This from Mark Emmert, President of the NCAA, “Major changes are needed in college basketball before next year to show the public that the NCAA is capable of governing the sport in the wake of a bribery scandal.” Sorry Mark, that horse is already out of the barn!
Emmert wants trust restored in the NCAA to govern college athletics, in particular basketball. In the Bible in James, II, 26 it says, “Faith without works is dead.” Mr. Emmert, our faith in the NCAA is dead because your works are dead!
Emmert also said that “Only a very small portion of Americans believes that the decision not to punish North Carolina for their academic violations was the right decision.” Well, DUH! You think? “That eroded confidence in higher education holding itself accountable”, Emmert said. Again, “Faith without works is dead.” The NCAA’s works are dead.
Hours after the revelation earlier this month that North Carolina would avoid any punishment for years of gross academic fraud, the NCAA did what they are best at and ruled that North Carolina State freshman Braxton Beverly must SIT OUT the 2017-18 season because the four-star point guard attended a few weeks of summer classes at Ohio State before withdrawing from school in June and transferring to NC State, never even attending a practice at Ohio State because the entire staff that recruited Beverly had been fired. Another case of heavy-handed overreach against the defenseless AFTER they spared one of the “Blue Bloods” of college basketball in the North Carolina academic scandal.
Why is Emmert and the NCAA concerned? Because basketball is critically important to them because they get most of their annual revenue-roughly 800 million-from television rights for the men’s basketball tournament. Remember, the college football playoffs ARE NOT run by the NCAA.
Perhaps college basketball should not be run by the NCAA either. Our faith in them is dead because of their lack of “good works”!
The Central Kansas League showed off their football prowess this year by placing seven of their eleven teams in the playoffs. In 3A, Larned, Hoisington, Hesston and Halstead made it and in 4A it was Nickerson, Smoky Valley and Kingman. Kingman was an upset winner over defending state champion Pratt.
Three of the four 3A teams won their Bi-District games on Tuesday evening with only Halstead losing in a shootout to Marion, 54-30. The 4A teams play Friday evening. One of the constants in the CKL is a number of great running backs. Those that pick the all-conference teams will have their hands full narrowing that field to first and second team selections!
The highlight game in 8-Man football is Friday’s matchup with Macksville at Central Plains. The Mustangs, at 7-2 feature a potent passing game that has produced nearly 1200 yards and a running game that has netted over 1600 yards. Can the Oilers defense shut that down? I think so. Central Plains 44, Macksville 30. The winner likely gets Spearville who should get by St.Francis.
Hoisington travels to take on undefeated Phillipsburg. Home field advantage makes Phillipsburg the favorite. Ditto for Larned as they host Marysville. The Indians are on a late-season surge of confidence and their running game is controlling the clock and the scoreboard. Larned 28, Marysville 20.
Remember what Yogi Berra said: “It’s tough to make predictions; especially about the future!”
Buddy Tabler is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.
