I’m a Fan, but not a Fanatic

You know what happens to Political Science majors, right?

They either end up back in the classroom teaching or in Washington D.C. costing tax payers trillions!

And remember what fan is short for – FANATIC! “A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause,” according to Dictionary.com.

When I take a look at standings, teams and players, it’s easy for me to make a pretty decent judgment based on this and other tangibles.

For instance.

Syracuse is 17-5 and ranked 20th in this week’s Associated Press poll.

Pretty good overall record, huh? I’m sure some teams in the SWAC, MAC and Big West would love to have that record and ranking.

But take a closer look and you’ll see that four of those losses are in Big East Conference play. That puts Syracuse in seventh place at 5-4.

Pretty lousy for a top 25 team if you ask me.

Granted, there are about 20 teams in the Big East, but you know what I’m saying.

I’m not against the Orange and don’t wish them any ill will, or any team mind you. I watched gleefully as coach Jim Boeheim finally won a National Championship in 2002-03. It was fun to watch, but it didn’t change my life in any way. Just as a watching my favorite football team win the Super Bowl this weekend didn’t either.

That was great too, but life goes on here in pro football-less L.A.

There aren’t any teams out there that I really like or really hate. I’m more of a fan of the history and pagentry of the game. The post-Adolph Rupp Kentucky teams, Dean Smith’s North Carolina teams, and John Wooden’s UCLA teams. I find Bobby Knight to be as entertaining as most of you find him to be annoying. You know, that sort of stuff.

I love some of the great individual teams such as the 1966 Texas Western (now UTEP) team, the 1977 Marquette team, the 1983 North Carolina State team, the 1985 Villanova team, the 1988 Kansas team, the 1994 Arkansas team, the 1997 Arizona team and the 2002 Maryland team.

I fill out brackets every season only to be done by the second round, and begin wondering when baseball season starts. That’s what happens when I pick teams like Boston College TWICE to go to Final Four a few years ago.

I went to and live walking distance from a “Mid-Major,” Long Beach State of the Big West Conference(I don’t know why it’s called the “Big West, because there’s nothing big about that conference).

I support the 49ers and I’m happy when they win and only mildly annoyed when they lose, which is often these days.

The 49ers make an appearence in the Big Dance every five years or so after winning the conference, and is usually a 15th or 16th seed after winning 20-plus games.

Our biggest rival is Cal State Fullerton. I don’t like the Titans and openly boo when they play the 49ers. But after the games are over and during the offseason, I will get together with one of them every now and then to hang out.

Now if the 49ers win the championship that will change my life, because I would swear that the world is coming to an end. I will also rub it in the face of any Cal State Fullerton fan within an earshot until the lights go dark and the end of the world as we know it has come.

Recently I’ve wanted to come on this blog and boast about Long Beach’s current first place standing, but won’t because I don’t want to sound like a Duke football fan does in September. There’s plenty of basketball left to play.

The last time a “Mid-Major” made it to the NCAA championship game was Utah in 1998 when the Utes lost to Kentucky.

And where was Utah from at the time?

The Western Athletic Conference!

Which finally bring me to this week’s No. 25 team Utah State out of (you guessed it) the WAC.

I know the Aggies pretty well, because they used to play in the Big West and abuse Long Beach State every chance they got.

But keep in mind this isn’t college football where the WAC is very competitive. But this is college basketball and posting a 21-1 record and a 19-game winning streak (the longest in the nation right now) against slobs like Idaho, Louisiana Tech and New Mexico State is not going to impress the powers that be that decide the pairings on Selection Sunday.

Syracuse and Utah State are more examples of rankings being useless, but we’ve already had that discussion.

When teams from confereces such as the WAC, MAC, Big West, Big Sky Atlantic 10, and the way they’ve been playing this year, the Big 10 (Plus One), they aren’t called “powers.” They’re called “Cinderellas.”

These are teams that unexpectantly make a nice run in the tournament upsetting one or two favorites along the way, only to have the carriage turn back into a pumpkin, and the dress turned back into a Goodwill hand-me-down in the round of 16 or the Elite Eight.

That’s one of the reasons why you will rarely see someone like a Utah State or Long Beach State break into the top 10 or top 15. It’s because their conferences are so lousy that you can’t possibly justify ranking them any higher than the lower half of the polls.

But we all love Cinderella teams and stories, right? That’s why college basketball is one of the most exciting spectator sports around.

Does last year’s Davidson team ring a bell? How much fun was that watching them on that insane run?

But let’s not get too carried away when a Utah State goes on a big run and is given a token top 25 ranking in February. Nor should we get too carried away when a seventh place team gets dissed for being a seventh place team.

It’s all about who comes out on top in the end. And right now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be Syracuse or Utah State.