(07-01-2019 11:41 AM)Odysseus Wrote:  9 of the final 32 teams in the 2019 tournament have had to forfeit games in their program history.
LSU suspended their coach briefly, Pearl, Calipari, and UNC, and so on.

All I am saying is that if the goal is to advance to the final 32 teams in the tourney, then a realistic approach says:
options:
1. pray
2. wish
3. cheat
4. dumb luck
5. level the playing field and bring it up to W&M level instead of lowering W&M to their level
6. catch lightning in a bottle

Our AD says she can evaluate college basketball. I do not doubt her. She needs to evaluate the playing field and start leading the crusade. But that would make her an unpopular choice for P5 conference schools in the future.

I would guess that if pressed, the random ambitious mid-major AD would argue that the risks associated with agitation are too great. The potential for future scheduling snubs and the loss of the privilege of playing an away game at Power 5 schools isn’t worth any potential gain. Their schools need both the revenue and the recruiting edge these games bring.

Meanwhile, the findings of the Rice Commission are evidently being consigned to the dust bin of history. The NCAA announced this week that the Kentucky AD has been selected to lead the Division 1 Men’s Basketball Committee in charge of selecting, seeding, and bracketing schools for the NCAA Tournament. So much for any thoughts that college athletics were going to be tied to college degrees. The optics of this are horrible, but the NCAA literally can’t be shamed.

I can’t help remembering that in the recent town hall, the uniquely unique uniqueness of W&M Athletics that underpins/informs/constrains the strategy and operations of the department was front and center. The smiling response to a question about whether there were other schools like W&M, was essentially, absolutely not. The inference was, I hope, we’re doing it the right way. I also hope the next survey includes a question as to whether the respondents would be willing to risk the Power 5 outings to make some noise about the sham that the NCAA has become. The follow-on question can be whether respondents would increase or decrease donations if The College had the courage to undertake this effort.