El D,,

Some piece of great writing!  Fine satire..

ElDuque wrote:

Dear NCAA Selection Committee,

While I personally have railed against the propensity of our society to hand out participation ribbons and trophies and thus deprive athletes of the thrills of winning and the lessons of losing, I have an idea that will revolutionize college basketball forever. Or at least for a few years. And make fans like me, who have been relegated to participation trophies for 35 of the past 40 years (and especially for the past 5) to finally experience some recompense for sustained loyalty to a program that has invested so little to reward a rapidly diminishing fan base.

Are you ready for this?

I think each year the selection committee should select one long-suffering program that has zero chance of making the NCAA Tournament that year (and in the foreseeable future) with a bid. This year, that bid should go to Duquesne University.

Let’s face it. You’re an “old boy” committee that simply wants to cram in as many Power Five conference teams as possible, under the rationalization that mid-major and minor-major teams that can’t win their conference tournaments have little chance to be successful at the Big Dance. You may be right; however, the 15th team that you pick from the Big Ten (ironic, isn’t it?), or the barely-above-.500 bottom feeder from the ACC also has little chance to advance beyond the first couple of rounds. Yet you don’t want to reduce the number of schools in the tournament because you have this little matter of television revenue that functions on the premise that more is better.

So why not try something different?

Why not invite Duquesne, with its 20+ losses including a couple of non-conference embarrassments, to the NCAA Tournament? You would certainly be in line with our national focus on participation, you would make the 20 or so of us who still care about this program happy, and you would add a bullet point to the resume of a coach who otherwise would have nothing to show for his fifth year of brick-building. You would make life easy for our new president and AD, and our Board of Musty Trustees, because after all: How do you fire a coach after an NCAA Tournament appearance.

I got this idea because Northwestern has ended an eternal drought and seemingly secured its first-ever NCAA Tournament invite. Nice for them, but there are plenty of programs like mine that stand no chance, now, and possibly ever – given the nodding “commitment” to the sport from the administration that our program enjoys.

I’ll go one step further.

And you can do this behind closed doors, because, after all, who will know? Take two dice, roll them, and seed the Dukes according to whatever the dice tell you. They can be no higher than #2 (unless one rolls off the table, then you can award us a top seed), and they would be seeded no worse than #12. Virtually everyone on the planet is perplexed by the seeds and pairings that you announce anyway. Picking 20+ loss Duquesne and seeding them second would probably go unnoticed by most people, who expect you to do something lame and unexplainable every year anyway.

I know what you’re thinking.

This is crazy. This will never work. But you’re wrong (again, and as usual). There’s a healthy list of sorry-arsed (wow, did I really say that?) programs just like Duquesne. Dartmouth, Tennessee Tech, Bowling Green, VMI, Toledo, Loyola of Chicago – all with droughts of 30 or more years. Rutgers, Loyola-Marymount, Marist and Marshall have all been on the outside looking in for 25 or more years. You’d be able to include one of these teams for several years to come.

And just think of the benefits if Duquesne would actually pull off a win or two or three! You love Cinderella stories (even though you prefer the ugly step-sisters from the Power Five conferences). Imagine Duquesne battling its way to the Sweet Sixteen? The Elite Eight? The Final Four? Why, if you played enough games, the Dukes might even finish the season at .500. The first program in NCAA history to both win and lose 20 games in a season! You'd probably break Las Vegas, but I'm not a betting guy and don't care about that anyway.

What do you say, NCAA Tournament Selection Committee?

I’ve waited 40 years to see my Dukes in your tournament. Last time they made it, I watched the game on a 10-inch black and white TV with rabbit ears (for you young folk, that’s the antenna attached to the TV set). With Jimmy Ferry at the helm, I’m told I have to wait another five years. I don’t even know if this means we’ll make the NCAA Tournament by then; it could just mean the next .500 season.

I can’t wait any longer.

Pick us. Please.

Sincerely,

El Duque

Tejas_Duke wrote:

ED:  I love you Bro but this is just sad.  You devoted all this energy to this, for what?

 
Desperation. 😔