If you don't already know, I am a huge college basketball fan. I cover the Badgers, but beyond that I love following college basketball across the conferences and across the nation. My passion for the sport is a year-round event, not just your typical March obsession. I've even got a countdown going on my phone until the first official day of practice (176 days). It is always college basketball season in my little world.
But a bracket in April? You've got to be kidding me.
Unfortunately, its not a joke, nor do I think it was intended to be one. Yes, Joe Lunardi is back on ESPN. Or at least on their webpage.
Just two weeks after UConn cut down the nets in Houston, Lunardi has come out with a bracket for the 2012 tournament.
Not a far-fetched, clearly preliminary ""top 10"" list, a full-fledged 68 team bracket. Complete with a First Four In, a First Four Out, a Next Four In, and a Next Four Out.
I realize that Lunardi and others need to justify their yearly salary, but this isn't sports journalism.
You can start to look at recruits and returning players in the spring and put together a very rough list of potential contenders, but there is no way you can possibly have any way to come up with an educated guess as to the at-large teams sent to Dayton for the First Four (Indiana, Georgetown, UAB and Virginia according to Lunardi).
With the first games over six months away, there is absolutely nothing logic-wise behind a bracket at this point.
All this type of ""journalism"" does is denigrate the work of legitimate bracket speculation. Regardless of how accurate Lunardi ends up being (considering the fact his November bracket this year had Michigan State as a No. 1 seed, his chances aren't great), the fact that he seriously thinks about an April bracket ruins his credibility as a true ""expert"" in the so-called field of ""bracketology.""
Lunardi is proving what I have always believed: These bracketologists are nothing more than expert talkers. There is no science behind these speculative brackets, no formulas, no experimental factors considered. Simply put, bracketologists are just college basketball geeks who are paid to sound intelligent and have opinions that sound somewhat more scientific than the average fan's.
How can Joe Lunardi look me in the eye and say that Quinnipiac is any more likely to come out of the Northeast Conference than Farleigh Dickinson? Even if they were, how does he know that they are any more likely to be sent to the First Four than his projected Atlantic Sun Champions Lipscomb?
There is nothing behind these projections. They are simply guesses;,not educated guesses, but guesses.
Between draft projections that start the minute the previous year's final picks are made and the preseason polls that come about the morning after a title game, the world of sport speculation has grown too big for its own good.
Lunardi can only be taken seriously during college basketball season, when games have been and are continuing to be played. Similarly, guys like Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay shouldn't be on the air until at least after the NFL combine. And I think that the cases of Jared Sullinger and Harrison Barnes are good enough examples of why NBA draft talk isn't worth anything until April 24, the day players can actually declare for said draft.
To put it bluntly, speculation is the stuff of water cooler talk, not legitimate journalism. I might even go so far as to say speculation of this sort is acceptable on talk radio, but ESPN is certainly not the forum.
When you and I talk after class about our expectations for Badger basketball next year, we know there is nothing more than intuition in what we argue. But when so-called ""experts"" speculate on ESPN and elsewhere, there is an implicit assumption that what they say is backed by more than mere intuition.
Lunardi's early bracket, NBA draft projections that included Sullinger and Barnes, and even NFL draft projections with Andrew Luck at the top, all of these prove that the reality is this ""professional speculation"" isn't backed by anything more than the intuition you and I use in casual discussion. Putting the stamp of professional journalism on this speculation is irresponsible.
Instead of wasting time with useless speculation, let's start focusing on the sports we have going on now. Enough with the NFL draft talk, the NBA draft speculation and especially college football and basketball season previews.
There is plenty of action in the sports world, from MLB games to the NBA and NHL playoffs. Focus on that. There will be plenty of time to talk college football and college basketball later. For now, lets take a break.
Do you find use for way too early projections in sports? E-mail Max at max.sternberg@yahoo.com
