An open letter to the NCAA

To whom it may concern,\nGreetings from lovely Bloomington. Now, I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I truly believe that you, the fine people at the NCAA, have something against our fine soccer team here at IU. You can throw phrases like "competitive balance" and "a variety of factors determine these sites" at me, but I'm not buying it. I know that the only factors you care about are money, exposure and money. And once I lay down the following facts, I believe that even the NCAA (whoops, that's you) will see the pattern of bias that has been shown against the Hoosiers by your selection committee during the past two weeks.\n1) When you stress the importance of regional matchups in the first round, you choose to send IU out west. Granted, our finish at the end of the regular season might not have warranted a home game, and I can accept that. But did you really believe that IU was a bad enough team to have to face a seeded team? The nation's only undefeated team, nonetheless! Maybe you wanted to show the nation that San Jose State was a bunch of frauds, and that we were the team to do it. For some reason, I highly doubt that.\n2) OK, so we destroy San Jose State. You reward us by sending us out west once again to face Washington. Why send us west when the teams have basically equal records and IU showed complete dominance in the first round and Washington squeaked by UAB in four overtimes? Why not have the game at Bill Armstrong Stadium, where the average attendance this year was more than 2,000, instead of at Washington, where all they could muster for a tournament game was 1,800? Then again, why did you choose to match us against a team that would be hell-bent on revenge after we sent them home for good in the same round the year before?\n3) Heaven forbid we make it to the third round, but we have. So you pit us against North Carolina, the top seed in the tournament. If the first two haven't finished us off, certainly the Tar Heels would, right? Now that UNC has made it through the cakewalk you called their first two rounds, they can execute "plan C" in the grand scheme of wiping out the Hoosiers.\n4) I must give you credit for one thing -- last year's College Cup in Charlotte, N.C., was perfect, with the exception of dismal attendance. What better way to ensure an attendance boost than to have as many teams from the Southeast as possible? And you don't have to hide it guys, because you already showed your hand by giving Virginia, who finished the season 14-5-1, the 7th seed in the tournament. What, with your perfect spacing of teams from the Carolinas and the ACC in this year's bracket, you've got two of those teams in the quarterfinals, with a chance of Clemson making it as well -- a job well done! \nI must admit your plan was absolutely brilliant. I mean, who wants to see an IU team that's not coached by a man who doesn't throw chairs and tantrums? Why not give some other team a chance at the title? After all, shouldn't some other team have a chance at winning it since we've taken the last two? Unfortunately for you, there's one problem with your plan -- the Hoosiers aren't cooperating.\nWith all of their traveling during the past week, the Hoosiers have easily racked up enough frequent flyer miles to make the trip to Chapel Hill, N.C., next weekend ... and Charlotte the weekend after that. We know that doesn't fit into your grand scheme of a perfect College Cup, but I think you'll find that the Hoosiers will be a perfect fit. Why not feature a team that has fought its way through a simply hellacious draw, travelling more than 10,000 miles in the process? I think a team that is chasing its third consecutive title with a legendary coach is a heck of a story, even if you do not.\nMaybe this letter is all wrong. Maybe a man on the grassy knoll is responsible for the Hoosiers' crappy draw. Maybe there are structural problems with Bill Armstrong Stadium that I don't know about, preventing us from hosting a tournament game. All I know is that I simply can't wait to ask you all about it ... in Charlotte.