Mildcats

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was involved in a seemingly endless email string this week amongst a number of the Bad Beats players regarding the KU/K-State football game that just ended. It was basically one die-hard K-Hater, I mean K-Stater doing his best to evoke the wrath of all the KU fans he could reach. I've openly expressed my admiration for him on this endeavor. Passion for your team is never a bad thing, no matter how misguided.

To be completely honest, heading into today's game, I didn't think KU stood a chance. The defense has been folding in the fourth quarter all season, K-State's coming off a huge upset in Austin, and after watching the basketball team fold to ORU earlier this week... I felt like we were ripe for the (ass) kicking. If memory serves, I even threw a reverse-jinx out there stating my assuredness that KU was going to get creamed.

So as you've likely already gathered from either Sports Center, or the rainbow-encrusted kitty cat in the upper-right-corner of this page, KU kicked Mildcat ass today. It actually could have been much worse than the final score indicated. As with most KU games this season, they gave the ball up four times in the red zone, which could have given the Jayhawks another 12 to 28 points on top of the 39 they tallied on the scoreboard.

I could wax poetic about the ass thumping we handed the wrong-end of the state for at least a few more paragraphs, but that's not what's on my mind. What I would like to address is the overwhelming bias expressed for the Mildcats on the part of the FSN commentators during this afternoon's game. Part of the email exchange I referred to in the opening post discussed a supposed "East Coast bias" in the sports media. My buddy Hirp has covered this topic fairly thoroughly on his blog, so I'm not going to be overly redundant here, but I do want to add one point for consideration.

Rather than being coastal in nature, I believe the media's bias is related to the perpetual over-hyping of the dynasties of any sport. Be it the Notre Dames, Ohio States and USCs in football; or the Dukes, KUs and UNCs in basketball, it seems that often times the announcers ("the media"), default back to self righteous commentary in the face of an upset or blowout. In an effort to add some value while wearing egg on their face, they are often times guilty of stretching to point out a positive spin for the dynasty, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

Case in point, their overly inflated praise for the Mildcats young quarterback, Josh Freeman, after giving up the ball up for the fifth time. One of the announcers actually had the gaul to comment on "the poise" of young Freeman for not quitting, and sticking with it in continuing to lead his team in the face of such "adversity."

Excuse me. "Poise?" How does one demonstrate poise by self destructing and continuing to repeat the same mistakes. I'll give it to Freeman that he didn't quit, but I don't think he demonstrated good poise. Further demonstrated by the fact that he went on to give the ball up a sixth time.

I'll be the first to admit that my favorite basketball team, the Jayhawks, have benefit from this overly-inflated hype on more than one occasion. To be fair, this season's entire reputation is (thus far) based soley on the dynastic expectations of the media. Historically, the only thing the kids in KU's current line-up have done is to choke come tournament time. I'd love for the media to put pressure on them rather than praise them. It might toughen them up a bit. Lord knows Self hasn't found a way to motivate them.

Amazingly, this theory doesn't seem to hold the same water when it comes to professional sports. A semblance of a dynasty's luster is typically gone the minute they fail to meet expectations the season following a championship, or strong year. Want proof, look at the Steelers and the Yankees. Their shit has finally begun to stink with the media.

If only my salary could be based on such historical measures... I could finally retire.