So T. Boone Pickens Walks Into A Bar...

Did you hear the one about the Oklahoma State Cowboys football team? They couldn't win consistently in the Big 12, so they spent more money and bought better players.

Ha! Ha! That's so funny! Everyone knows that college football is played by amateur student athletes who compete for school spirit and the love of the game, and are duly compensated with free college educations.

Everyone knows that you can't bribe students with money and sexy coeds and no-show jobs and in-kind gifts. That's illegal. The way you bribe them is with the best stadiums and biggest crowds and most luxurious facilities and sweetest TV packages and strongest pipeline to the NFL.

Even if you did try to bribe student-athletes the illegal way, the omniscient and omnipotent NCAA will conduct an investigation and, three years later, severely penalize the next generation of students and coaches who arrived at the school after the cheaters moved on to more lucrative bribery.

The new arrivals will earn their way into your fine institution of higher learning by scoring high enough on the SAT or ACT to demonstrate that they're above the level of functionally illiterate. Even if it's barely.

With billions of dollars on the line for players, coaches, TV networks, bookies, gamblers, agents and universities, what could possibly go wrong with this formula?

That's why we know that the Sports Illustrated story about scandal at OK St. is just yellow journalists twisting the facts to sensationalize a non-story. Just because T. Boone Pickens poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the university for the sole purpose of improving the football team doesn't mean anything untoward is going on in Stillwater. After all, scholarship, character, critical thinking, practical experience and a BCS Bowl Game are the hallmarks of a great university.

Fortunately, other BCS coaches are coming to Oklahoma State's defense, particularly in the Southeast Conference. They know that no matter how much of Pickens' money gets spread around, there's no way the Cowboys can compete with the big boys in the SEC. They also know that when fans watch games on national TV they want the best football on the field, not the best students in the classroom. So the hell with your stupid SI scandal-mongering. What's the spread on their next game?

Getting Hosed: A Short Hoops Interval

When the NCAA men's basketball brackets were first revealed on CBS last night, Oregon's shocking 12 seed jumped off the screen. A top 25 team, the Ducks were among the Pac-13's (or whatever number it is now) elite and swept the league tournament, defeating UCLA, a team given a six seed, in its home city.

Analyst Doug Gotlieb, a former Oklahoma State star and current college hoops savant, jumped down the throat of the selection committee chair, bluntly demanding an explanation (which he didn't get.)

March madness, indeed! In a rational universe, Oregon almost certainly merits an eight seed, maybe a nine. Dropping them four lines means the NCAA sachems rated them 16 teams lower than the rest of America did. The irony is that the committee did the Ducks a favor. The eight-nine line is the tournament death star because the winner draws a nearly unbeatable #1 seed everytime.

As I've documented before, there's virtually no difference between a six seed and a seven, eight, nine, or even a 10 or 11. Everyone from six to 11 is talented but flawed and it doesn't take a lot going right for an 11 or wrong for a six, to produce an upset, as we've seen repeatedly in the tournament.
This line of reasoning fails at the top of the bracket. There are discernible gaps between the top seeds and teams just a little bit lower. 

What this adds up to is: an eight seed has no advantage whatsoever in the first round and a giant hill to climb in the second. A 12 seed is just slightly less likely to survive the first round but significantly more likely to defeat a four-seed -- or the 13 -- in the second round.

I assume the Oregon coach is smart enough to zip his team's lips publicly but to deal the disrespect card privately every chance he gets.

Which means the team that really got hosed was Oklahoma State, a fifth seed with a win-or-go-home first-round contest against an angry #8 in the 12 spot.