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Morning Brew: Kansas is the only No. 1

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By Alex Beecher

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

When television cameras pan by Allen Fieldhouse’s student section tonight, they will inevitably document a bevy of fans, mouths agape and pointer fingers outstretched, declaring the Jayhawks number one. Which, although the act is hardly an unfamiliar one, is actually appropriate in this case. Kansas is, after all, No. 1.

But what about those other venues, other teams, and other fans? Surely, when Michigan State takes the court, the Spartan faithful will hoarsely shout claims of their teams’ supremacy, all while making that universally understood one-fingered gesture (no, not that one). Surely they know that Michigan State is, in fact, number two. Right?

And what about the rest of the nation? What’s to stop fans from North Carolina, Kentucky or Texas from laying claim to the throne that rightfully sits in Lawrence? Not a thing.

And it gets worse. Much worse. You see, however fraudulent, those teams mentioned above at least can offer a reasonable case for No. 1 consideration.

But those teams’ fans won’t be the only ones making such a claim. Across the nation, in every venue on every campus, every fan base will do the same. In some ill-lit high school gym, a student section of 12 will assert its beloved Northern Wyoming A&M Fighting Trout as No. 1. Which is precisely the problem. Not that the Fighting Trout are No. 1 — clearly, they aren’t even as good as the Western Oregon Tech Wonder Weasels — but that anyone can lay claim to said title. When such declarations are so arbitrary, they become quite meaningless, not to mention confusing.

Imagine, for a moment, that an alien crash-lands on Earth. It’s stranded until its craft can be repaired, and the on-board space T.V. only picks up college basketball. How is it going to know which team is really No. 1? Oh sure, it could wait until the end of the season. And there are those supposedly unbiased polls as well. But the most omnipresent indicator of a team’s status is its fans. And when all those fans provide information that is consistently contradictory, the alien is going to get angry. It might even get angry enough to obliterate Earth. Who knows?

So, in order to stave off species-wide eradication, this problem needs to be fixed. The most obvious means to this end would be forbidding any fan base whose team is not recognized by the polls as No. 1 from declaring as much. Unfortunately, the NCAA hasn’t found a way to make that illegal — yet.

With the logical option out, the best choice is to go in the opposite direction: Kansas fans should not hold up their fingers and shout “No. 1, woooo!” into television cameras. In so doing, they will differentiate Kansas, the rightful No. 1, from the rest of college basketball. And they might even save the world.

— — Edited by Amanda Thompson

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