Wake up its Selection Sunday
By Matt Miller
I liken it to Christmas morning. Waking up with that excitement, I want to keep sleeping but I’m too eager to get to the good stuff to actually rest. Today is actually selection Sunday. No stockings or Christmas trees are waiting in the living room. No hot wheels, no barbies, and no turboman dolls are hidden beneath the brightly colored wrapping paper. Today 64, or actually 68, individually wrapped presents are delivered to 68 lucky schools; but sitting in my living room, excited like its Christmas, I feel like they are delivered to me.
The Santa Claus of this holiday is Greg Gumbel. Just after eating the cookies I left out for him, he comes into my living room not through the chimney, but through my television. Greg Gumbel is not nearly as sneaky as his holiday colleague. I have never seen Santa, but every selection Sunday I catch Gumbel intruding from his studio at CBS. His deep jolly voice echoes across the rooftops. Don’t let the typical images fool you, I knew all along Santa was an African American TV broadcaster from Canada.
Greg Claus’ head elf is Seth Davis. His sharp angular features, energetic high voice, try hard attitude but absence of any real knowledge must be why he accompanies Gumbel on his gift giving broadcast. He works on his bracket in Santa’s workshop, and comes out with a formulaic product.
Most of the Pac 12 schools are coming out from their gym’s to their television sets, and the prevailing theory amongst players, coaches, media, and fans is a woe is me mentality. How can this be the same conference of John Wooden and UCLA’s dynasty? No one expects to unwrap a gift delivered by Gumbel Claus. USC didn’t even come out to see who is getting gifts, but stayed in their Harry Potter closets under the stairs and back to their intramural teams where they belong.
The only team assured of a gift is Colorado, who did themselves a favor by winning the conference tourney. Cal is likely in the field with a 24-9 record, 13 wins in the conference. Inaugural Pac 12 champs Washington felt a lot better about their chances before losing in the first round of the conference tournament. Bubble teams across the nation are furious that neither Cal or Washington won the conference tourney, but I do not think they had much to complain about considering only two Pac 12 teams qualified.
Not everyone on Greg Gumbel’s naughty or nice list gets a gift. And I guess Gumbel really is only a muse for that higher power, the selection committee. They have their rules and tenets for who is selected, but no one in this life can ever really know for sure if they will be admitted.
UCLA and USC are jaded. After the seasons that both teams had, the magic of selection Sunday is lost on them. The butterflies of young players anxiously waiting for their gifts is left for teams that want it badly. Teams that haven’t been all naughty but have some nice. Teams that aren’t out of shape, that aren’t completely injured, that aren’t underachieving, that aren’t torn apart by conniving players, that aren’t USC UCLA or the rest of the Pac 12 conference.
But I don’t think that you can really rush to judgment about the Pac 12 conference until after the NCAA tournament. Not until all the facts are in. It might not be a very big sample size in the NCAA tournament to look at the results in determine how down this year is if at all. Looking at the results from the NIT or the CBI might be a more accurate sample size of the conference compared to its competition.
But it often goes this way in Pac 12 football is well. The conference is touted nationally as a dud, but the bowl games can say otherwise. That was the story in 2009, but the Pac 10 was 5-0 in their bowl games, including Oregon State’s 3-0 win over Pitt. Albeit the conference was 2-5 the next year, but that’s not the point.
There is a lot of cautious optimism regarding next season for both LA programs. With players who have already committed or still might commit, and players returning from injuries there are reasons to be optimistic. But coming from the dumps of a 6-26 season, and the turmoil from the SI article, it will not be easy to overcome. As the SI article outlined, even when you have talented recruiting classes, it does not guarantee success. if they don’t treat selection Sunday like Christmas morning, then the players and coaches aren’t deserving of the gift of an NCAA Tournament bid.