The True Meaning of “Underdog” in the NCAA Tournament

by Jason Planer

Underdog. An interesting concept made more interesting when things such as race, means and opportunity are thrown into the mix.  Tonight’s Cornell vs. Kentucky game is a perfect example of this and truly a fascinating contest on many levels.  I’d like to take a minute and explore what makes an underdog, why we psychologically are drawn to the underdog, and what goes into whom we root for.

America Loves the Underdog, but who was the real underdog last night i Cornell versus Kentucky?

First let’s take a look at each contender.  Cornell is a smaller basketball school yet known for turning kids with millionaire parents into multi-millionaires themselves.  Kentucky, on the other hand, is a powerhouse of SEC basketball, a perennial top seed in the tourney, and most likely three of its starting five will be top ten NBA picks (Cousins, Wall, etc.).  So you could make a case for each being an underdog, depending on how you look at it: underdog in sports versus underdog in life.  This is the classic David versus Goliath view.

But invariably that leads to the question, who is David and who is Goliath.  On the surface it’s easy.  Cornell is the obvious underdog with big bad KY cast in the role of Goliath. Yet instead of a slingshot, Cornell uses the silver spoon under its tongue.  Most of the Cornell team will go on to have successful careers in many other fields besides sports.  Most of the Kentucky team, sans the NBA, would not have those same choices available to them if not for athletics.  I’m not making a value judgment here or even saying which I think is the better way to make a living.  In fact, I’m probably writing about sports mainly because I was not good enough to play them past high school.  All I’m saying is that you can look at Kentucky as “doing what they’re supposed to do” more then as some over-hyped monstrous antagonist needing to be deposed.  This is further evidenced by the age breakdown.  Cornell is made up of juniors and seniors while Kentucky fielded a largely freshman team.  Let’s face it, most players that commit to Kentucky are too good to still be playing college ball by the time they’re approaching graduation.  I heard a very good point yesterday afternoon via ESPN radio’s Michael Kay show.  I forgot which host said it, but the gist was that the Cornell team only stood a chance BECAUSE the Kentucky team was all freshmen.  A senior John Wall would probably handle the Cornell bunch one on five!  All jesting aside, if you took the same Kentucky team and aged them to 20-21 years of age, the game would not have been as close as it was. It wasn’t very close.

So who then does America root for?  The rich white kids, or the black kids who need sports?  Is this a Rocky vs. Apollo fight?  Would white America root differently then black America?  Do people even consider race anymore? (think Hoosiers).  I’m not trying to make this about race but just want to bring all the potential pitfalls and snags into the light.

I asked these questions to some friends and the answers were astounding. To a fault, all the people I polled, (admittedly mainly white males aged 30-35)[1] were rooting for Cornell, even when doing so went against their brackets!  The underlying theme of their responses all centered around choosing to root for Cornell and not Kentucky because:

“I will not root for a team that show boats and plays like the NBA thugs.”

Another friend, who attended Iona (a school similar to Cornell) had this to say:

Cornell is a true underdog because they are not a scholarship school.  They don’t give out athletic scholarships so these kids blowing out the teams in their first two games is somewhat embarrassing to the NCAA when they can’t even get kids to stay in school.  Part of me feels that the NCAA is rooting against Cornell because if a non-scholarship school makes it any further, these programs and their “recruiting ways” look even worse than they already do in the public eye.

I also found it interesting that everyone who answered my poll felt that race was not an issue at all, other then how it influenced a teams’ style of play.  The same friend said:

I don’t think race has anything to do with it other than the type of game the teams play.  Kentucky plays a much more freeform game with less organization and discipline while Cornell is running plays and sticking to the plan the coach has for them.

A third interviewee gave the following comments, which I think best encapsulate the overall feel of the responses:

I am totally rooting for Cornell, because they offer what college basketball used to be…skilled seniors and juniors playing team ball….

…Ah, the race angle is overplayed….good basketball is good basketball…smart players play to their strengths, be it their athleticism or defense or system they play…..plus, it’s freakin’ Kentucky (arguably the most decorated basketball program of all time), versus ivy-league Cornell.

Unfortunately, as fascinating as this dynamic is, it was somewhat overshadowed by a lackluster game.  After opening with a 10-2 run, Cornell looked…well like Cornell and Kentucky looked… well like Kentucky.  To further illustrate the talent differential, J-Wall only had 8 pts and KY still dominated once they got going.  Imagine if Wall had his typical game.

In summary, my honest assessment is that America is rooting for Cornell but not because the kids are the underdog but because the school is!  They’re rooting for the Cornells of the world to beat the Kentuckys, with no particular allegiance or attachments to the players themselves. It seems that people are tired of collegiate sports and the NCAA being run more like big business (which it is), then centers of higher-learning and development.  They find it easier to root for kids from a smaller, non-funded school where the true “student-athlete” still resides.