So is that it then? Are we done? Is it over?

Two weeks ago, on a Thursday afternoon after days of meetings, buffet lunches, tweets from reporters about buffet lunches, and DeLoss Dodds big timing Jim Delany, BCS director Bill Hancock finally made the announcement about college football's post-season that many have been anticipating for years: "I can take status quo off the table. The BCS as we know it - the exact same policies will not continue."

A few hours later, the first round of the NFL Draft started and we all moved on to debating the latest trends in NFL draft picks' socks. After years and years of painful exasperation, argument, hatred, and potentially unjust champions, the head of the BCS comes out and says the BCS is effectively done, and a college football-obsessed nation musters a collective "Meh"?

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

But look at that Bill Hancock quote again. That en-dash is quite curious, isn't it? Pregnant, if you will, with potential meaning. You can only imagine what he was about to say before he paused and continued; what he could have said instead, had he not caught himself. "The BCS as we know it is dead." It would have been a bookend. The logical and symmetrical valediction to be given at the end of a successful onslaught of rage by college football fans and reporters, embodied most notably by Dan Wetzel's 2010 polemic, "Death to the BCS." It could have been poetic.

But he didn't say it. He paused halfway through, however briefly. And then he said, "The exact same policies will not continue." Pregnant. Ambiguous. And decidedly not poetic.

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First things first: the press release from the SEC Presidents today does not mean that Texas A&M will never join the SEC.  The Aggies could in fact still bolt in the next couple of weeks.  What it does do, however, is (a) smack down the eagerness of the Ags a bit (and refutes the ridiculous notion that A&M had any sort of "standing offer" to join the SEC), giving us a lot of material with which to make fun of them (as if we needed more), and (b) force all parties involved to go through all of the motions to make the move happen.  Essentially, the SEC is refusing to move on the Aggies' timeline, which may or may not make a difference in the long run, but certainly decreases the chances of A&M leaving the Big 12.

The roadblocks that remain are numerous, including involving the Texas state legislature's Higher Ed Committee, allowing them to outline exactly what is going to happen if A&M leaves on its own.  All jokes aside, A&M is a serious educational institution and if there are academic funding repercussions to this move, the faculty will be at Loftin's office door with pitchforks.

Admission of A&M at this point is probably also contingent on the SEC finding a suitable 14th school.  There is allegedly a gentleman's agreement between the SEC schools not to add any other teams from an existing SEC state, narrowing the list of available schools.  The SEC doesn't need A&M (they're doing just fine on their own), so the inability to find a suitable 14th school could derail the addition of A&M.

And finally, there's this whole tortious interference business that you keep hearing about. Here's what that means:

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Tonight, Connecticut plays Butler in the championship game of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.  This undoubtedly means something.  And the winner of the game will undoubtedly be something.  The definition of that "something" though, has not yet reached a public consensus.  Or, perhaps more accurately, there was a consensus, which is now slowly wasting away.  Or, perhaps most accurately, any dissension on this definition is all in my head and the heads of other contrarians (both those who dissent for rational reasons and those who do so for the sake of dissent itself).

Regardless of its genesis (and, frankly, of its mere existence), the lack of consensus over the definition of that "something" boils down to this question: Official proclamations aside, can the winner of the NCAA basketball tournament rightfully make a claim -- predicated only on its status as champion of the tournament -- that it is the national champion of all of college basketball for the season?

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I spent the afternoon of January 7, 2010 tailgating on the gorgeous lawns of the Brookside golf course surrounding the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.  I spent the evening of January 7, 2010 in the second to last row of the Alabama end zone of the Rose Bowl, barely breathing as I watched true freshman backup quarterback Garrett Gilbert valiantly attempt to lead Texas back from a nearly insurmountable deficit to beat Alabama and win the National Championship.  In between, on the walk to the stadium from the tailgate, the sun began to go down over the western hills, the balmy valley air developed a distinct chill, and one giant, obnoxious metaphor reared its ugly head: the sun was setting on Mack Brown's Texas Longhorn empire.*

Gilbert did not lead the Horns to victory that night, of course, and by the time that game was over, the seeds had been sown for the remainder of the devastation inflicted on the program throughout the following eleven months of 2010, leaving us wandering in the college football wilderness on these chilly December nights.

* I realize that this is a bit melodramatic and perhaps overstatement, but bear with me.

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Hey all.  Quick intro today, but we've got some good stuff from txtwstr7 and learned hand, along with my always thrown together at the last minute Undulating Curve of Media Hype.  In case you missed the past two installments which were buried on Fridays, they are here and here.  Good stuff.

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Well, it wasn't the worst loss ever.  Remember that time UCLA beat us 66-3?  This was way better than that.  I mean, we lost by significantly fewer than 63 points this time. Payback's a bitch, Bruins!  But don't worry everyone, we were just holding back for OU.  Next week the offense gets unleashed!

Oh, and in case anyone needs it, a friendly link.  Keep it civil in the comments, ladies and gents.

So much for keeping to a schedule, huh?  After the jump we've got some Pat Forde coverage, and who doesn't want that? (Oh, and if you're wondering, if we totally hacked out like Forde and started naming a "Pundette" every week, this week's would definitely be Zoe Saldana. Because, well, you've seen that Calvin Klein commercial, right?)  Anyway, this Pundit Roundup really belongs to txtwstr7 with only some mild contributions from me.  Enjoy his rhetorical stylings (including the sidebar, an excellent article on preseason polls and his citation of a Gregg Doyel column as something other than a punchline!).

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Aaaaand we're back. Finally. Sorry about the 10 month absence. I'll try (to try) to do better next time. Due to my insane work schedule (mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be corporate lawyers in NYC) I've been gone for a while. But in an effort to keep this post regular regardless of how deep a rabbit hole of legalese I happen to have fallen into at any given time, I've enlisted some collaborators this year. Also because everyone wanted a piece of ripping the media. Come join us, won't you?

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I didn't know entirely what to expect when I headed to Madison Square Garden on Saturday night to see Kevin Durant and the OKC Thunder take on a Knick team that had just held a meet-and-greet about 24 hours before.  With a series of trade deadline deals earlier this week, the Knicks revamped their entire team with the primary goal of shedding salary to make a run at LeBron James in free agency next year.  Secondarily, they also managed to acquire a player in Tracy McGrady to at least temporarily satiate New York fans' vainglorious need for a superstar.  I perhaps underestimated this aspect of the NYC sport fan psyche when I thought that the ever-realistic Garden faithful might treat him for what he ultimately is: an expiring contract.  But it became apparent as I walked through the tunnel during pre-game introductions that this was misguided. 

McGrady was introduced in the coveted last spot and received an ovation so raucous that you might have been forgiven for craning your neck to see if Willis Reed was limping onto the court from the locker room.  The first time T-Mac touched the ball, the same thing happened.  His first basket--a layup 'and one' with a high degree of difficulty--the crowd exploded.  In the fourth quarter after an 8 minute absence from the game, a quiet "We want T-Mac" chant arose from behind the Knick bench and spread like wildfire to the entire arena.  Loudspeaker exhortations to scream "DE - FENSE" quickly morphed into "T - MAC."  When Mike D'Antoni finally sent McGrady to the scorer's table and onto the court, the Garden exploded and then abruptly and hilariously shifted into angry boos as the refs sent him back to the sideline to wait until the next clock stoppage to enter the game.

All of which is to say that this was supposed to be Tracy McGrady's night at MSG.  And in a way, it was.  He played very well, scoring 26 points in 32 minutes on 10-17 shooting.  And at this point, Knicks fans aren't particularly concerned with winning games; they just want a team they can cheer for.  They want excitement.  They want a superstar.

And they got one last night.  His name is Kevin Durant.

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"When I was in school I studied biology. I learned that in making their experiments scientists will take some group--bacteria, mice, people--and subject that group to certain conditions. They compare the results with a second group which has not been disturbed. This second group is called the control group. It is the control group which enables the scientist gauge the effect of his experiment. To judge the significance of what has occurred. In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was."  - All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy)

"Who knows what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."  - No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)

The Alabama Crimson Tide are the 2009 BCS National Champions.  They deserve no asterisk nor any second guessing of their credentials as champions.  They won according to the rules for winning and there is nothing else to be said on that front.  They are the champions and I congratulate them on winning every single game they played this year against some tough competition to accomplish that feat.

But to grant that they are the undisputed champions is quite different from granting that they proved anything of any consequence by beating Texas on Thursday.  I mean no disrespect to Alabama for what they have accomplished, but all that they proved was that they could score more points than a team playing without its star quarterback -- the unquestioned focal point of both the offensive system and the emotional psyche of this team -- and instead playing with an 18-year old backup quarterback who was so unprepared for even the idea that he might to have to play that, from the stands, it appeared as though he couldn't even find his helmet after Colt McCoy ran off the field on Texas' 5th play from scrimmage.  'Bama, of course, still had to win that game, and they deserve credit for doing so (even if their style of play in the second half did resemble the mid-90's Knicks), but to say that 'Bama proved they were a better team than Texas this season is folly.

Which is where we must take a step back and consider those above quotes from arguably America's greatest living writer and inarguably America's foremost purveyor of fatalistic melancholy.

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AW was at the Drum and might chime in with something more thorough later, but I'm currently in Texas on vacation and actually got to sit down and watch the game, so I thought I'd offer up some thoughts.

It's hard to take too many lessons from such a mismatched game, but there were a few developments.

First, Jai Lucas can flat-out shoot (5-7 from three), but isn't doing it in the flow of the offense very much.  Maybe it was just the opponent, but he jacked up a bunch of pull-up 3's and was good enough to make them.  That's great, but when he's not hot enough to hit those, will he pull back or will he turn into AJ Abrams?

Second, Mase had a decent game, 8 pts (4-9 shooting), 4 boards (2 offensive), 4 dimes and 2 steals.  He actually made some honest-to-god basketball moves too, which was great to see.  I remember a solid drive to the hoop for a layup, a thundering dunk off of a broken play and a beautiful little hop step into the lane with a mid-range jumper to finish.  It's a broken record to hope for a confidence improvement from Mason, but if he is going to be valuable to this team in any meaningful way, he HAS to provide something on offense.  He's got some moves, but he defers too much to the more talented players around him.  He just has to realize that 4 super-talented players are not better than 4 super-talented players plus a hardworking semi-talented player.  Get involved Mase!

Third, Jordan Hamilton played 11 minutes, took zero shots, and dished out 3 assists.  Against a high school team he could have dominated.  You think Rick maybe had a little talk with him after the last few games?  This is obviously the opposite extreme of what he was doing against UNC and MSU, and extremes are not what we need from Jordan.  We just need him to pick his spots to unleash his playmaking ability.  But this game was certainly a sign that Hamilton understands how he needs to change as a player to be good for this team.  He initially turned the shower faucet on super-hot and then overcompensated to super-cold in this game.  Now it's just a matter of him calibrating his play to that happy spot that gives you the perfect temperature.

And finally, we are indeed capable of hitting free throws.  This was a very lightly officiated game (which benefited Texas greatly as we are the more physical, athletic team), so not many free throws were taken, but DaMo went 8-8 from the line and Gary went 7-8.  The team as a whole shot 16-21, or 76%.  Solid effort.

The BCS standings just came out and, ooh looky there, Texas is now #2.  It's still early and I think the majority of us are largely unconcerned with the exact placement of Texas in the rankings because it seems pretty clear that Texas just has to win out and they'll be heading to Pasadena.  But for those of you still scared about Iowa, this should do quite a lot to alleviate those fears.  Why?  Take a look at the chart below:

Follow me through the jump for some analysis of the numbers.

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As most of you probably remember, last year I did a "Numbers Game" column that just devolved towards the end of the season into a BCS numbers analysis trying to figure out how Texas might be able to make the Big 12 Championship game and the National Championship game.  That was fun.  I thought I wouldn't have to do one of those again with the whole "win and you're in" mantra, but with everyone starting to worry about Iowa creeping up and dominating the computers, I thought I'd take a look at the numbers and the various scenarios and try to nip the widespread panic in the bud.  Click through the jump to get a painful reminder of last years heartbreak!

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