The Crossover

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Two twin boys love basketball. Their dad was a pro basketball player, but his career was cut short due to injuries. He did not want to see a doctor because his father died when he went to the hospital. One of the twin boys gets a girlfriend. This causes some jealousy at the hands of the other which he took out on the basketball court by hitting him with a bad pass. This caused him to be suspended. After a period of atonement, he started to get in a better position with his family. He was playing a game with his dad.  Alas, dad was having health problems and refused to see a doctor.  Dad collapsed and was finally rushed to the hospital. The boy was able to play a big basketball game, but dad passed away. It is a quick moving basketball book that ends with a teerjerker.

Dragon Hoops

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

The author has always been a bit nerdy and preferred to focus on his comics. He never saw the fascination that other people had with sports, but he couldn't resist the enthusiasm that people had. He decided to talk with coach. He discovered that he was as relatable guy and was once a gangly teenager. The team is great and has made it to the state championship game many times, but has never won. He became smitten by the basketball team. He decides to write his book on their season.

The book goes through the basketball season and ties in school and basketball history. He tries to go in depth with many of the players. The histories are fairly positive, with the players feeling friendly and well-grounded. The team is mostly black, with a future NBA player. However, there are also other players, including a white "redneck", a Punjabi and Chinese student. They endure some racial taunts, but rub it off. The book mostly covers the on-court struggles of the team, together with the challenges of the author and his life. There are even notes at the end of the graphic novel. Some players are great and anticipate future experience playing basketball, while others are looking more at the "student" part of it. It ends as a nice happy sports-story ending.

The Sense of Wonder

At first, I thought I was listening to a sports non-fiction work. It really sounded like Jeremy Lin. However, the name and other details (such as his ethnicity) were not quite right. The author has used the general framework of "Linsanity" to tell the story of the Korean-American experience. The basketball story is intertwined with the story of another character who is working on bringing Korean dramas to a wider audience. There are relationships involved and struggles with identities (especially when it goes through an adoption and "rediscovery" of the ancestral tongue. At times the story is told within the context of a Korean drama with its appropriate rules.

Economic Impact of Butler in the final four

Yahoo! has an article about how much money Indy will lose by having Butler. Some sports economists say Indianpolis' gross final four income will reduced by a quarter because hometown Butler is playing. However, in another article it states that Butler only has 660 student tickets.

In other words, very few of those people attending the game are guaranteed to be local.

A look at the other teams:

• Michigan State - 4.5 hours away
  
• West Virginia - 6 hours away
  
• Duke - 10 hours away
  

All are close enough to be a possible road trip, but far enough away to probably require an overnight stay. The students at these schools could easily decide on a spontaneous trip to the final four - even if they don't have tickets. This would add to the additional local revenue.

Also, the fact that Butler is a small school means that their impact will be less than if UCLA made it to the Final four in L.A. Even if every Butler student attended the game, they wouldn't come close to filling half the stadium.

Students, however, tend to be poor and often priced out of the tickets. The well-healed alumni would be the main source of school-specific ticket purchases. From the Butler Post graduate survey, about 45% of graduates had a first job in the Indianapolis metro area. That leaves more than half the alumni in other areas. For these alums, a trip to a local final four may lead to more money spent. They may take in a game, then spend some time taking in the campus and reminiscing on the other sites of town.

A good local population supporting the home team can also benefit the town. An upbeat, happening sports scene could leave a positive vibe on the visitors and encourage more spending and even repeat visits.

Many of the out of town visitors already had tickets long before the teams were announced. They are unlikely to change their plans because a local team came along. A big chunk of local residents would also probably snap up tickets regardless of the teams. Now, you'll just have local Butler fans instead of local Kansas fans buying the tickets.

March madness

March madness is here. A whole bunch of basketball games, where the underdog theoretically has a chance. Though only theoretically. Right now, the only 'underdog' remaining is low-seeded Arizona, who happens to be in the tournament for its 25th consecutive year. We got wonderful games like Connecticut vs. Chatanooga. UConn could have gone home after the first half - and still would have won.

Meanwhile in the NIT, there are actually some exciting games. St. Mary's vs. Davidson. Even first round games like #1 seeded Creighton vs. #8 Bowling Green were competitive.
San Diego State and Davidson both seem to be coming alive now, and would probably be doing well against anybody.

Now that the NCAA has ownership of the NIT, why not combine both tourneys? You could still seed the top 8 teams in each region as they are now. But then combine seeds 9-16 with '17-24' from the current NIT pool. In the new 'first round', the 9-24 schools will play each other, with the 1-8 seeds getting a first round bye. These games could feed in to the similar place in the bracket. Thus Number 9 will play number 10 in the first round, with the winner playing #8 in the second round. #11 will play #12, with the winner playing #7. This way we get an exciting first round where anybody could win. Teams that do go on a hot streak in the post-season will get a chance to continue it. Even a lowly 24 seed still has a reasonable chance of getting at least one post-season victory. And the 'play-in' teams will not longer be excluded from brackets.

And for teams that don't make the tournament, there will still be the CBI.