You know, why not, we’ll talk about Oklahoma. First, though:
What’s Up with the Mediator?
Major League Baseball made news yesterday when they announced they’d requested federal mediation of the labor dispute between them and the Players Association. Today, it was the Players Association making headlines as they refused to go along with the request. They want MLB to make a counterproposal, as was initially promised before the mediation request was made.
It’s hard to know exactly what to make of all of this, because labor disputes in professional sports are often rather isolated and therefore unique, few of those giving us the news are experts on labor law or labor negotiations in general, and few of us are experts on labor law or labor negotiations in general.
My impression, and this is with the admission that I’m not an expert on labor law or labor negotiations, is that we probably shouldn’t think of this as something headed towards a fair solution. This isn’t something where we’re starting from scratch, building a fair system. We’re starting from the old CBA, so it’s going to be movements from there. Some of these will benefit the players and hurt the owners. Some will hurt the owners and benefit the players. Some will benefit both parties.
I’m not sure exactly what a mediator would have accomplished, but clearly, the owners think mediation would get them a better deal than they’d get if the process played out, or a comparable deal to what they’d get if the process played out but quickly enough that fewer games, if any, would be canceled. The players, meanwhile, think mediation would get them a poorer deal.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the players want something unfair. Again, we’re not starting from scratch here.
Generally, I find the system rather unfair to players. The federal government (!!) has granted Major League Baseball a monopoly in which anyone in this country who wants to play baseball at the highest level in the world has to go through this conscriptive process in which they’re assigned to a franchise, it’s really hard to leave that franchise, and to cash in on their market value they have to manage to stay in the league for more than five years, something that gets harder financially once they’re able to cash in because new, younger players are available at steep discounts. The draft, the lack of immediate free agency, and the standard-ish pre-arbitration salary are all things that, in any other profession, would make us say, “Don’t go into that profession.” Because it’s professional sports, though, we shrug our shoulders and accept it.
At the same time, it should be noted that players did not create Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball was created by entrepreneurs, effectively, who then shaped the rules to benefit themselves. This is why free agency wasn’t part of the sport at all for such a long time. There’s some value to that, and it’s value the owners agreed to when they bought their respective franchises. If the players want to start their own league, it’s not the federally granted monopoly that’s going to hold them back, I don’t think.
Still, it’s a wacky labor setup when you describe it out loud and replace “baseball player” with almost any other profession, and the antagonism of the owners and their seeming disdain for the sport itself (as I wrote about today) duly casts them as villains. They are, after all, the businesspeople here, and as fans, it’s fair to want them to focus on the business while letting the players focus on playing. The two should be working together to grow the game. They’re instead at odds, each willing to risk harming the game to get what they want. And my impression is that this stems from, at its core, a setup where players don’t have access to their free market value (as they do in, for example, European professional soccer).
Regardless of my thoughts, though, remember: You and I, in all likelihood, are not labor relations experts or experts in labor law. Neither, unfortunately, are the vast majority of baseball journalists. Douse this with those appropriate grains of salt. But at the same time…you can be mad at the owners. And you can be mad at the players, too. Though personally, the reasons I’m mad at the players (an exclusionary union that screws over minor leaguers and younger players) aren’t the reasons the owners want you to be mad at them (greed, which is at best a shared characteristic here).
Bryan Harsin Might Be Out at Auburn
There’s a rumor going around that Harsin’s having an affair with an assistant within the Auburn program. I have no idea how legitimate the rumor is, but it coincides with Lee Hunter, an Auburn defensive tackle transferring out of the program to join Gus Malzahn at UCF, posting on Instagram that Harsin treated players “like dogs” and “has the true mindset for a winner but has a terrible mindset as a person.” At least eight current Auburn players liked the post, as well as eight former players.
On the topic of the affair: Don’t be an asshole. A lot of people are being assholes right now. Either the rumor is true, and this is hell for Harsin’s wife and children, or the rumor is false, and this is hell for the assistant in question as well as Harsin’s wife and children. If the rumor’s true, there’s all sorts of grossness to it. All affairs are gross, but the power dynamic between a high-paid college football coach and his assistant is unhealthy, to put it mildly, and it’s just…I don’t know, guys. I don’t get why we, the human species, are so into this kind of scandal.
On the topic of Hunter’s Instagram post: It’s easy to put too much stock into the likes. People instinctively like their friends’ posts. But the theme that Harsin seems to be disliked within the program could be accurate. We really don’t know.
Meanwhile, a 6-7 record isn’t terrible in a coach’s first year, but it’s easy to slip to the bottom in the SEC, especially in the West, so if Auburn wants to move on from Harsin, this would make it easier to do so. They did hire the man, so presumably they thought he was the guy a year ago, but who knows, guys. Who knows.
That’s kind of the core of this. We don’t know what happened, we don’t know what’s going to happen, we hope the affair rumor is false on humane grounds, we hope whoever’s coaching Auburn this season treats players well, also on grounds of human decency. We’ll see how it all plays out. On the Iowa State angle, we’re nowhere near far-enough along in this to worry about this somehow leading to Matt Campbell leaving Ames, for the Plains or elsewhere.
Is Oklahoma Doomed?
I spent too much time on Twitter today, so Oklahoma’s a bit seared into my brain, as there was an ongoing spat between various factions over whether Oklahoma is headed the way of Nebraska or set to remain a top program under Brent Venables.
Again with this, we don’t know. I’ve previously guessed Oklahoma might go the way of Nebraska, and that’s a definite possibility. Venables hasn’t been a head coach before, it’s hard to see any clear reason (location, boosters, etc.) for Oklahoma to be good, you can be the eighth-best team in the country year after year and continuously go 8-4 in the SEC. At the same time, though, Venables was an incredible defensive coordinator at Clemson, he held the recruiting class together, and Oklahoma isn’t in the SEC yet.
Overall, Oklahoma should probably be the Big 12 favorites for this coming season. In the long run, sure, there’s reason to fear, but out of Miami, Austin, Los Angeles, Tuscaloosa, Norman, and Clemson, which towns have produced the best football in the last decade? Out of the donor bases of Texas, Michigan, Notre Dame, Clemson, Alabama, and Oklahoma, which boosters have produced the best football in the last decade? It’s easy to look at Nebraska and paint this narrative that a program built solely on the habit of being good crumbled once it stopped being good for a few years, but the fundamentals of that—location, donors, etc.—might not actually be that important. It’s easier to hold hope in getting back to the top, of course, when you can go buy a good coach and pop off a great recruiting class, but we’re still waiting for Texas, and they’ve got all the advantages in the world.
So, reports of Oklahoma’s demise are premature. Probably clickbait, too, or to be vulgar, a bit of fart-sniffing from the “thinkers” in the room. Maybe they’re right, but more likely than not, Oklahoma’s going to win ten or more games this year and spend at least part of the season in the playoff picture. Hell, if they get through that game in Lincoln with a win, they’ll probably enter the Red River Shootout 5-0. Venables might not be capable of winning a national championship there, but Lincoln Riley didn’t pull that off himself. We’ll see. To all of it.
Arizona!
Alright, basketball. The Arizona Wildcats neatly dispatched with UCLA last night in Tucson, so if you’re a regular reader and you didn’t buy us categorizing Arizona higher than Auburn and Duke and Purdue, that’s the Arizona we see on paper. They’re long, they’re strong, and they just might be the best team in the country, undefeated at home and having only lost to Tennessee and UCLA on the road.
This Weekend’s Hoops
On that topic, what those in each of our categories are up to this weekend:
National Championship Contenders
Gonzaga plays at BYU, who’s stinging from a home loss to San Francisco last night. It was the Cougars’ third loss in a row, they’re trending towards the bubble, and of their five post-Gonzaga regular season games, four can only hurt them while one, a trip to Saint Mary’s, can only help. BYU does have a fourth-quadrant loss to its name. Anyway, they should be fired up, and Gonzaga should still handle them with ease. That game’s at 10:00 PM EST tomorrow on ESPN.
Arizona gets no break, hosting USC tomorrow night. USC isn’t all that good, but they’re the third-best team in the Pac-12, and the risk of a letdown is high. 5:00 PM EST, FOX.
Baylor goes to Kansas, who would otherwise be included in our Possibility category below. The Bears need the win if they want a good shot at winning the Big 12. Otherwise, they’ll be two back in the loss column with a trip to Lubbock remaining (Kansas has already made that trip). 4:00 PM EST, ESPN.
Kentucky’s at Alabama, narrowly outside the Possibility category but as good when they’re good as anyone in the country. Auburn’s still getting a lot of the attention in the SEC, which is fair, but as we cannot say enough, Kentucky’s still probably the better team. They’ll likely either prove it tomorrow or prove us wrong. 8:00 PM EST, ESPN.
National Championship Possibilities
Sorry, Auburn, we need more from you. I don’t think the trip to Georgia will be that, since it’s a trip to Georgia and this is the worst Georgia team in dozens of years (and that’s saying something), but you’ll probably do well enough for the AP’s standards. 1:00 PM EST, SEC Network.
Houston has a tough little stretch coming up, at least by the AAC’s standards. They start it by visiting Cincinnati, who’s trying to climb up into the NIT projection in Wes Miller’s first year. Sunday, 6:00 PM EST, ESPN2.
Purdue hosts a dangerous Michigan tomorrow, and while they’ll probably be fine, I wouldn’t feel fine preparing to go up against a team which opened the season with national championship ambitions. The Wolverines are a bit of a mess, but the pieces remain there. 2:30 PM EST, FOX.
Villanova hosts UConn tomorrow, and it’ll be interesting to see the Huskies. Since the new year began, they’ve lost to Seton Hall and Creighton and beaten St. John’s, Butler, Georgetown, and DePaul, which is fairly uninspiring. They’re supposed to be a solid team, though, so maybe they’ll give the Wildcats some trouble. 12:00 PM EST, FOX.
UCLA completes the Arizona trip up in Tempe. Just gotta take care of business. 10:00 PM EST, ESPN2.
Texas Tech, yes, we’ll include them, goes to Morgantown, where Mark Adams’s team may be ripe for exposure or may be about to make a quiet statement in a tough Big 12 road game. 2:00 PM EST, ESPN.
Duke plays at North Carolina, and while Duke’s a little medium and UNC’s dangerously close to the bubble with a lot of games left, the atmosphere figures to be incredible, so long as they don’t get cowardly and suck up to Coach K while he leaves. 6:00 PM EST, ESPN.
Finally, Illinois, who we assume will still have both halves of the Cockburn/Curbelo duo, visits Indiana for a tough one. The Hoosiers still could win the Big Ten. That’s technically true. 12:00 PM EST, ESPN.
Other Games of Note
Tonight, the Mountain West keeps rewarding us, with San Diego State going to Colorado State at 9:00 PM EST on FS1. Creighton and Seton Hall play before that at 7:00, also on FS1. All bubble-impacting games. Plenty of other bubble action tomorrow, of course, but having listed eleven games of interest already for tomorrow and still having to address Iowa State’s matchup with Texas, we’ll spare you the rest. On Sunday, Missouri State gets its final shot at Loyola before the MVC tournament at 2:00 PM EST on ESPN2, and then the Mountain West comes through again with Wyoming and Fresno State at 7:00 on FS1. Big weekend ahead.
The Cyclones Go to Austin
The recipe for beating Texas remains to get them to turn the ball over and to not turn the ball over yourself, which has always been what you have to do to beat Chris Beard. This latter part is going to be the harder part for ISU.
One thing I’m a bit surprised by, looking at Iowa State’s numbers, is how few free throws this team attempts. Izaiah Brockington could probably get to the line more if he wasn’t such a midrange guy, I guess. Just a thought. He’s been pretty darn efficient, though, given how high his usage is. The bigger problem remains getting Gabe Kalscheur back to what he was three years ago at Minnesota. Rough career for that guy after starting college with so much promise. Game at 1:00 PM Iowa Time, Longhorn Network.
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That’s everything for the week, I believe. Bets will still be coming through, at least tomorrow. Possibly not on Sunday. Been cold lately and may take a day off. See you soon.
