Why Matt is right and a bunch of you are either inane or obtuse

thefool75 <*no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com*> · Wed, 26 Feb 2003 06:25:40 -0000

1.  For whoever suggested (a Kansas player?) that to oppose 
overweighted playoffs indicated that maybe one was afraid of clutch 
performance etc....no, I don't think anyone is afraid of beating you 
either during a round robin or a playoff....

2.  For whoever posed the hypothetical (Lee Henry?) about Florida 
and Athens State in separate brackets followed by a semifinal and a 
final--I think you're missing the point--that would be fine and an 
upset would not be a problem--since the teams hadn't met before, 
they were in separate brackets in your example--their w-l and ppg 
stats within their own brackets are almost meaningless for play 
outside of the bracket.

3.  As for the sports analogies---in most sports (leaving aside the 
spectator effect)--the games are played over a fairly long season 
and wins and losses are not necessarily created equal when taking 
place at different points in the season--injuries, team growth 
etc...qb works the same way--otherwise NAQT would just use S-values 
to declare a national champ after regionals.  Even the NCAA 
tournament in most sports is played over a period of days, the 
season, if you will (besides qualification purposes), serves to 
train, develop etc. for the real season--the concluding tournament--
that is how one can justify starting from scratch at the end (of 
course, they essentially don't do that in college football anyway)...

In other words, you've been comparing pinto beans to coffee 
beans...the analogue to a qb tournament is not an entire season, or 
a 30 day long NCAA (or 60 day NHL) tournament, but rather one game 
of a sport.  Let's pick the NBA--guess what!  Points scored in the 
1st quarter count just as much as points in the fourth quarter!  
Where's the competition in that?  Where's the room for clutch 
performances etc....when the 1st quarter counts just as much as the 
last?  Gosh, basketball must be a boring game.  (BTW, there's no 
statistical evidence for clutch performances in basketball either, 
Reggie Miller notwithstanding (who statistically was not such a 
great 4th quarter player); they've also demonstrated that a "hot 
shooting hand" doesn't exist either.  

4.  This isn't an issue of the partisans of one format against the 
adherents of another--it's simply--do you think that the point is to 
win games; or do you think that the point is to only win the games 
around dinner time...

My 3 cents, 
nathan freeburg