Kevin Love's "future" according to ESPN

An ESPN (sports network) group recently made predictions on which teams will fare best in the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) basketball tournament being conducted this third week of March, 2008, in what has been called "March Madness." As winter begins to thaw, the most ardent of basketball fans become extremely animated. Although experts act with even-handed detachment, in their enthusiasm they can botch the arrangement of their verb tenses when more than one action occurs in one sentence. One such expert on an ESPN television broadcast boldly stated:

"If UCLA wins the NCAA championship, which I predicted they would, Kevin Love will be a big factor." Another way of saying the first part could be: "If UCLA will win the NCAA championship..." in which the verb is in the simple future tense. Either way, the expert was in safe verb territory until he came to the third clause.

The expert should have said: "If UCLA wins the NCAA championship, which I predicted they would, Kevin Love will have been a big factor."

First, Kevin Love proved out as a "big factor" in the prediction of UCLA's achievement, then, because of Love's predicted achievement, UCLA emerges the champion.

The action that occurs first is put in the future perfect (or future perfect passive as is here the case).

"sequence of tenses" indicates "the logical relationship of time as expressed by tense to other words, especially to other verbs, in an expression. (Harper's English Grammar). Another way of looking at tense sequence is to understand the relationship of two clauses working with one another to establish some relationship in a sequence of time: "The dependence of the tense of a subordinate verb on the tense of the verb in the main clause." (The Concise Oxford Dictionary). The main clause states that UCLA wins (will win) "depending upon" Kevin Love first playing a large role in the rounds of the tournament leading up to and including the championship game.

Sequence counts both on the court and in grammatical syntax.

Reggie Miller Suffers from Short Term Memory Loss

While he knew his way around the basketball court, Reggie Miller, the great former UCLA Bruin and Indiana Pacer basketball star recently got lost in the world of verb tenses, at least sequencing them properly when more than one action takes place in the past, even if it is the recent past.

Sitting court side with all players in full view Miller was able to appraise the abilities of UCLA's Kevin Love and Darren Collison in a recent game against Washington State University's hoopsters. Oops, or was he present? He seemed confused when later questioned by journalists about his appraisal of Kevin Love:

"I haven't seen him up close...he's got the size and athletic ability to be a very good NBA player" (Los Angeles Times, 1/13/2007). Wait a minute, Reggie, how could you know "he's got the size and athletic ability to be a very good NBA player" if you "haven't seen him"?

Miller used the present perfect tense have seen, (although put in the negative: haven't seen). Two past actions had occurred when Miller made his statement: first: Miller arrived to the court, second: he observed and evaluated a few of UCLA's team members.

The rule for the proper sequencing of these two past actions goes: When two actions occur in the past, the action occurring first is put in the pluperfect tense (also called past perfect indicative), and the action occurring after is put into the definite past (normal past tense).

Miller should have said, I hadn't seen him up close until I arrived for this game, or something similar. First he arrived for the game, then he observed and evaluated the players. Elliptically, he need only have said, I hadn't seen him, the rest being understood in context. That is, he arrived to the court, then he saw the players. Miller is actually saying that he had not seen the players before he arrived to witness the spectacle he was questioned about after the game.

Confused? So was Reggie Miller, but that's the way the ball sometimes bounces.