Boy, some highly entertaining games in the NCAA basketball tournament last night. One of my wife's Facebook friends had a post concerning how, late in the evening, when Michigan State versus Virginia was coming down to the wire in near perfect synchronicity with the Battle of Kentucky, she suffered whiplash jerking her eyes from her computer screen, where one game was streaming, to the TV. My no longer secret thought about that was: Why didn't I meet her?
But basketball has never really figured out the foul thing, has it? I mean the rules. Almost every game that is close comes down at the end to one team fouling on purpose in order to stop the clock and get the ball back. When the rules compel you to break the rules in order to have a chance to win--that, it seems to me, is the Absurd. In two of last night's games, it was even more ridiculous than that, for the team that found itself behind and without the ball in the last minute of a tight game had committed so few team fouls that they had to foul several times before their opponent began shooting free throws. As the trailing team fouled and fouled again, the seconds ticked away. At the end of their games, both Tennessee and Virginia would have been better off if they hadn't committed so few fouls.
Shouldn't you be rewarded for not having fouled very much? At least, the opposite shouldn't be true.
When the NCAA basketball champion is crowned, it'll be time for Opening Day of the baseball season, which reminds me that the best game of all is not marred by such farcical happenings. Behind in the ninth inning? Play on. Get a man to base. Get another man to base. Keep it going. There is no other way.
