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From: rkp@drufl.UUCP (Pierce)
Newsgroups: net.sport.hoops
Subject: Re: NCAA Tourney and the Home Court
Message-ID: <899@drufl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Mar-84 13:10:31 EST
Article-I.D.: drufl.899
Posted: Tue Mar 27 13:10:31 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Mar-84 01:39:20 EST
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Yes Jim, I do have some comments on home court advantage in the NCAA
playoffs.

Teams are grouped in their certain regions so that fan participation
will be at an optimum.  The top four seeds in the tournament (except
for Georgetown) were placed in the regions that had most interest in
the team (North Carolina in the East, Kentucky in the Mideast, and
DePaul in the Midwest).

Now, the cities that are selected for the certain games were done
probably five years ago (I assume this is correct because Denver is
bidding for some regional games here in 1989).  The committee members
of the NCAA are not stupid.  They know if they put North Carolina in
the East, more fans are likely to attend the early round games.  It
is that way for any of the top seeds, except, of course, Georgetown.
(I guess since there are no good teams in the west area, some team
had to go west, and the logical choice was Georgetown.)  If Houston
had been the 4th seed, they would have logically been sent to the
West Regional.

I guess you are saying that five years ago, when Lexington got the
bid for this years regionals, the committee knew that Kentucky would
be one of the top teams?  Come on, give us a break.  I don't hear you
complaining that Virginia had the home court advantage when they
played Indiana.  They were playing in an ACC town (Atlanta).  Maybe
you don't like Indiana so you don't care if that game was fair.

Now, as far as the actual game goes, I have to agree and disagree on
some of your points.  Yes, I agree that they tied up Dicky Beal there
in the 5-second zone and no foul should have been called.  No, I
don't agree that there were too many fouls on Illinois.  All of
Illinois' shots came from 15-20 feet (and they were hitting them) so
logically, not many fouls would be called on Kentucky.  Most of
Kentucky's shots came from inside where most fouls occur.  I'm not
too sure about those "intentional" fouls at the end of the game by
Kentucky.  They say that as long as you go for the ball, it is
unintentional.  They seemed to be going after the ball.  Anyway, when
a team is behind and they foul to put another team on the foul line,
how many times have you seen an intentional foul called then?

The bottom line is that Kentucky is going to win the tournament this
year.  Not beacuse North Carolina is out of it or DePaul is out of
it, but because Kentucky plays good enough to win, and thats all you
can ask.  By the way, did you know that Kentucky only lost to teams
in their own conference?  That must say something about the SEC.

Tennessee forever.

Russ Pierce
drufl!rkp