The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, November 30, 2006 - SA Hate the BCS? It could be worse SPN.com columnist Gene are on the line each and every Wojciechowski calls it a game. The opponent doesn't really "'system' so screwed up that matter: Notre Dame, Ohio State and it sees a therapist twice a week. It even Ball State can killa season. ought to be called the Lose once and your FAC (Flip A Coin)." national title hopes shrink Yahoo Sports's Dan dramatically. Lose twice Wetzel says it's a "silly and they disappear. formula." As a Michigan fan, this But I say the BCS isn't system has, in one sense, so bad. destroyed me. The Wol- You read that right. verines' loss to Oregon in This is a column defend- ]JAWf 2003 - the team's first ing the most despised defeat during my time as system in sports. SINGER a Michigan student - was That's not to say I one of the worst days of my think the BCS is perfect. Spitting Fire life. Notre Dame and Ohio But after almost a decade State brought back those of trials, errors (yes, lots of them) same nightmares in ensuing years. and readjustments, the BCS has But like a true addict, I keep become a reasonably fair system coming back for more. That's for sorting through 119 teams and because, for a sports fan, there's crowning college football's Divi- simply no bigger rush than college sion I-A National Champion. football's regular season. For a Perhaps more importantly, the team like Michigan, which comes BCS maintains college football's into every year with national title most distinctive feature - a regular hopes, the regular season is essen- season where hundreds of games tially a 12-week playoff. have national championship impli- I can't say that's good for my cations. heart. But it's why I'm now a big- Growing up in New York, I didn't ger fan of college football than the know the BCS from CVS - college NFL. football was an afterthought in A playoff system would destroy my NFL-centric universe. If you that special intensity of the college asked me then if college football football season. Come playoff time, should use a playoff system, I prob- the only consequence for a regu- ably would have said yes. After lar-season loss would be a slightly all, I loved the one-and-done NFL lower seeding. Big deal. Personally, playoffs. Why wouldn't the same the knot in my stomach during system work in college sports? Michigan's key regular-season But then I ventured out to matchups would be significantly Michigan and became hopelessly smaller if the Wolverines had an addicted to college football's regu- opportunity to redeem themselves lar season. Virtually all the marbles in the playoffs. I don't think that's a good thing for college football. Of course, the playoff isn't the only potential alternative to the BCS. Some have touted a plus-one system as the ultimate fix for the BCS system. Under this proposal, teams would initially play in their traditional bowls and then two squads would be selected for a No. 1 vs. No. 2 national championship game. But I'm not sure this solves anything. It's conceivable that the BCS bowl winners could all end up being one-loss teams. What hap- pens then? What if a team like this year's Ohio State squad - which dominated the regular season - loses a close one in the initial bowl round? Do they deserve to be disqualified from national title con- sideration? Some purists suggest returning to college football's roots, scrap- ping the national championship game altogether. Bowl bids would be determined by conferences and the coaches and media would vote on a National Champion at the end of the year. We tried that. The system pro- duced three split National Cham- pionships between 1990-1997. It created anticlimactic bowl games. And of course, those games natu- rally didn't generate the national interest that the current No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchups do. Even my old NFL-watching self managed to find time to enjoy the BCS title game. So the alternatives to the BCS stink. But how, you ask, could I support a system that basically screwed Oregon in 2001, Southern Cal in 2003 and Auburn in 2004? First of all, plenty of changes have been made to the system, namely increasingthe weight of the human polls in the BCS formula. A Southern Cal-type situation, in which a unanimous No.1 team misses out on the BCS game, is vir- tually impossible. Secondly, it's hard to feel too bad for a one-loss team that misses out on the title game. This year, for example, I'm confident that Michi- gan is the second-best team in the nation. But the Wolverines left their opportunity to punch their ticket to Glendale, Ariz. on the table. They didn't take advantage of their chance to run the table - nei- ther did Southern Cal or Florida - and so whining about strength of schedule or quality of losses doesn't strike a chord with me. The most frustrating aspect of any system that picks just two teams is the possibility that three deserving teams can run the table. That disaster scenario struck in 2004, with Auburn being the odd team out of the BCS. But to me, that rare and unpleas- ant possibility doesn't justify taking away the essential lifeblood of col- lege football - its regular season. It may be unpopular, but from where I stand, I have one simple message: Viva la BCS. - Singer would have discussed non-BCS teams in his analysis, but he doesn't really care about any team that plays on a blue field. He can be reached at mattsing@umich.edu. Michigan wide reciever Mario Manningham must wait until Sunday to learn his team's BCS fate. BCS commish backs syste m By KEVIN WRIGHT Daily Sports Editor Michigan fans, Bowl Champion- ship Series coordinator Mike Slive feels your pain. Back in 2004, Slive - who dou- bles as the Southeastern Confer- ence's commissioner - watched Auburn finish the season unde- feated only to miss out on a nation- al championship bid. But for all the pain he felt for one of his schools, he still believed in the system some Michigan fans have begun to question: the BCS. "The BCS this year has helped to make a great regular season of college football," Slive said. "Attendance is up, ratings are up and interest is up. Regional games have become national games of importance." After the Wolverines lost to Ohio State in what many dubbed the "Game of the Century," Michigan dropped to third in the BCS rank- ings when Southern Cal defeated Notre Dame the following week. Now,thesquad withjustone loss to the No. team in the nation has to hope luck is on its side this com- ing weekend. If both the Trojans and Florida lose, Michigan will vir- tually clinch a bid to the National Championship and a rematch with the Buckeyes. If Southern Cal loses and Florida wins, Michigan has a chance to stay ahead of Florida in the BCS standings and go to the title game. If Southern Cal ends up facing Ohio State in the National Cham- pionship game, the Rose Bowl will have the first option between two at-large teams, including Michi- gan. Even though some have clam- ored for a rematch, Slive stressed the goal of the BCS in establishing a championship game. "If the idea is to simply have a No. 1 vs. No. 2 game, then the BCS has done that," Slive said. "The issue that arises that we all have to look at is whether or not No. 1 vs. No. 2 is enough." With the predicament Michigan faces, many fans have turned their anger and frustration to the BCS, a recent trend among teams thought to be left out of consideration. All the talk surrounding the possible BCS title game combina- tions just proves to Slive that the BCS is doing its job - generating interest in college football. "There wasn't a weekend that there wasn't an important game (in November)," Slive said. The dreaded term "playoff" floated around the conversation in a teleconferenceyesterday, but Slive was hesitant to use the word. Instead he placed the 12-game season in the context of a playoff format. When asked about a play- off, Slive paused and then said that every plan has its positives and negatives. Even though Slive reaffirmed his belief for the system already in place, he said he remains open to new ideas if they present a better alternative to the BCS. He mentioned that the com- mittee always discusses ways to improve the BCS when it meets in April. Specifically, Slive said that the group will look at expanding the number of teams from a con- ference that are eligible for a BCS game. Right now, the BCS allows just two teams from each BCS con- ference. "I remain very open minded about looking at an alternative format," Slive said. "I've said that from the day I took over as the BCS coordinator last January.... We've continued to look at some alternatives, but whatever we do, whether we keep it the way it is or whether we modify it, it won't be perfect." The final BCS standings will be determined Sunday between 3 and 4 p.m. Following the gathering of the polls and computer rankings, Slive will notify the commission- ers of the major conferences and then the bowl committees. The bowl committees then determine who will play in the five BCS bowl games, which, if deliberation takes longer, could last until 5 p.m. Weak WOlfpack exposes Cagers Daniel Bromwich on Men's Basketball A basketball game is like a chess match. An adjustment by coach A causes an adjust- ment by coach B, and the teams go back and forth until time runs out. Little did North Carolina State coach Sidney Lowe know, but with nearly 15 minutes to play in the first half Monday night, he had the Wolver- ines cornered. When their star player, senior point guard- Engin Atsar, left the game due to injury, Lowe's young Wolfpack squad trailed Michigan 12-2. With his roster now reduced to justfive schol- arship players, Lowe was forced to go to a 2-3 zone. Knowing he had not a single player he could confidently turn to on his bench, Lowe tried to slow the game down and keep his play- ers out of foul trouble. Expecting an adjustment by the Wolverines in an attempt to attack the Wolfpack's lack of depth? "Not really, we just tried to stay with our game plan," senior Brent Petway said. "Our game plan was as if he was in the game." Said fellow senior Dion Harris: "We're going to do the same things we do all the time. Of course that was their guy who leads their team, but we just stuck to our same game plan." Checkmate. When your opponent has just five available scholarship players available for 35 minutes of a 40-minute contest, logic follows that if you can get one of them in foul trouble, you will have quite an advantage. So you should attack the bas- ket hard and try to draw fouls. But Michigan didn't shoota free throw in the first half. With the zone making it more difficult for the Wolverines to get inside, they instead settled for 3-pointers, connecting on just 2-of-9 long-range attempts in the half. Expecting a halftime adjustment? Michigan shot just five free throws in the sec- ond half, and launched 18 more threes. Maybe North Carolina State's zone defense was unsolvable. It's possible that the incredibly strong defense of the Wolfpack forced the Wol- verines to settle for low-percentage attempts. "To tell you the truth, we just started using the zone this week," North Carolina State sopho- more Ben McCauley said through the North Carolina State athletic department. "It was kind of frustrating ... because our practice squad was beating us throughout the week." That's right. The Wolfpack practice squad was beating the zone all week. There goes that excuse. But maybe, despite all the evidence shown, the Wolverines understood North Carolina State's lack of depth. Maybe they tried to attack the basket and push the tempo, and North Caro- lina State just wouldn't let them. If so, maybe Michigan is just lazy. A 2-3 zone, especially one that a practice squad was beating all week, is far from impenetrable. But it takes a little work.You have to have dribble penetration, you have to move the ball quickly, you have to set off-the-ball screens and move without the basketball. You have to beat the zone down the court on fast breaks. The Wolverines didn't put in any of this work. They slowly passed the ball around the perime- ter in an offense that has become far too familiar. Instead of easy looks around the basket, they set- tIled for a three from Dion Harris, who attempted 14 of them in the game. And this laziness on the offensive end equated to laziness on the defensive end, too. The Wolverines were beat continuously on backdoor cuts, leading to easy layups for the Wolfpack. Michigan even tried a zone, inex- plicable for a team that prides itself on a tough, man-to-man defensive identity. With North Carolina State's veteran leader and primary ballhandler out, why not pressure the ball and try to force turnovers? Gavin Grant, who took over the ball-handling duties from Atsur, had seven turnovers in the game anyway. Why not try to force even more? It would take some hard work. "My pet peeve about basketball, and I can't shake it from our team as well, is thatteams and players play ifthey're scoring," Amaker said after his team's win over Maryland-Baltimore County last Saturday. The Wolverines weren't scoring, and they weren't playing much defense either. And even with Michigan's terrible play, it still had a chance to cut the lead to two near the end of the game. The Wolfpack started getting tired. It missed four free throws in the final four min- utes. It missed shots they had made earlier in the game. And it committed silly turnovers. But time ran out on the Wolverines' comeback. Maybe if the Wolverines had tried alittle hard- er to push the tempo earlier, the five scholarship players on North Carolina State's roster, each of whom played more than 30 minutes, would have tired sooner. Maybe if Michigan had recognized the Wolfpack's lack of depth and tried to get play- ers in foul trouble, there would have been walk- ons on the court at the end of the game. The Wolverines didn't lose because the Wolf- pack were better. They lostbecause they weren't willing to work harder mentally or physically. It's easy to stay with the game plan, and it's easy to sit back and launch threes. It's tough to attack. 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