Columnist Dean Juipe: Added game shows more can be less

Is having two kids better than having one? Is having three better than having two? Is having 15 better than having 10?

At some point, more isn't always merrier. More money, that's merrier. More potato chips and less air in the package, now that would be merrier.

But in many other cases more doesn't always equate with better. Having one kid can be more than enough. One bleeding ulcer is one too many. One person writing in to say how worthless your sports column has become is backlash aplenty, thank you very much.

Who needs more when it only leads to aggravation, grief, worry or overkill?

Who needs the UNLV basketball team using the NCAA's permission to schedule an extra game next season and then discovering that the likely opponent in this bonus game is Missouri-Kansas City? (Yes, this is the same Missouri-Kansas City that presently is 6-21 and near the bottom of some obscure league in the hinterlands.)

Get your wallet handy because it looks like this game is going to happen. The NCAA is granting every basketball team an extra game, and UNLV is (mis)using its as a glorified practice -- except it is going to charge admission.

While UNLV could have played UMass, Kentucky or Duke, it chose instead to lessen the attractiveness of its schedule by bringing in some pitiful team like Missouri-Kansas City just to prove it places a greater value on a victory than on its fans' wishes.

No, mo' isn't always better.

The NCAA is also moving toward a 12-game football schedule on a more-years-than-not basis, but is this something we really need? Isn't 11 games sufficient for determining league champions and bowl representatives? If UNLV would have had a 12th game last season, what would have been gained by seeing the Rebels go 0-12 instead of 0-11?

Of course 11 games in a season is enough, but by adding a 12th it gives every school another payday. And 10 years from now they'll add a 13th game and a 14th another few years after that if they can find a novel way to stretch the fall into the summer and/or winter.

Have you noticed how people around the country have forgotten the NBA lockout and now seem enamored with this season's compacted 50-game schedule? In previous years each team played 82 games and they will again in the years to come, but this year -- due to the time lost to labor strife -- they're playing 50 and the games are exciting because by having fewer of them they've taken on greater significance.

There's a lesson there, although it's one that will never be learned. The horse, as they say, is out of the barn and there isn't a league in existence that's going to trim its schedule for the common good.

But there is also one league that could expand its schedule and more would be merrier. It's the National Football League and what it ought to do -- and someday probably will -- is halve its exhibition schedule and, instead, have every team add two games to its regular-season schedule. Instead of four exhibitions and 16 regular-season games, each team would play two exhibitions and 18 that actually count.

In that case, it's addition by subtraction and it would be welcomed.

But an extra UNLV basketball game with Missouri-Kansas City? That's like upping the price for a bag of chips to $1.99 without doing more than putting an exclamation point after the warning on how shrinkage may occur after packaging and shipping.

archive