Driving The Lane: Unpredictable

I would like to offer my sincerest congratulations to the men’s college basketball national champions. No, I’m not talking about Louisville — that’s old news. I mean the 2014 national champions: The Kentucky Wildcats. Oh, you haven’t heard? Kentucky is going to win it all next year. It’s not what you’d call official, but the four-letter network (ESPN) predicts them as the best team going into next year, so it’s guaranteed to happen.

It’s just like last year’s college football season. USC stormed to an undefeated regular season, and then rolled over the Alabama Crimson Tide in the national championship game. Matt Barkley drove off into the California sunset as both the Heisman trophy winner and undoubted number-one pick in the upcoming NFL Draft.

Oh wait, you’re telling me that didn’t happen? You’re telling me that USC went a dreadful 7-6 and 0-4 against the top 25? Matt Barkley now might not even go in the first round of the draft? That can’t be right. ESPN said the Trojans were the best team in the nation before the season. How could this have happened?

Maybe it’s more like the 2011 Major League Baseball season. The Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies seemed destined to meet up in the World Series, and indeed that’s what happened. Both teams stormed through their respective divisions, and no other teams could even put up a fight in the playoffs. Ah, yes, I remember that incredible seven-game World Series like it was yesterday.

Wait, that also didn’t happen? You’re telling me the Red Sox completely collapsed in September and didn’t even make the playoffs? You’re telling me the Phillies lost in the Divisional Round to the St. Louis Cardinals? I don’t understand: ESPN said the Sox and the Phillies were by far the best teams in the league going into the season.

Point is, it is preposterous for anyone to try to predict a season in any sport. Leave the predictions for the statistics people, like Nate Silver (and, well, me). And even he couldn’t predict the Super Bowl. Neither of his picks — the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks — were there in New Orleans.

Sports are the ultimate definition of unpredictability. Even the most complicated sabermetric statistics cannot predict what a guy is going to do with two outs in the ninth with runners on second and third in a tie ballgame.

It’s insulting to my intelligence for anyone to tell me who is going to win. The absolute worst is the pre-tournament shows that tell you how the March Madness bracket is going to play out. Those guys on ESPN have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. No one does. A lot of them can now say, “I told you so, I picked Louisville from the beginning.” Well congratu-freaking-lations, you picked the number-one overall seed. Thank you for your unparalleled expert insight.

ESPN does it all wrong. Leading up to the Super Bowl, it spends two weeks trying to predict what’s going to happen in the game. And then, they spend only two days going over what actually did happen. On the Wednesday after the Super Bowl, it’s hard to find anything about the game on Sports Center.

That’s absolutely backward from the way it should be. Instead of trying to tell me what’s going to happen, why don’t you show me what did happen? That’s what I’m actually interested in.

I want to hear what the difference was in a game from someone who actually played in the game. That’s the kind of insight ESPN can provide that the average fan wouldn’t pick up on. That’s how ESPN can actually make use of its numerous ‘experts.’