-- [ From: Kepler * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --
 
> > I think that the NCAA should either allow a larger ratio for sports with
> > fewer sponsoring institutions
 
It would be hard (albeit maybe not impossible) to construct a good argument
for doing this.  I presume the NCAA will say: "if you have enough sponsoring
institutions to have a national tourny, then you have enough to accept the
common ratio.  If you have so few teams that this seems unfair, then maybe
you shouldn't have a national tourny at all..."
 
Well, actually, what the NCAA will say is "Zzzzzzzzzzz...  Wha-- huh?
Football?  Basketball?  Well, never mind then.  Zzzzzzzzz........"
 
The NCAA is just a union of institutional reps.  Like any quasi-democratic
system, minority interests tend to get screwed unless there are particular
protections put in place.  But just as with democracies, those protections
are never put in place by "the people" -- the representative units
themselves -- they're always imposed from some elite.  In the case of the
NCAA, there is no such power to appeal to, so presumably nothing will ever
convince the majority of schools to have any special rule at all for a
minority sport.
 
Well, okay, one thing might.  Conceivably, a majority of institutions may
field teams in or or more minority sports, and therefore the majority might
have a vested interest in applying some sort of lower standard for minority
sports overall.  But that would also require a degree of cooperation and
intelligence that one does not often find in representative groups with a
membership of greater than, say, 3 forwards 2 defensemen and a goalie.
 
 
> or forget the autobids and just go for the
> > best teams.
 
This begs the question of "best" -- who gets to decide and how and that sort
of stuff.  But even if you take the most dramatic case -- say the worst team
in a conference pulls out the tourny miracle and thus snags a bid, I still
say keep it.  The conference tournies are far more interesting to far more
teams than the NCAA "usual suspects" show.  Any move that tends to weaken
the former is another unwelcome step down the squeakball road to hell.
 
 
 
--
 
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
*  Greg Berge
*  Portland, Oregon
*  [log in to unmask]
*  www.spiritone.com/~kepler
*
*  "An theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene,
*  On which ther was first write a crowned A,
*  And after, Amor vincit omnia."
*  -- Lines 160-162, General Prologue,
*     The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
*
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.