Even as Alabama, Mississippi State and Tennessee search for or hire new basketball coaches, Kentucky is marching toward what would become the first 40-0 season in NCAA history.
But first, the Wildcats must survive three more games in the wildest tournament in sports.
How big is an NCAA Tournament championship? And where does it belong in comparison with other big accomplishments in NCAA athletics?
We took a shot at ranking the Top 5.
5. WRESTLING WEIGHT-CLASS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
The only separator between wrestling and cross country (see below) is that there are weight classes in wrestling. Win an NCAA title in the sport and you don’t have to pin the entire country, one by one.
You do, however, have to outlast five other wrestlers who are the best in the nation at your particular weight class. In three days. That’s just at the NCAA championship meet, for which you have to qualify. If you want a decent seed, that usually means winning better than three-quarters of your matches during the season.
And is there any more brutal training element in NCAA sports than cutting weight before a big wrestling match? Football has sparked a discussion about protecting the health of college athletes, and clearly long-term brain damage is a completely different animal than temporary dehydration and starvation. But losing double-digit pounds in just a day or two before a big match is very unhealthy as well.
Three collegiate wrestlers died in a span of 33 days in 1997, each trying to “cut weight.” Major rules changes followed, and some of the horror stories no longer are part of the sport. But you try grappling with some of the strongest, slipperiest athletes in the country after starving yourself for a few days.
4. INDIVIDUAL CROSS COUNTRY NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Imagine that we took all the football players in the country and put them all at the same position. Oh, and we put them all on the same giant field at once, and only a single one of them could win based on how well they executed that specific position.
Although, like wrestling, cross country is a “team” sport — the five best finishers from every school form a composite score based on their race place — it’s the most brutal of individual sports as well. There are no time outs and no halftime. once the gun starts, it’s just first to the finish wins.
In 2014, that meant running a 10k, or 6.2 miles, in 30 minutes, 19 seconds for Oregon’s Edward Cheserek. Which, by the way, is 4 minutes, 53 seconds per mile. Again, for more than six miles. (Think the women’s race is any easier? Kate Avery won, running a 6K at 5 minutes, 15 seconds per mile.)
Oh, and did we mention the Kenyans? There are foreign athletes participating in every NCAA sport, but this would sort of be like if European universities launched an American football league and offered scholarships to droves of U.S. athletes. Kenyan runners are more dominant at distance running than Brazil is in soccer. The degree of difficulty is high.
3. HEISMAN TROPHY
Is there a sexier, more prestigious individual honor in American sports?
Maybe the MLB or NBA MVP has an argument?
Either way, it’s a very, very difficult achievement. First, you must play quarterback. Running backs and receivers have a chance, but it’s more like buying a lottery ticket. Generally, you must play on a team that’s competing for a championship, either within your conference or nationally. Then you must put up huge numbers, all the while managing your image and getting enough media attention.
It’s sort of like a bizarre TV cook-off, one of those where sometimes all of the ingredients aren’t available to the most talented chefs. Producing a Heisman-winning dish of a season involves a combination of skill, luck and timing. The latter two elements make it one of the hardest accomplishments to achieve in college sports.
2. MEN’S NCAA TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONSHIP
This isn’t a sexist thing. In the women’s field, there are only 10 teams or so each year with a legitimate chance of reaching the title game.
But the men’s NCAA Tournament? It’s the most grueling, difficult postseason in all of college sports, no offense to the football playoffs in the sub-levels (FCS and below). Teams have to win six, sometimes seven games now. It’s a three-week basket-brawl.
Outside of the 1 vs. 16 matchups, there are no guarantees. Any team can beat any other team. It’s how Warren Buffet was able to offer one billion dollars in 2014 to anyone who filled out a perfect bracket.
So far, Kentucky has made a UConn women’s team-like run through this year’s tournament, destroying West Virginia, 78-39, in the Sweet 16. If the Wildcats win out and finish the season as an undefeated national champion, don’t forget just how difficult it is to accomplish that feat.
Since the field expanded to 64 in 1985, just four of 30 teams ranked No. 1 in the final Associated Press poll have won the tournament.
1. COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF CHAMPIONSHIP
There was a time when you could get your uncle’s corporation to vote you No. 1 after the season and be able to claim a national championship, even if your team ranked well below No. 1 in the Associated Press poll that year.
Not any longer.
Just getting into the four-team College Football Playoff is not easy, as TCU and Baylor found out after the ’14 season. Then you’ve got to win two neutral-site games against the best teams in the country.
Granted, FBS football players don’t go through a four-game preseason or the possibility of four playoff games, like NFL teams. But the college season now can last up to 15 games, just one shy of the NFL regular season. In a collision sport, that’s brutal for some kids that are still teenagers.
Despite all the buzz about how injury risks and neurological complications from concussions could discourage people from playing football, crystalized by Chris Borland’s recent retirement from the San Francisco 49ers, the sport is as healthy as ever.
About 165,000 people played high school football last season in Texas alone, whereas there can’t be 165,000 high school fencers or field hockey participants in the entire country. Even second-tier football programs are spending tens of millions of dollars on new facilities and stadium renovations every few years now. Overcoming the masses to play a meaningful role on a college football championship team is impressive.
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
