Now I’m not one who usually engages in the rhetoric of name-calling, but John Kaltefleiter of the Athens Banner-Herald is a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and the kind of guy who would sleep with your wife. He has betrayed his hometown interests – the University of Georgia men’s basketball team – and voted the hated University of Florida as the number one squad in all the land.
His defection away from the majority is striking since he’s the only writer who didn’t vote for Duke University in the top spot. I’m no Duke fan, but I would walk over hot coals to avoid ever recognizing the achievement of Gators or the Pat Riley wannabe Billy Donovan.
That said, here is the rationalization of Mr. Benedict Kaltefleiter:
“There is no big man running the floor right now as well as Joakim Noah, and Lee Humphrey can shoot. He may not be (Duke’s) J.J. Redick but he can shoot,” Kaltefleiter said. “This may be one of Billy Donovan’s closest-knit teams as far as chemistry and I think Duke will lose before they do. Florida was very, very impressive. I thought there would be more people who would switch. I was surprised I was the only one.”
So because Florida plays in a weaker conference (Alabama and Kentucky are both having down years) and Duke will lose first (hypothetically since neither team has lost yet), that’s a reason to give them a first place vote? Props to Florida for going undefeated thus far (big wins against Syracuse and Wake Forest early on) but I don’t think they’re the number one team in the nation. I think Duke, UConn, Texas and Illinois are all stronger teams at this point in the year. Plus, if you want to use the undefeated logic, what about a team like Pitt?
In any event, this kind of voting would be OK if it happened in Gainesville but not in Athens. Here’s hoping Mr. Kaltefleiter is catching Hell in the Letters to the Editor this week.
Go Dawgs!
Dude, you have it totally wrong. You are blinded by hate for your rival, and it’s making you turn against your conference!
The rules for college basketball dictate that you root for your your team first, then you root for other teams in your conference as long as they’re not playing your team, then you root for the underdog playing against any team ranked above your team or your conference’s teams.
The goal is to have the strongest conference so that when the selection committee makes its choices, your team looks better, no matter what their record is. Also, you want every team in your conference to be ranked as high as possible, so you get extra credit for beating their butts! For example, my alma mater just beat the #5 team tonight, and I was grateful Illinois got that high before we took them down.
In closing, YOU are betraying your school by putting down your conference and asking that your conference foes get ranked lower by the media. If you have your way, you’d create a situation where a .500 Georgia team would have little chance of making the tourney because of a down year for the SEC. That’s not the way you should be thinking. Bite the bullet and root for the enemy until you play them. Let them be ranked number one, even by your own hometown pundits, so that you can upset them and look like giant killers! Applaud them before and after you play them, as any kudos they receive will only make you look better, in victory OR defeat.
I forgive your misdirected wrath, though. After all, you come from a football school, where the thinking is much different. But as someone who comes from a basketball school (I like to pretend we didn’t even have a football team), I’ll work with you on this. In my opinion, your reporter is doing precisely what he should do: building up your conference, even at the cost of rooting for the hated gators. It probably hurts him as much as it’s hurting you. 🙂