…I really want Loyola
to do well in the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament now that they’ve qualified
by winning the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. The Ramblers are a local team coached by a
local kid. Six of the fifteen players
hail from Illinois, mostly Chicago and the suburbs, while Coach Moser Porter is
from one county away in Naperville. Oh,
and seven of the players are upperclassmen.
Try explaining that concept to Rick Pitino.
Lots of local, lots of
upperclassmen, all Cinderella—this is what college sports is supposed to be
about, and this is how Loyola is going to be sold on television along with one
other ingredient, this being the school’s first tournament appearance in 33
years. Don’t lose, guys, but don’t let
winning get to your head.
The best-case scenario
is for Loyola to become an overachieving program like Butler or Valparaiso in
recent years. Done right, nobody has to
sell their soul to the devil. But done
wrong, Loyola turns into DePaul, which tried to model itself after Notre Dame or
the Big Ten only to become a long-running embarrassment. One of those per city is enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment