By Chris Marler
Arguing hypotheticals is a lot like seeing someone who spells shop like “shoppe” or grill like “grille.”
It’s stupid.
And much like trying to make your shop sound fancier by adding unnecessary letters to the word, arguing hypothetical situations is pretty pointless. We get it Brenda, your SHOP sells flowers, but they’re really fancy and nice flowers. It’s still just a “shop.”
I, personally, don’t love to argue a lot of hypotheticals with people because it gets you nowhere. However, in this instance I will set aside that moral conviction, and time saving tool, and try my hand at it.
Imagine this for a minute.
An SEC Athletic Director was the chairperson on the NCAA Tournament selection committee. Now, imagine that their school was on the bubble and had done nothing to deserve a spot in the field of 68, outside of the program riding its own coattails from previous success. Now, imagine that same team finished 2-10 against other tournament teams and 1-11 against Quad 1 teams.
Imagine all those factors being involved and just for good measure the AD presiding over the entire selection committee also got a $68,000 bonus if his team got in the tournament.
Can’t make this up.
UNC AD Bubba Cunningham — and selection committee chair — is set to receive a $68,000 bonus for the Tar Heels’ entry into the NCAA Tournament: https://t.co/6A0KCnAYoj pic.twitter.com/OBwwXCpf3M
— Brad Crawford (@BCrawford247) March 18, 2025
Surprise! They did. Everything I just described is the story of this year’s North Carolina Tar Heel basketball team.
North Carolina has been a bubble team for weeks, according to everyone around the sport. Then, to the shock and surprise of, well, literally everyone, they slipped into the tournament on selection Sunday.
Actually, let me rephrase—almost everyone.
You see, the UNC AD Bubba Cunningham also happens to be the NCAA Tournament selection committee chairman. Don’t worry though, he wasn’t in the room when the committee made the decision on UNC. We know that because he told us. And how could we not trust a Power Four AD moonlighting as the tournament committee chair—especially when his school’s bid comes with a $68,000 bonus?
Totally normal. Nothing to see here.
So, like I said, I don’t like arguing hypotheticals.
That being said, I have never been more sure of anything in my life than when I say if THAT had happened with an SEC school, Danny Kanell would have taken a calligraphy course to make sure a letter to his senator was as loud as possible. The tweets from the anti-SEC crowd would have broken Elon’s app.
Genuinely, and all jokes aside, the validity of the process would have been called into question and marred moving forward.
I am 38-years-old. I have been covering SEC sports for nearly a decade. For years, both personally and professionally, I’ve watched fans, coaches, and national media take aim at the SEC with misguided angst and baseless claims about its dominance.
I always compare it to this: I hate the Yankees. I get it. Growing up in Atlanta in the ’90s and being a lifelong Red Sox fan due to family ties, my dislike runs deep—geographically, historically, and, most of all, emotionally. I was simply tired of seeing them win.
Regardless, never in my life have I seen something with the optics of this kind of potential corruption. This is so far beyond the lame low hanging fruit cliches of “Bama gets all the calls” or “ESPN is just making sure the SEC gets more teams.”
This is real, tangible bull****.
