Fix College Basketball

A few down sides: too many fucking timeouts and too many coaches on the bench. If you need 9 coaches on the bench you're just not doing it right.

 

They did reduce the number of timeouts this year and there are only three assistant coaches. The reasons for having an extra assistant at the college level obviously have little to do with game day. But I don't get why where staffers sit would make the game any more or less enjoyable to watch.

 

Reminds me of people who say sabermetrics makes baseball less enjoyable for them.

 

I don't like the optics. Maybe you do.

They’re Here, There and Everywhere: College Basketball Assistants

 

It's not something I notice. Usually my kids are shouting at me while I'm trying to watch. I barely catch players' names. Usually when they shoot free throws.

 

I don't think I've really noticed. If you want to make the third assistant sit wherever the NBA sticks their analytics guy, video coordinator, assistant free throw instructor and bounce pass specialist that would be fine with me too.

 

Oh, it's definitely Get Off My Lawn bitching and moaning.

 

The only time I really noticed was when I was covering a Miami-Virginia Tech game in Blacksburg and Larranaga had more people in suits on the bench than in uniform. I think there were at least 10 suits there. It was nuts.

 

There are rules about how many actual assistants can sit on the bench though, right? UNC used to have Jerrod Haase and CB McGrath alternate job titles each season. One would have to sit at the scorers table. But student managers, trainers and people can add up.

 

Yeah, it was definitely a mix of extended staff ... they were all crammed at the far end of the bench. The assistants and D-ops were by the scorer's table.

 

In 2007 I went to see UAB play Kentucky in Louisville's Freedom Hall, a neutral court (yeah, right, sure it was) game. What really stuck out as different from what I was used to seeing was that UK had nearly as many guys in blue suits on their bench as they did players. There were eight or nine of them. The other thing I noticed was how few black people were there. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that it looked like there were more black guys on the floor than in the stands.

 

I always thought Mike Davis' bench at UAB looked like the announcers booth in The Naked Gun with all the suits.