Fix College Basketball

I still can't see what's wrong with college basketball that needs fixing. I'm not that big of a fan, but I've never been one. My best friend, however, was a D1 scholarship point guard (was long ago; his alma mater is now D3) and keeps up with the game as religiously as some baseball fanatics here follow MLB. He routinely says that the men's Final Four are the best and the worst three days of the sports year (for him). If there's been some degradation of the game, I'd have heard about it from him, and I haven't.

 

To me, the only fix is getting the best teams to the tournament, and that involves the low majors giving their regular-season champs every advantage possible come tournament time. Even so, they still sometimes lose (hi Belmont). Giving the regular-season champs the automatic bid isn't the answer, because half of the teams will mentally check out a month into the conference season. The only carrot a bad low-major has is trying to get its shit together in time to make a three- or four-day run come tournament time. And you know what, if someone does what Holy Cross does and wins four straight road games to get to the dance, so be it. They earned the hell out of that bid.

The game itself is what it has been forever ... more coach-centric than player centric. But there's no sense in bitching about that, because it will never change.

 

Until people start bitching that the first Thursday and Friday suck, things will stay fine.

 

Exactly. A lot of people just sort of glance over the First Four anyway and believe the real tourney starts on Thursday.

 

The game was ruined by the one and dones in the Kevin Garnett era and simultaneously ruined the NBA (for me, anyway) at the same time. No time to build true rivalries unless a guy like Hansborough stays for 4 years. How often does that happen? That a polarizing guy who is very good (but not great) lands at a major college program and plays four years? Meanwhile, I don't know who half the guys are who are taken in the first round of the NBA draft -- high schoolers, guys who are one-and-dones, Europeans, etc., make it more difficult to keep up. It'll never be the late 80s/early 90s again for college or pro basketball, and that's why I barely watch either anymore -- when they used to be my favorite sports.

 

#1997rant

 

Which high schoolers in last year's draft had you not heard of?

 

does it make it any less true?

fuck if I know. I stopped watching the draft years ago.

 

I don't know about college baseball, but the Frontier League Otters in Evansville, Ind. were a hoot to go watch on a lazy summer night. Cheap beer, too.

 

You're being dim.

College baseball's popularity pales in comparison to college basketball, but if it didn't have its current model - where high schoolers had to choose MLB or 3 years of college - it wouldn't be remotely popular in any way, because players would routinely get poached after one year.

Alas, college basketball can't have that model because agents have convinced Anerican NBA players that they can't budge from the one and done rule without turning their backs on fellow talented players who belong in the league.

*Incidentally, the softball world series draws better ratings than the CWS.

 

None. There weren't any. You can't declare out of HS.

That's why there are one and dones.

 

I know that and you know that.