Not a lot today, but good to be back with you all. Hope those of you who celebrate had a Merry Christmas, and that those of you who don’t celebrate had a good weekend.
Is Tennessee in the Club?
We talked a good bit about that Tennessee/Arizona game in anticipation of it happening, and I believe I wrote something to the effect of, Tennessee can be one of these teams in college basketball’s top echelon if it gets a win. It got a win, and…I don’t think it’s in that echelon. I’d still draw the line after Baylor, Purdue, Gonzaga, Duke, UCLA, Arizona, and Kansas, with that order rather hastily constructed. For clarity’s sake, this is kind of a college football look at college basketball, a “Which team has impressed most?” rather than “Which team is the best?” If it’s the best team, that’s Gonzaga or Baylor. If it’s the team that’s been most impressive, that’s Baylor and then there are packs. It’s a manufactured conversation to ask which pack Tennessee belongs in, but the dirty secret with college basketball’s regular season is that outside of conference title races, races for top seeds, postseason games, and the bubble, it’s hard to assign meaning to a lot of games. Arizona/Tennessee was a ton of fun, it just…didn’t matter all that much. Probably. Maybe it will. Maybe these two teams will be on the line between one-seeds and two-seeds or two-seeds and three-seeds and their postseason success will hinge on some strange officiating decisions and some missed shots and some made shots on a Christmasy night in Knoxville. More likely than not, though, they won’t. That the game is fun is enough, but you can’t really say that in this job and then walk away. There’s a “What does this mean?” piece that seems to need to be a part of the conversation. In the end, the answer to that question for Tennessee and Arizona was, “Not a whole lot.”
Too Early for Bubble Talk?
There’s a big Mountain West game tonight between Fresno State and Boise State, two of the league’s peripheral contenders. It’s the conference opener for both, and it’s the MWC opener, and with each team scrapping just to get to the bubble, its answer to the “What does this mean?” question is clear. Boise State’s trying to keep climbing back from its 3-4 start (which wasn’t all that much a product of tough scheduling) and stake its claim in the Rocky Mountain title race. Fresno State’s looking for its first good win, one that could end up a Quadrant I victory and set it up well in a conference picture in which it only plays Colorado State once.
Of course, on the more important side—that the game is fun—it’s evidently on fuboTV and fuboTV only, at least at the national level, so good luck.
Elsewhere on the bubble, Notre Dame really needs to beat Pitt in tonight’s other conference game, and Saint Mary’s tries to close out a respectable run in nonconference play on a strong note, hosting respectable-but-not-good Yale. Thin slate. Bulks up a lot tomorrow.
Bowls, Bowls, Bowls
The biggest bowl story so far is that games are indeed getting canceled again, but as power conferences ramp up their participation tonight and tomorrow, there’ll be more to make of things. Even there, though…they’re largely exhibitions. This isn’t to say they’re pointless—it’s just to say that the point is more for them to be fun than for them to tell us something big and important in the world of college football.
We Forgot to Talk About Buck Showalter
I meant to mention this back before Christmas, but the Mets hired Buck Showalter to be their manager. I…I don’t know. Managers aren’t that important, and the Tony La Russa hire has so far been more or less fine for the White Sox (they probably weren’t getting past Houston in that series regardless of La Russa’s odd decisions), but Showalter is a strange fit for baseball in 2022. His ceiling appears limited, his floor is low. Managers are a funny thing in baseball. The winningest one of all time, Connie Mack, has an overall losing record.
What this does give us an opportunity to do is talk about areas in which we’d guess managers are important, which is that they:
- Hit the right notes for morale/day-to-day approach.
- Make good in-game decisions.
Generally, then, a good manager needs to be a good reader of people, a good leader in variable situations, and capable of tailoring their messaging and methods to a variety of personalities. They also need to be at least somewhat data-literate and willing to listen to the quants in their franchise’s front office. It’s easy to praise the reigning champion, but this does seem like a big endorsement of Brian Snitker, who I long would have thought of as an unlikely fit to be good in both those categories above. Maybe that speaks well of the Showalter hire, by showing how little I know. Really, though, I’d guess Showalter is average at best and another postseason disaster (a la the 2016 Wild Card Game) waiting to happen. Just like La Russa. Maybe the Mets’ decisionmakers want a scapegoat that isn’t themselves.
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Viewing schedule for tonight is:
6:45 PM EST, ESPN: Liberty Bowl, Mississippi State vs. Texas Tech
Mike Leach football is generally fun. Against his former employer, with whom he’s at odds? Adds more to it.
After this, if you want to watch Minnesota play West Virginia in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, or if you’re a fuboTV acolyte and you want to watch Boise State/Fresno State, go right ahead. Kind of a slow night overall, though. Picks up a lot tomorrow. SEC basketball, Big East basketball, more ACC basketball, the best two bowl games, in my opinion, we’ve had so far. So look forward to that, and I will see you there.
