The Big O Theory

This article is about sports. Ladies, if you wanna ask Xmastime about other uses, see The Big O (disambiguation).

Bill Simmons aka "The Sports Guy" is the Father of The Ewing Theory. In short:

1. A star athlete receives an inordinate amount of media attention and fan interest, and yet his teams never win anything substantial with him (other than maybe some early-round playoff series).
2. That same athlete leaves his team (either by injury, trade, graduation, free agency or retirement) -- and both the media and fans immediately write off the team for the following season.

While looking at his list, it dawns on me that he's missing what I would think would be one of the bigger examples in college basketball: Cincinnatti after Oscar Robertson graduated.

The last two teams the Big O played on the Bearcats went to the Final Four, but never made it to the title game. Inexplicably, after losing what was prolly the best college player ever at that time and still in the Top 3 or so, the Bearcats not only went all the way and won it the next year - they did it again the year after that!! 2 straight titles after they got rid of the Big O, and BOTH in title games against Player of the Year Jerry Lucas. Wow.