Bracketology - Let's Do This

Milwaukee

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You're so desperate to misinterpret my take that it's hilarious.
Not at all, I apologize if you feel that way. You’re literally on the record for advocating your stance. When the circumstances don’t benefit you though you can’t just take all the positives and be immune to the negatives. That’s not the current climate these female athletes are in.
My sister was an elite, big time All American collegiate volleyball player that holds national records to this day (big flex Milwaukee!). Believe me, I’ve been down this rabbit hole a million times in crazy detail.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simply supply and demand.

Maybe we’re having two different discussions? If that’s the case then disregard.
 

Deleted member 2897

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Not at all, I apologize if you feel that way. You’re literally on the record for advocating your stance. When the circumstances don’t benefit you though you can’t just take all the positives and be immune to the negatives. That’s not the current climate these female athletes are in.
My sister was an elite, big time All American collegiate volleyball player that holds national records to this day (big flex Milwaukee!). Believe me, I’ve been down this rabbit hole a million times in crazy detail.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simply supply and demand.

Maybe we’re having two different discussions? If that’s the case then disregard.

It’s like the $15/hour minimum wage. Pay me a fair wage that I’m worth. If I’m not worth a fair wage then pay me anyway.
 

Milwaukee

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It’s like the $15/hour minimum wage. Pay me a fair wage that I’m worth. If I’m not worth a fair wage then pay me anyway.
That’s how I look at it, and most people in business do as well.
There’s a reason women make more in certain professions, it’s because they deserve it based off the demand. Sports ain’t one of em, sorry if that hurts your feelings.
 

Northeast Stinger

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You're 100% wrong on my take.

I didn't say that the schools should pay athletes directly. I didn't say schools should reduce scholarship opportunities for non-revenue sports. Not sure why you're a proponent of taking opportunities away from hard working young people.

I believe that athletes should be able to partake in being compensated based on the free market.

That might mean dook boosters giving free rental homes to 5* player parents, UGA football players getting free sports car leases, GT student-athletes developing their own brands and getting paid for ads on their IG & twitter feeds. Take your pick.

The free market should be allowed to compensate student-athletes on top of the scholarships they've worked hard to earn. My belief in this is pretty well-documented, as @crut will attest.
You make good points.

What I wonder about is the SA who is an elite athlete but lousy at marketing. Do they get agents and PR firms? And who regulates them? We’re still talking college kids here who have yet to prove they can avoid being exploited by adults.

A free market has not really existed in quite some time as hucksters control too much of it, something Adam Smith thought was anathema to free markets.

I’m not arguing against what you are saying. The current system is broken. I’m just trying to think through what the potential pit falls might be.

On a side note I love the idea of a Tech athlete coming up with a digital marketing device and then selling his services to uga athletes and draining the mutt bagmen of all they’ve got.
 

dtm1997

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Not at all, I apologize if you feel that way. You’re literally on the record for advocating your stance. When the circumstances don’t benefit you though you can’t just take all the positives and be immune to the negatives. That’s not the current climate these female athletes are in.
My sister was an elite, big time All American collegiate volleyball player that holds national records to this day (big flex Milwaukee!). Believe me, I’ve been down this rabbit hole a million times in crazy detail.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simply supply and demand.

Maybe we’re having two different discussions? If that’s the case then disregard.
My well-known stance is the following:
  • Amateurism is a crock of ****. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have the cheating we do on the fringes of football & basketball.
  • Schools should not pay athletes directly. They should provide the current opportunities already in place (scholarship, room & board, COA stipend). This needs to be on an equal basis for all athletes, regardless of sport. No real change from where we are today.
  • Student-Athletes should be able to seek out external opportunities that pay them based on the free market. If the free market offers an S/A $0, that's an acceptable outcome. If it's an absolute free-for-all putting some schools at a disadvantage because they don't have the external support from boosters & businesses, that's an acceptable outcome. The free-for-all part is probably where @crut & I traditionally have opposing views.
  • Student-Athletes that earn from these external, free market opportunities should pay taxes, obviously.
  • Student-athletes that earn from these external, free market opportunities should need permission of the school to use their copyrighted IP and pay them for its use. I'm 100% in favor of NIL, but it's a two-way street if you want to wear your school uniform, as opposed to generic school colors.
So tell me... what are the negatives to be immune to? Getting no external compensation if the free market isn't offering it? The fact student-athletes across all sports will earn the same scholarships that have been earned by them for decades because that's how universities allocate their athletic revenues, private philanthropy, & endowments?

Is it just the simple notion that if a sport doesn't earn revenue, it should be cut?
 

Pointer

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Gimme a law or regulation & you’ll find some rich elite dudes exploiting it. Hint: it’s not for the love of the game. In the end the women (actually those actually profiting from them) will extort $$ from the men because we live in an “enabling” age. They’ll get a few $$ to shut them up but the gap between the haves & the have nots will continue to grow. Little to no effort will go into improving the root cause of why the women generate a small fraction of the interest the men do. Rinse & repeat.

Well, until some hairy dudes “identifying” themselves as females start taking all the women’s spots then we’ll implode.
I think your point of view would be valid in an ideal and fair world.

DISCLAIMER (you will read words that may trigger you, but be patient, that's not my goal I promise.).
What you consider to be the enabling age is a result of generations of systemic oppression causing some to have generational wealth at the expense of others. Its like anything else, it must come to an equilibrium and that is what we are seeing now.

I agree with you that people should be compensated for what they are worth, but again that is in an ideal world. In the real world, some people definitely have more advantages over others due to sex, race, or what social ladder they were born into.

The same argument can be made for women's sports. Now I don't know what the level of interest is or will be in the long run, but women's sports (and many other things in life) have been set aside and pushed down. Maybe if there was a level playing field, women's pro teams could afford to pay more developmental leagues, pay for more marketing and other things to create a larger pool of female athletes and generate more interest in the sport (Again, I'm not saying this will be the outcome, just saying that generations of inequality with respect to women's sports have not allowed us to actually see what might be).

But I firmly agree with @slugboy on this. This is an issue with NCAA not providing fair treatment for all teams in a not for profit event. The whole point of the NCAA is to provide a level playing field for athletes.

Analogy:
Try seeing it from the perspective of all the times LSU, UGA, Alabama,... get away with major NCAA infractions while GT gets slapped with sanctions and titles taken away for a couple hundred dollars worth of clothing (2009 FB ACC Championship). Its not fair, but because the factory schools(akin to NCAAM teams) garner such large following and support, they will get away with it 9/10 times, while we(akin to NCAAWB) will get slammed 9/10 times. It sets us back with respect to recruiting and ultimately slows our attempts at catching up to factories with respect to success. Will we get there given a level playing field? Who knows? Will it be much easier/possible? definitely.

The above example can be applied to many things in life.

Respectfully, I am genuinely interested in how you view this and what your thoughts are about what I've just said and explanations for your views.
 
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Pointer

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Did they get to practice at all?
Friday was to practice at home in the morning for the first time and then travel to the site of this year's tournament. Their arrival puts them two sets of negative tests away from facing Ohio on Saturday night.

According to that, they've been practicing since Friday morning.
 

Milwaukee

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Fair enough. Back to tournament matters at hand.
Responses like these are why DTM rocks. He knows much more about college hoops than I do (and most of us) but he’ll still engage in a discussion around it, and he doesn’t get pissed and hold it against you when someone disagrees with him. He keeps it moving and will still discuss topics.

As far as bracketology I’m still annoyed SYR and FSU (seeded above unfairly) got 20x better matchups than we did. We were better off with a MighSt 11 seed type play-in game or a Cuse seed vs a team we could man handle.

But at the same time had we gotten a 10 seed vs Sconnie we probably would’ve lost like UNC. Overall it was a bad draw, plus disrespected by the committee, but also just bad luck matching up against a really good team that was seeded incorrectly themselves. Everything that could’ve went wrong for Tech went wrong. I’m still pissed.
 

dtm1997

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Responses like these are why DTM rocks. He knows much more about college hoops than I do (and most of us) but he’ll still engage in a discussion around it, and he doesn’t get pissed and hold it against you when someone disagrees with him. He keeps it moving and will still discuss topics.

As far as bracketology I’m still annoyed SYR and FSU (seeded above unfairly) got 20x better matchups than we did. We were better off with a MighSt 11 seed type play-in game or a Cuse seed vs a team we could man handle.

But at the same time had we gotten a 10 seed vs Sconnie we probably would’ve lost like UNC. Overall it was a bad draw, plus disrespected by the committee, but also just bad luck matching up against a really good team that was seeded incorrectly themselves. Everything that could’ve went wrong for Tech went wrong. I’m still pissed.
To your point, if we're having different conversations, why belabor the issue.

As far as our seed, we've cracked the code in the game thread thanks to @orientalnc.
 

smokey_wasp

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Sad to see that happen, but was just a matter of time this year.

Yeah. Glad we got to play. I do wonder what happened here. Wonder if somebody broke the rules or snuck out of the bubble. Hard to imagine a team was cleared when they got there and suddenly, they don’t have 5 eligible to play.
 
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