Links for 2012-03-14

There are so many things you can count on every year that the tournament has lost almost all of its renegade charm. It's a product now. As such, it is required to be safe and reliable, the way we want all our products to be. You make peace with that, or you find another event to love. I choose to stick with this one. Therefore, here are five predictions of what will ensue over the next month. I present them, as always, For Entertainment Purposes Only.

All weekend, there was about the tournament the slightly musty smell of encroaching obsolescence. There was a time, and not so long ago, when the Big East was a spotlit thing, playing its tournament in New York, its original membership constructed from schools with long basketball traditions and large eastern media markets. It made stars, like Pearl Washington at Syracuse, and it made people like Patrick Ewing who already were stars into superstars. This year, its championship game was a contest between two teams from the Ohio River basin. And the game itself was a rock fight. Cincinnati scored 14 points in the first half and, while Madison Square Garden was properly filled, the whole atmosphere felt like someone had lifted a Midwest state high school championship game and dropped it into an NBA arena. It was a stone dropped down a deep well.

Let me share two important secrets with you. 1.) There is no amount of control you can take away from a bad teacher that will turn them into a good teacher. 2.) There is nothing worse you can do to a good teacher than take away their autonomy as to how and what they teach to their students in their classrooms. That's it. We've all had experiences of good and bad teachers that have been seared into our memories, but all of my best experiences would never have happened if my education was as micromanaged as many classrooms are today.