Running 2023-24 NCAA Basketball Thread

On too late - nobody knows the players.

 

And it’s too crowded, so nobody goes there anymore.

 

Women's college basketball is the ONLY sport to challenge the NFL and big college football in the last five years.

Not the NBA, not the Masters, not Major League Baseball, NHL, or anything else.

That is still mindboggling to me.

 

Before everyone jumps fully on this bandwagon, let's see what next year brings with no Iowa superstar or Angel Reese or other big name players.

 

Depends on how many dirty debutantes LSU has remaining.

 

A lot of apples to oranges comparisons going on here.

Women's game was on network TV at a relatively friendly time on a weekend without very much competition against it. Men's game is on at an asinine time on a cable net on a work night. An established cable net, but still, that rules some people out.

I think part of the reason the women's game is appealing right now is that it's seen as an alternative to the sea change going on in men's basketball with NIL and the portal.

Those of us in the know are fully aware that women's basketball is just as affected by NIL and the portal as the men's game is, but most casual fans don't perceive it that way because women's basketball doesn't have the historic expectation of How Things Are Supposed To Be Done.

Finally, and this is a massive credit to the stewards of women's basketball, the rules of the women's game just make for a better product. Quarters over halves. Team fouls resetting at each quarter. The lack of endless parades of free throws that can make the men's game a total slog. NBA-style late-game timeout/inbounds rules.

(Here is where traditionalists get the vapors, as if there is some codified honor in advancing the ball manually up the floor. Why are traditionalists in almost every sport against rule changes that promote entertainment? One of Caitlin Clark's signature moments was the 3-pointer she hit at the buzzer to beat Indiana in 2023. That moment doesn't happen in the men's game.)

Plus, the women's game stands on its own merits.

 

I hate that rule.

 

I swear every year for about the last 15, on random men's college basketball broadcasts the announcers start talking about a proposed change from halves to quarters, and it seems to me it's continually described as "almost certain to pass." Yet, so far, it hasn't. Weird.

 

I hate eliminating the 1-and-1 free throw. The pressure behind that first shot in a tight game is incredible.

I hate the advance the ball on a timeout rule too, but I concede it is more of a necessity in the women’s game because they don’t really have the physical strength to make a credible full-court shot (and most don’t try.)

 

You don't have to change from halves to quarters to stop the free-throw parade. At 10 minutes, the foul total reverts to zero. Easy peasy.

 

I don't think its asking a lot for the game to start at 8 p.m. Eastern. 9:20 p.m. is atrocious. I'd love for them to do it and see if there is a difference. 6 of the last 52 finalists have been from the West Coast. You're not hurting those view numbers compared to the ones you lose in the East and to an extent the Central zones.