2021 Macadoodle's Mailbag: 5th Edition

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GD: They aren't really similar situations at all. First of all, there are far fewer schools that play FBS football. By simple math, virtually every team that has a winning record makes a bowl game every year. So going into this year when some teams weren't playing, they were either going to have to allow teams with losing records in or they were going to have to drastically cut the number of bowl games. You have to remember when that decision was made, nearly half the teams in FBS weren't going to play in the fall. So even if every team in the country was allowed to play in a bowl game, there may not have been enough teams to fill all the bowl games. It would be the equivalent of 275 of the 350 Division One teams not playing basketball. Of course, in that case, there would be teams with losing records.

Second, teams playing in bowl games aren't playing for a championship. Only four teams in college football are playing for a championship. The rest--even the ones in bowl games--are playing in the equivalent of the NIT or the CBI or whatever other post-season events may exist in normal years. The Peach Bowl doesn't really matter, the Diamond Walnut Bowl (may not exist anymore) doesn't matter. Yes, you get a trophy, but you don't get THE trophy. Sure, the team that wins the NIT puts it in the media guide and may even hang a banner, but everybody knows that being able to say "We're Number 69" doesn't matter in any way except to the grown men who never totally left junior high and will giggle at it and tweet "NICE" and giggle to themselves.

So, in short, yes, Kentucky is going to miss the NCAA Tournament unless it either wins pretty much every game the rest of the year or wins the SEC Tournament. There are plenty of teams who have played at least 13 games (the threshold that was set at the beginning of the season) and will be eligible for the NCAA Tournament. The only teams that are in with a losing record will be in because they won their conference tournament.

GD: In Norm's last season, I was one year out of college working in TV in Rapid City, South Dakota. So I can't say that I really know. I never asked any of them. The general impression I get is that everyone recognizes Norm as a very good basketball coach who built a program that didn't really exist before he got there. The crazy thing is that there is now a generation of coaches (and fans and media and more) who probably know Norm as much or more for founding Coaches vs Cancer as they know him for being a great coach in his own right. I'd say the general opinion of Norm is that he is a Hall of Famer, but he's not in that special wing of the Hall of Fame reserved for the truly elite. Unfortunately, he's in the wing with Gene Keady and probably a few others reserved for the best coaches who never made a Final FOur.