Do you believe in parity?

Question

For all the talk about parity in college basketball, this year's NCAA tournament seems to be all about the top seeds. Despite superlative efforts from most of the underdogs in the Sweet Sixteen, no team seeded lower than third in its region advanced.

However, my issue is with the fact that all of the number one seeds trailed in their third round games, two of them (North Carolina and Ohio State) by at least 16 points and two of them (Kansas and Florida) to mid-major conference teams, but each seemed to come alive at the end of its game and pull away for a victory.

My question is this: are these efforts (sloppy play at the beginning of games and surges at the end) the result of simple laziness on the part of supremely gifted teams who loaf for the first twenty minutes because they know they have the firepower to make a run, or are they the result of genuine parity between the top seeds and their opponents?

Brett, the problem with your argument for beating teams with experience and a good system is that it should work both ways, for power teams as well as mid-majors. The top five scorers for the Jayhawks are three sophomores and two freshmen, while the top five for the Salukis are two seniors, two juniors, and a sophomore. That Kansas was still able to win says to me that talent counts for more than experience and playing within a system.

Answer 1

USC got cheated by the powers that be!!! I don't believe in parity.

Answer 2

I think everyone, from the analysts and commentators, to people picking the simple office pool, anticipates and wants a certain amount of upsets in the tournament- why do you always see people asking who is the "sleeper" team, the "mid-major" looking to crack the elite eight or final four, and so on. There is no question on any given evening about thirty teams in the country could beat any other team on any court- home, neutral, or road.

That said, the elite teams this year seperated themselves a little bit from the rest this year. Look at whos left in the tournament. Oregon dominated the Pac-Ten tournament and had a great regular season except for a few hiccups against UCLA, Washington State, and USC. Georgetown was punding people in the Big East in February and won the Big East title. Florida won the SEC title and was the class of that conference far and away. North Carolina ended up winning the ACC tournament and was near the top of their regular season standings the whole season. Ohio State has won nineteen in a row and beat a very good Wisconsin team twice the in the last two weeks of the regular season. Kansas won the Big 12 title and was surging during the whole second half of the season. Memphis has won 24 in a row and laid waste of Conference USA. Seven of the elite eight won conference tournaments- I will bet that has never happened before.

Answer 3

With the amount of talent growing in America and overseas there aren’t enough spots at High-Major schools for all the good players. Some will trickle down to the Mid-Major level. That combining with the very top players leaving early leads to parity. High-Majors will always get the cream of the crop players, but for how long? Very few championship teams are built in one year. (2003 Syracuse being an exception to that) The Mid-Majors can develop the good players they get into their system and build very strong teams that give the big boys fits. SIU vs Kansas is a perfect example. KU has far more talented players across the board, but SIU gave them a big time run for the money with an experienced core of players that had been together for 3 or 4 years

Answer 4

In the UNC game it was just the fact that USC was out of gas and UNC was too deep, Florida is always lazy, Kansas played a very underated Southern Illinois team and Ohio State played a team that was on fire in the first half, and just saw some of there shots not going in and lost confidence in themselves! Tennesse is a better team than Ohio State is until it becomes crunch time and Ohio State has shown that against them twice this year! There is just different reasons for each of those games!