The Most Meaningless Game Ever Played?

Excuse me while I get off topic from WVU for a moment, but in this Big East conference tonight was probably one of the strangest set of circumstances involving a basketball game in a long time.

Basketball is all about competing, and the spirit of competition between schools. And in that sense, every game is worth its merit on competitiveness alone. However, one of the great things about basketball is that the season is never truly over until you lose out in the tournament. We go to conference tournament time, March madness, and even the worst team in the worst conference has a chance to get on a hot streak in the conference tournament to make the Big Dance, then run through a gauntlet to the national championship. It is at least a possibility for every team out there, and therefore every team has something to play for.

Unless it is tonight and you are Rutgers and South Florida playing at the R.A.C. in Piscataway. Not only are the chances of these teams to get an at-large bid nill, entering tonight’s game with records of 10-19 and 11-17 respectively. Even worse, these teams had won a combined 4 Big East games. And in the Big East system where only the top twelve teams make the tournament, both teams have been mathematically eliminated from making the conference tournament.

The only way Rutgers and South Florida will see Madison Square Garden is if they buy a ticket

So two teams face off that have no postseason hope or future whatsoever. They can’t even take solstice in being the spoiler and dashing the other team’s hope. It is an utterly meaningless game to the highest degree possible in college basketball. So outside the lights of March madness, bracketology, improving conference seeding, or any of the other factors that went into the dozens of other games today, South Florida defeated Rutgers, 54-52. And now the Bulls have the dubious honor of not being recorded in last place in the Big East standings when they go into the books. But both teams have very little to look forward to, past next weekend. At least until next year.

And so it struck me as perhaps the most meaningless game that will be played in college basketball this season. And given the special structure of the Big East tournament, maybe the most meaningless game in the history of college basketball.

48 Hours until PITT!

By the way, WVU’s men lost on the road to UConn, 79-71. Joe Alexander scored a lot of points. The women’s team celebrated Senior Day at the Coliseum with a 78-70 victory over Louisville, locking up third place in the Big East.