Why do we have conference tournaments?

I have yet to see any good sense in conference tournaments as they now operate. I think it is profoundly stupid.

Now, you may ask, "What in the hell did you do last night, whills?" I saw something ridiculous...worse than proving a negative.

Now those who are tolerably sane and stable, with good sense rooted deeply in how things are are the moment, may well ignore this. The rest of you are fish in my barrell.

My rigorous and unrelenting analysis - well primed I might add, with special secret ingredients - shows that conference tourneys usually either reiterate what we already know or they merely inject some inane, irrational consequence into the Big Dance. But whichever outcome occurs, a couple of prime teams almost always enter the NCAA playoffs with tired bodies and legs if they don't have the good sense to lose early (h/t 54b).

This is what is stupid and utterly without merit for either the teams involved, the Big 12-2 or the NCAA tournament. We all appreciate redemption but do you think the Big 12-2 conference tournament and conference tournaments in general are the proper stage for this? The hell, you say. Gird your loins and jump over to the dark side...bring your own special ingredients, if need be.

Here is the Big 12-2 attempting to send the best teams that it can offer to slay the forces at the gate that have the temerity to think they're better than us. Do we need to give the sonofabitches any help? Well, we do, and I think it undercuts the whole process leading up to the NCAA tournament.

Well, surely, it's Selection Sunday afternoon, and you're suddenly suggesting the Big 12-2 Conference Tournament should be kicked to the bar ditch like so many empties from an all night binge? Not exactly, Kemo Sabe.  Just part of it.

It seems to me that the wiser and smarter course would be to give the top two teams and maybe the top three or four, depending on the year, the competition and the relative humidity, a bye through the whole tournament. Ole those bad boys all the way through.  Let the pissants that need a berth fight it out mano-a-mano, jaw-to-mandible, shaky leg-to-shaky leg to find some redemption in a season gone awry.

Let the best teams in the tournament rest their legs and bodies the whole time. Then they might be able to accomplish much more in the NCAA tournament, represent the Big 12-2 and themselves in a much better fashion.

Well, you say, with the best of rational intentions, that the Selection Committee and the related die-hard fans want to know to the nth degree and pick the glass out of their feet before the selections are made. Didn't anyone ever tell you that when you pursue anything over the 95+ percentile that everything gets more and more expensive in a tangential fashion and still will never hit 100% - perfection is unattainable. And even if it was, it wouldn't make that much difference. Strange, this life, you know.

You take the physical edge off your best teams trying to discover something the whole season has already provided pristine, definitive answers to - and then the tournament does some minor rearrangement of the pack. Anyone in the pack ain't gonna win the NCAA 95% of the time. It ain't gonna happen. But most of them with a decent season will get their shot, so their whiney asses are covered.

This year Kansas and Texas should have had a bye all the way through and should have never played a game in KC.

Now Gary Johnson's legs have been worn out like those of Hamilton and the freshmen earlier - he was older and more seasoned but even he was losing his spring by the end of the regular season. The question is will he get them back in a week? What if he didn't have to endure three more games? Think about that when the Horns get to the Sweet 16. The best example will be UConn - five games and then two more, if they're lucky, in under two weeks - forget it...they won but it will probably cost them big time.

Being the wise and astute BONers with a season full of experience and the wonder of clarity and good judgment, you can say I'm full of it - undoubtedly true, we know - but doesn't my proposal make better sense than our present situation? You will still tune in at 5 today to see who goes where, tired legs and all. 

Hook 'Em