brand new, giant scoreboard.

 Even without the new scoreboard, Bankers Life Fieldhouse is a great basketball arena.

On Wednesday morning, I got up at 5:45 AM (no small feat after a night out on the town in downtown Indianapolis) to play pickup basketball at Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse, one of the most iconic arenas in college basketball.  As a fan of Ivy League basketball, I've always considered Penn's Palestra ("The Cathedral of College Basketball") to be the perfect type of college hoops venue - ideal size (not too big, not too small), classic look-and-feel and a great energy.  While it was hard to tell with the place completely empty, I'm pretty sure that Hinkle is that kind of college basketball arena.  With the fans right on top of the court and accoustics akin to that of an indoor pool, I'm sure that a packed Hinkle Fieldhouse is an intimidating road test for opposing A-10 (and formerly Horizon League) players.  Playing on the Hinkle court just felt special, as if I was sucking down rarified air.  Truly a memorable experience (and I hit a few nice shots, too).

There's nothing like walking onto the playing surface of an iconic sports venue.

Between Bankers Life Fieldhouse - one of the NBA's stronger arenas - and Hinkle Fieldhouse - at one time the largest and most state-of-the-art basketball arenas in the United States - Indianapolis is home to two of the country's premier places to watch basketball.  Add in the fact that Hinkle Fieldhouse is where they filmed many of the key scenes in Hoosiers, and Indianapolis becomes an extremely desirable tourist destination for basketball and movie fans alike.  While I wasn't originally ultra-excited about a two-night trip to Indiana, the visits to these two great venues highlighted a thoroughly entertaining week in the Midwest.

Enough Is Enough

Largely to the conference's benefit, Ivy League basketball has made some tremendous strides over the past few seasons.  In 2010, a gritty Cornell team upset Temple and Wisconsin to reach the Sweet 16.  The following season, Princeton edged Harvard on a nationally-televised buzzer beater to win the league's one-game playoff and capture an automatic berth to the NCAAs.  Last season, Harvard spent much of the year ranked in the Top 25 and won the Battle 4 Atlantis, a pre-season tournament that also featured UConn and Florida State.  This week, the conference took another step towards mirroring major conference schools when it was reported that Harvard's senior co-captains might withdraw from the university amidst a cheating scandal that could get the players suspended.

While, as a Princeton hoops fan, the thought of playing against a Harvard team missing its two best players admittedly has me a little excited, more than anything I'm disappointed.  I spend a lot of time on Caught Looking - probably more than most of you want to read - talking about the merits of Ivy League basketball.  What I don't think I've properly articulated before, however, is the way I appreciate that the Ivy's basketball players are, more than anything, real students.  Sure, they might be a foot taller than the average Dartmouth or Columbia undergrad, but the kids suiting up for Ivy League basketball teams are enrolled in school for the education first, and for the chance to play basketball at a high level second.

At least, that's how it used to be.  While the Harvard cheating scandal doesn't change anything by itself, it is a very clear and obvious reminder that Ivy League basketball - as well as basketball in other similar conferences like the Patriot League - has changed over the past decade.  Yes, the ability to lure big name coaches like Tommy Amaker and out-manuever larger universities for coveted recruits will undoubtedly help the league's eight schools compete on a national level, which might translate to more recruiting power, more national media exposure and more dollars.  At the same time, however, it increases the likelihood that the players will arrive unprepared for life as a serious college student, potentially forcing them to make mistakes like the ones we see at other, more sports-centric colleges.  Though these mistakes might fly under the radar at a larger, less academically-focused school, at a place like Harvard they threaten to undo much of what the school is known and respected for.  While the two Harvard co-captains might not be guilty, even their implication in a cheating scandal should be viewed as too much.

Before you say that this is an elitist rant meant to distinguish the eight Ivy League schools from the rules and expectations that apply to the rest of the nation - it's not.  Part of what makes college basketball and the NCAA tournament so great is the existence of the sport's haves and have nots.  Whereas parity makes NFL football exciting, part of what makes the NCAA Tournament one of the best sporting events of the year is that a school like Cornell - with no athletic scholarships or NBA-bound players - can upset two major college basketball programs over one March weekend.  If Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League start to adopt a win-at-all-costs mentality that has plagued a number of Division I's athletic programs, that absolutely would take away from the specialness of such a moment.  I can't see how it's in Harvard's best interest to sacrifice it's normally stellar academic reputation for the chance at a few more victories - and I'd say the same exact thing if the school in question was Lehigh, Rice or Boston University.

If Harvard is forced to play the 2012-13 season without its two senior co-captains and, as a result, Princeton earns a trip to the NCAAs, I won't lie and say I'll be overly upset.  But I'd like to think that, in the back of my mind, I'll always view this Ivy League season as slightly tainted.  Without a doubt, I can honestly say that I'd rather see Princeton lose with a team full of honest, hard-working student athletes than win with a roster full of morally-questionable ones.

Conference Camaraderie

Although I no longer live on a university campus, I'm still very excited for the NCAA football season to get started tonight with South Carolina at Vanderbilt.  In honor of college pigskin's opening weekend, I spent some time this afternoon reading through ESPN's weekly blog coverage for my conference of choice, the Pac-12.  The weekly post on "What to watch in the Pac-12"  featured this curious line:

"The Pac-12 is favored in 11 of 12 games in Week 1, with Washington State being the only underdog. That means -- at worst -- the conference should go 11-1 . . .Wouldn't be a bad announcement to the rest of college football if the conference runs the table."

If this was a blog post about an NFL division - say, the NFC East - this note would come across as very odd.  Why should a Stanford fan like myself really care about how the other eleven Pac-12 schools are doing in their opening games?  The obvious answer, of course, is that having Pac-12 schools win non-conference games boosts the strength of the conference for BCS purposes, and thus helps the league's schools compete at the national level.  Whereas in the NFL is doesn't help the Giants at all if the Eagles, Cowboys or Redskins win their out-of-division games (if fact, it directly hurts them), one of the quirks of college football is that a quality win by Washington State at BYU this weekend, for example, would indirectly benefit the Cardinal.

But if you think about it, there are a number of other reasons why college football fans should be rooting for their most hated of rivals in non-conference games.  One is conference reputation.  In the NFL, every team gets plenty of media coverage on Sportscenter, NFL Live and pretty much every other highlights show.  In the NCAA, air time is heavily skewed towards the conferences with the stronger reputations, like the SEC and the Big Ten.  If the Pac-12 can win a few notable non-conference games over the next two weeks, then conference games featuring teams other than Oregon and USC might become more nationally noteworthy.  Also remember that, unlike the NFL, the NCAA's national TV schedule isn't completely set, so the more non-conference games that the Pac-12 wins the higher the odds that their games get picked up by ESPN or ABC later in the season.

Another reason for me to root for the Pac-12 to run the table this weekend is pure economics.  With the launch of new conference-specific television channels like the Pac-12 Network, schools have their financial outcomes more closely tied to their conference-mates than ever before.  As the conference gets stronger and interest in Pac-12 football continues to grow, the Pac-12 Network will get more subscribers which means more money for the conference and each of its teams.  If Washington or Arizona State get off to a hot start and become teams that, like Oregon and USC, even out-of-market college football fans want to see regularly, that can translate into more dollars for Stanford's pockets.  With college football becoming more and more about money, sweeping the Pac-12 Network's first ever football weekend would be a very good thing.

It goes without saying that, of this weekend's college gridiron action, I primarily care about Friday night's Stanford game versus San Jose State.  At the same time, though, I'll be pulling for the rest of the teams in the conference to head into Labor Day with 1-0 records.  In particular, Washington State, Arizona (against surprisingly dangerous Toledo) and Colorado (against in-state rival Colorado State) can put the conference on the map with significant victories this weekend.  For the next two weeks, the other eleven Pac-12 schools are tied for my second-favorite FBS college football team.   

Continental Divide

Today is the launch date for the Pac-12 Network, a brand new TV channel dedicated to Pac-12 sports.  As a Stanford / Pac-12 fan who recently moved to the East Coast, the timing couldn't be better - all of a sudden, I went from Googling "Stanford football bars New York City" to trying to figure out how and if I could get the Pac-12 Network at home.  I signed on to Facebook just minutes ago and found that the Pac-12 was one step ahead of me - they had just posted a link to their Channel Finder, and I immediately filled out my information to see how I could get the channel.  While this should be a pretty easy process, I almost forgot that I'd be forced once again to deal with Time Warner Cable on this.

As you might recall, I despise TWC - I was hoping the Pac-12 Network website would provide me with all of the information that I needed without having to navigate Time Warner's predictably horrible site.  All the Pac-12 site would tell me, though, was that "Pac-12 Networks will be available in August 2012 on Time Warner Cable."  But where?  Would it be a part of the basic cable package?  Would it be a part of the provider's digital sports tier that includes a few regional sports networks and a few of the lower tier ESPN channels?  Or would it be available On Demand?  And how much would it cost?  Neither the Pac-12 Network or Time Warner Cable websites provided any explanation of how to sign up for the channel, and a search for "Pac-12" on the Time Warner Cable website somehow yielded zero relevant results.

I understand that the main purpose of the Pac-12 Network is to televise every conference football and basketball game to viewers in the core Pac-12 markets.  By keeping their media rights, the twelve Pac-12 schools believe that they can extract more value than if they sold those rights to Fox Sports, Comcast or ESPN, and they're probably right.  But given the fact that many of these schools have diverse alumni bases that span the entire country (especially Stanford, Cal, USC and UCLA), there seems to be a great opportunity to get some subscribers from outside of the core Pac-12 markets.  Isn't one of the advantages of signing a deal with a quasi-national TV provider like Time Warner the opportunity to get national distribution?  Assuming so, why do they make it so difficult to find the channel?

Only after some serious Googling did I find a USA Today article that suggests that the channel will be available in New York "on a premium sports tier."  Later I found that the Pac-12 Network now has a channel number on Time Warner Cable in New York City (lucky 414), but it's still not clear how to get access to the network.  I'm excited that the Pac-12 is launching its network tonight and I'm looking forward to potentially having the opportunity to watch non-nationally televised football and basketball games from here in New York.  Unfortunately, the conference made the mistake of choosing to partner with Time Warner Cable, so the chances of anyone on the East Coast being able to order the channel are slim.

The End of Penn State Football

As with many of the most heavily covered sports stories, I feel compelled to post about Penn State and Joe Paterno even though I don't really want to.  At this point, it would be a lot easier and more comfortable for me to try and forget about the horrible things that have happened on and around the Penn State campus over the past several years and focus on the happier side of sports.  Given the fact that the story is all over SportsCenter and every sports website this morning, however, I probably need to weigh in with my two cents.  After all, what kind of lesson would I be setting for my young readers (assuming I have any) if I ignored every unpleasant issue - especially one that deals with the treatment of children?

As you've likely heard by now, this weekend Penn State decided to take down the Joe Paterno statue that formerly sat outside of Beaver Stadium, the school's football facility.  In my opinion, this was undoubtedly the right move.  As Jesse Palmerly eloquently put it this morning on SportsCenter, the Paterno statue formerly stood for Penn State's dominance on the football field and was a monument to one of the greatest coaches in the history of college football.  After the unfolding of the Penn State scandal, however, the statue had become a symbol for everything wrong with the university's athletic department, morphing into a lightning rod for controversy.  Had the school allowed the statue to stay up, it would have sent the clearly inappropriate message that sports success trumps human rights, and the scandal would have taken away from any future athletic or academic accomplishments by the school.

Now that the statue is down, the next step was the announcement of the unprecedented punishments levied by the NCAA against the Penn State football program.  While the school did not receive the dreaded "death penalty," the school did get "a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998" in addition to a loss of scholarships.  As much as I think the Penn State staff involved in the child abuse scandal deserve to be punished, I'm not sure I think these athletic penalties send the right message.  According to a source, the anticipated penalties are "considered to be so harsh that the death penalty may have been preferable."  Is this the proper course of action?

Before we jump to the seemingly most popular conclusion - that the events at Penn State were so horrible that any punishment is justified - we need to think through the likely impact of these athletic sanctions.  First off, there's the issue that these penalties will be levied "without the due process of a Committee on Infractions hearing," which is highly unusual and arguably inappropriate.  Moreover, though, there's the issue of who will be most negatively impacted by the NCAA penalties.  Whereas the NCAA should be trying to punish the people most directly involved with the scandal, I would argue that a loss of scholarships and bowl appearances will mostly hurt innocent bystanders.  Current and future players who had nothing to do with Jerry Sandusky will have their college careers derailed.  The residents of State College, PA - many of whom depend on the football program to boost the local economy - will have their lives negatively impacted by the local economic slowdown sure to follow the implementation of the penalties.  The $60 million penalty will have financial ramifications on the school's entire athletic department, not just the football program - especially when you consider the loss of football-related revenues almost certain to follow the sanctions.  The Penn State football program is effectively destroyed, and a lot of innocent people will go down with it.

If the Penn State scandal involved recruiting or athletics in some direct way, I'd be all for sanctions.  Once schools break the NCAA's rules, I believe that they deserve to be punished and should have any improper advantages reversed.  But to me, the Penn State scandal is so much bigger than anything having to do with sports and the NCAA sanctions send a message that terrible crimes can be righted by destroying a football program.  Not only do these NCAA penalties mainly hurt people that were in no way attached to the Penn State scandal, but they also suggest that things can be made right for the affected children by taking scholarships, bowl appearances and dollars away from a football team.  I'm all for prosecuting the accused Penn State staff to the fullest extent of the law, but in my opinion the NCAA sanctions are a huge step in the wrong direction.  Just as sports success doesn't trump human rights, sports penalties shouldn't be used to make up for human mistreatment.

Early Bird Baseball

As one of the top college baseball teams in the country, Stanford had the opportunity to host an NCAA regional this weekend.  Fresno State, Pepperdine and Michigan State joined the Cardinal in Palo Alto to determine which school would head to the College World Series.  After missing Stanford's rout of Fresno State on Friday night, I made sure to head to Klein Field on Saturday for the game against Pepperdine (which defeated MSU in its first game).  Though I did think that the evening game start time of 6 PM was a little odd (as opposed to 7 PM, a much more traditional start time), I didn't think much of it until I got to the stadium a few minutes before the first pitch.  Once I found a seat and looked around, however, the early game time made much more sense.

Never before had a seen so many elderly people at a sporting event in my life, and I've been to professional tennis tournaments and Princeton football games.  Everywhere I looked I saw groups of 65+ year old men filling the stands, clearly appreciating the 6 PM start and the opportunity to be home and in bed well before 10 PM.  While I had been to Stanford baseball games before, the crowds at the regular season games are relatively sparse and I hadn't noticed the drastic demographic split.  For the NCAA regional, however, it was clear that college baseball (at least in Palo Alto) skews heavily towards the elderly.

Why might this be?  I hypothesize that there are a lot of older people in the Bay Area who love baseball, but don't have the energy (or maybe the disposable income) to go to AT&T Park or O.co Coliseum and catch an MLB game.  For older people, those games involve all of the things the elderly hate: battling crowds, climbing stairs and spending money.  For less than $10, on the other hand, you can drive to Klein Field, park just feet from the stadium, and watch some high-quality college baseball.  They also don't sell beer at the Stanford games, so that means no rowdy youths around to ruin a good time.  Combine that with the 6 PM start - the Early Bird Special of first pitch times, if you will - and the perfect Palo Alto weather, and you've got a stadium full of retirees.

Beautiful view of Stanford's Hoover Tower beyond the Klein Field fence.

For comparison, I took a long look at the crowd today at the San Francisco Giants game at AT&T Park, where I saw the home team beat the Chicago Cubs 2-0 in a crisp, quick, well-played game.  Even though it was a day game on a gorgeous afternoon (see below), virtually everyone I saw was under sixty and most of the fans were probably in their 20s, 30s or 40s; the elderly demographic was nowhere to be found.  If you ever lose an elderly male relative in the greater Palo Alto area, I'd start by looking at Stanford's Klein Field.  Chances are they're out there sitting in the stands, waiting for the Cardinal baseball team to take the field.

The weather and the views at AT&T Park were absolutely perfect on Sunday.

Show Combs the Money

Earlier this week, ESPN reported that UCLA was defending the $54,000 athletic scholarship it awarded to Justin Combs, son of rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.  After many had suggested that, because of his father's wealth, Combs should pass on the scholarship and pay his UCLA tution himself, the school released a statement explaining its decision.  According to the statement,

"Unlike need-based scholarships, athletic scholarships are awarded to students strictly on the basis of their athletic and academic ability -- not their financial need.  Athletic scholarships, such as those awarded to football or basketball players, do not rely on state funds. Instead, these scholarships are entirely funded through UCLA Athletics ticket sales, corporate partnerships, media contracts and private donations from supporters."

As the debate rages on through sports talk shows, blogs and other forms of sports media, I figured it was time for Caught Looking to weigh in.  Personally, I have absolutely no problem with Combs earning a football scholarship to UCLA.  The school has the right to use its self-funded 285 athletic scholarships however it wants, and should be able to award them to whomever it wants, regardless of that athlete's financial situation.  I'm sure there are other players getting football scholarships at UCLA whose parents can afford the tuition, and no one will be complaining when they attend school for free this fall.  Justin Combs should be proud of his athletic and academic accomplishments, and the right to earn a football scholarship to a school as prestigious as UCLA should not be taken from him just because his father is extremely rich.


Asking Combs to pass on the scholarship makes no sense.  If anything, it would be nice if Combs took the scholarship and then went on to donate $54,000 to UCLA's general scholarship fund, ensuring that a well-qualified but financial-unstable candidate could attend UCLA for strictly academic purposes.  People should respect UCLA's choice to award these non-need-based scholarships to any student athletes that meet the school's athletic and academic requirements.  I think it would be awesome if Combs donates money to the school to help make it easier for other kids to attend UCLA, but I see that gesture as entirely separate from the school's decision to give his son a football scholarship. 

When his son was awarded his scholarship last fall, Diddy was quoted as saying "This is everything a father could want for his son, for him to excel at what he loves to do and is truly passionate about. Justin is a shining example of what hard work, determination and a strong mentality can achieve. I am honored to call him my son and am happy that he is fulfilling his dream."  And you know what?  He's absolutely right.  Justin Combs should be proud of the fact that he earned his college tuition through his accomplishments on and off the football field, and he shouldn't be made to feel undeserving just because of who his father is.  If his dad wants to give some money to his school independently of his scholarship, that would be a wonderful gesture.  But at the end of the day, Justin Combs should be treated like any other UCLA student athlete and deserves the scholarship he worked hard throughout high school to earn.