College basketball hasn't *always* been terrible
REAL TALK: This tournament (and season) has been blah.
Over the weekend, I was scrolling through the channels — welcome to my life! — when I came across an ESPN “30 for 30” on Christian Laettner.
The documentary, which I have seen about 5 times before, made me remember two things:
I really and truly hated Laettner when I was a kid.
Those Duke teams of the early 1990s were absolutely loaded.
On that second point: Laettner played for four years in college. (He played in 148 games!) Grant Hill played for four years in college. Bobby Hurley played for four years.
While I was thinking of that fact, I came across this tweet from my friend Kendall Baker, who has a must-susbcribe sports newsletter at Yahoo:
(Kendall sent that tweet Saturday night. But Sunday’s games were, by and large, boring too!)
All of it confirmed something for me that I have been thinking about for a while: Men’s college basketball kind of sucks now.
Now. I did NOT start this newsletter to be the cranky old guy telling everyone has sports used to be better back in my day. I HATE that guy.
And, for most sports, it’s simply not true. The NBA of my youth (mid 1980s) couldn’t come close to matching the talent that is in the league now. Patrick Mahomes does things at QB that my guy Phil Simms could never even think of doing.
But, look: Men’s college basketball is nowhere near as good — or as fun to watch — as it was 25 years ago.
There’s a whole lot of reasons for this. Let’s go through a few.
1. The talent drain. Quick — name a star college basketball player. The first person who probably came to your mind? Caitlin Clark, Iowa’s superstar. And she is amazing!
But what about on the men’s side? Honestly, more people probably know Cooper Flagg (the best high school player in the nation) than know Zach Edey, the 2023 college player of the year.
Think about this year’s tournament. Who is the face of it? It’s probably Jack Gohlke from Oakland University, who helped his squad beat Kentucky in the 1st round by making 10 three pointers.
But, Gohlke and his team are already out of the tournament — before the second weekend even begins.
The simple fact is that there is less talent in college basketball than there was 10 years ago — and FAR less than 20 years ago.
Nowadays, if you are a REALLY good high school player, the most you will play in college is a single year. Many kids opt out of college entirely — choosing to play in the G League until they are two years clear of high school and eligible to be drafted. (That “one and done” rule was put in place in 2005.)
Just look at last year’s NBA draft. Here are the top 10 picks:
1. Spurs draft Victor Wembanyama (Metropolitans 92)
2. Hornets draft Brandon Miller (Alabama)
3. Blazers draft Scoot Henderson (G League Ignite)
4. Rockets draft Amen Thompson (Overtime Elite)
5. Pistons draft Ausar Thompson (Overtime Elite)
6. Magic draft Anthony Black (Arkansas)
7. Pacers draft Bilal Coulibaly (Metropolitans 92) – Traded to Wizards
8. Wizards draft Jarace Walker (Houston) – Traded to Pacers
9. Jazz draft Taylor Hendricks (UCF)
10. Mavericks draft Cason Wallace (Kentucky) – Traded to Thunder
Not ONE of those players was older than 20. Coulibaly was 18! Three of the top 5 picks opted to play in professional leagues rather than spend a year in college. The five college players picked in the top 10 were ALL freshmen.
The best players move more quickly — and more consistently — to the NBA than ever before. And the NBA prizes youth more than ever before. The guys who stay in college now do so because, well, they won’t be high draft picks. Edey, for one, is currently projected to go #32 in this summer’s NBA Draft.
2. The transfer portal. On its face, I support the transfer rule changes. Having to sit out a year because you want to switch schools never made much sense — especially because coaches could leave schools whenever they wanted, which often left kids in a lurch.
But, man, the unintended consequences of putting more power in the hands of student-athletes are vast.
Put simply: With very few exceptions — the highest end schools like Duke, UNC, UCONN etc. — the entire lineup at most schools turns over year to year.
Georgetown, who I have the unfortunate fate of rooting for, had an entirely new starting five this year. Only 2 or 3 players were even on the roster last year. And that is the rule, not the exception.
All of that turnover makes it very hard to build any sense of team chemistry. If everyone is out for themselves — and can just go to some other school if they don’t get what they want at their current one — the incentive to work as a team (or even win) is not terribly high.
Ask any successful coach how you build a great team and they will tell you that you need stars, yes, but you also need role players who understand they aren’t the star but still can play a critical role.
The transfer portal has done away with that notion of a team. If you aren’t the star, if the offense isn’t running through you on every play — just go somewhere else.
From a fan perspective, all of the lineup turnover makes it hard to have any sense of continuity or to build relationships with the players. Every year, it’s 10 new guys. By the time you get to know all of them, the season’s over and they’re all gone.
3. Conference realignment. I know college football drives all decisions about who is in what conference but the effect on college basketball has been brutal.
In my 20s, the one thing that made Mondays tolerable was that I knew “Big Monday” was on ESPN that night — where I could see a really good Big East game and then a Big 12 game after that. It was a big deal! Appointment viewing!
But then came the rejiggering of the conferences. Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Syracuse went from the Big East to the ACC. UCONN went to something called the AAC. (They are now back in the Big East.)
The Big 12 dissolved/evolved too. And the Big Ten, starting next year, will include USC, UCLA and Oregon. Also, the Big 10 now has 18 schools in it.
When Georgetown used to play Syracuse twice a year in the Big East, it meant something. It meant a lot. Now, meh.
(Sidebar: I took my two boys to this year’s non-conference game between the two teams. It was only ok. And, yes, Georgetown got smoked.)
Again, I totally get why the conferences are now meaningless. To sum up that answer:
But, it has had a massively negative impact on how we root for these teams. And how meaningful any one game (or even a conference championship) now is.
Add it all up and you get a product that is, well, subpar. Hard to watch. And a shell of what it once was.
Disagree, Chris. I watched every session and there were exciting games in each one. Final scores don’t tell the full story. Creighton won by double digits but took 2 overtime’s to get there. Auburn missed 3 shots at the buzzer to lose to Yale. Dayton erased a 17-point deficit in 7 minutes to win. Colorado hit a bucket with less than 2 seconds to win after Florida hit a bucket to tie with under 10 seconds. I could go on and on. I’ve been a true CBB fanatic since my teens in the early 80’s, and while I definitely admit it’s different, it’s still a blast and must see TV if you love the sport and not the stars.
The issue with College Sports goes beyond the transfer portal and NIL deals...it's a fundamentally flawed system where the TV networks exert way too much influence. Conference realignments, driven by TV dollars, have caused rivalries to die, geography to be bastardized, and the fan left totally out of the picture.
An expanded field of 68 teams is going to create mismatches and non-compettive games. There were non-competitive games once the tournament expanded beyond 32 teams. I'd rather see players who want to be in school rather than one and done players. If theplayer has talent beyond what is expected of a college player, go forth and make money.