College-basketball fanatics in Utah can rejoice: The Utah Utes, BYU Cougars and Utah State Aggies all got into the NCAA Tournament.

• The Utes, seeded No. 5 in the Midwest regional, will face Arizona in the first round, Friday in Miami.
• The Cougars, a No. 8 seed, will play Texas A&M on Thursday in the West bracket in Philadelphia.
• The Aggies, a No. 11 seed, will play Marquette (they're from Wisconsin) in the the West bracket Friday in Boise.

If nothing else, all his proves that the NCAA - which puts Miami in the Midwest and Philadelphia in the West - needs to offer a remedial course in geography.

Meanwhile, every office worker today is hitting the sports websites so they can bone up on the teams before filling out their brackets. (By the way, both Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps on ESPN predicted Sunday that Arizona would upset the Utes - something for Utes coach Jim Boylan to post on the locker-room bulletin board.)

But the real match-up worth speculating over is this: How will Big Blue, the Utah State's large bull-headed mascot, do facing Marquette's Golden Eagle (pictured) - especially after Blue's now-infamous throwdown with "Pistol Pete" from New Mexico State at the WAC tourney.

Labels: Brigham Young University, University of Utah, Utah State University

Sixteen sportswriters across America rebelled against groupthink and East Coast bias, picking pick the undefeated University of Utah Utes No. 1 in the final AP college-football poll.

It wasn't enough to unseat the team that topped the poll, the Florida Gators - who got 48 first-place votes and won Thursday night's BCS Championship Game 24-14 over the Oklahoma Sooners.

If ever there was a game that showed the deficiencies of the BCS system, it was the Florida/Oklahoma game. Both teams played sloppy on Thursday night, giving the ball away and tearing up the middle of the field. These supposed powerhouses couldn't muster more than a touchdown each in the first half. And when Florida can only eke out a 10-point win late in the fourth quarter in what is essentially a home game, who can convincingly argue they are the best team in the nation?

Watching Thursday night's game, one thing was clear: The Utes that pulverized Alabama could have taken either Florida or Oklahoma. Too bad the big bad BCS is too cowardly to put their pampered teams to the test.

Labels: football, University of Utah

It's not often you can use the words "cool" and "marching band" in the same sentence (and before you start flaming me in the comments section, know that in high school I was a choir geek - which, on the social ladder, is a rung below band geek).

But the idea of the University of Utah's marching band going to Washington, D.C., later this month to play in Barack Obama's inaugural parade is pretty darn cool.

The only problem is, of course, money: The band doesn't have any, and the university is looking for alumni and the community to donate the $150,000 needed to send the band to D.C.

"It is not cheap to send 128 members of a band across the country," Fred Esplin, the U. vice president for institutional advancement, told the Tribune's Brian Maffly. "All the hotels in D.C. are filled. You would have to stay in Baltimore or Philadelphia."

For those wanting to donate to the travel fund, the U. has a web site to help you.

Labels: Barack Obama, University of Utah

In my Vulture column, in today's dead-tree Tribune, I join the chorus of voices - alongside the Tribune's editorial board - decrying the rigged roulette wheel that is the Bowl Championship Series that determines the so-called "national champion" in college football.

It is a system organized by the big college conferences - the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, ACC and Big East - to prop up their schools at the expense of smaller conferences without the clout or money to join the good-ol'-boys club. It is a system that slights an undefeated team, like the University of Utah Utes, because it doesn't get the media spotlight from the East Coast sports establishment. And it is a system that props up antiquated bowl games, to line the pockets of old men in blazers.

If our president were selected by the BCS system, the media pundits would have put Hillary Clinton against Mitt Romney in the general election - no matter how many primaries and caucuses Barack Obama or John McCain had won.

Or, for another analogy, Dan Shanoff of SportingNews.com compares the BCS to the Oscars: "What is the 'Best Picture' in any given year? Like college football, there is a lot of debate -- and it's not like there is a tournament to pit them against each other. ... But we have the Oscars, which is/was the standard. But then the foreign press wanted to have their influence, so they created the Golden Globes. Then the actors wanted a say, so they created the SAGs. And each regional film critics' association created their own."

Meanwhile, The Washington Post's esteemed sportswriter John Feinstein is urging AP sports writers who vote in the post-season poll to engage in a form of civil disobedience: To vote for the Utes for No. 1.

After touting the Utes' undefeated record and the weakness in some of the BCS conferences, Feinstein expresses the main reason to vote for Utah:

The reason to vote for Utah is simple: This is the one and only way you can stand up to the BCS bullies -- the university presidents, commissioners, athletic directors and the TV networks who enable them -- and, to renew a catch phrase, just say no. Say no to this horrible, hypocritical, feed-the-big-boys system. Say no to the idea that fair competition doesn't matter. Say no to all the hype surrounding the power conferences and power teams. To co-opt yet another catch phrase, say yes to change.

Labels: sports, University of Utah

So, once again an undefeated, nationally ranked team is knocking on the door of the good-ol'-boys that determine college football's championship - and, again, the door is kept shut.

The 12-0 University of Utah's Utes - ranked No. 6 in the current BCS standings - will get to play one of the big-league teams in a major bowl game. (Probably the Sugar Bowl or the Fiesta Bowl, according to the Salt Lake Tribune's Lya Wodraska.) But a chance to play for the championship? Not gonna happen.

The insanity of this system - propped up by the big-money conferences for their own benefit, using polls and computers determine who's on top instead of actions on the field - has gone on too long. Heck, even President-Elect Barack Obama has weighed in on it, and now members of Congress are raising a stink.

An eight-team playoff is the only fair way to determine a champion. Then we can argue about which eight teams make the cut.

Labels: Barack Obama, sports, University of Utah