The Problem With College Basketball

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jamiche

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You turn on the national championship game and there are only two players on the floor (Walker and Lamb) good enough to play in the NBA and neither will be a top 10 pick.
 

huh? that has nothing to do with the problem of cbb. that has everything to do with this particular matchup. the uconn - kent had at least 6 future first round picks. and i guarantee you shelvin mack will play in the nba.
 

It's the curse of the single-elimination tournament-the regular season tells us that some combination of Kansas, Ohio State, Pitt, Duke, UNC, Purdue, San Diego St, Texas, Kentucky, Arizona, Florida, and others I'm forgetting right now would have comprised the Final Four if it was a 3 out of 5 format to advance; it's also the beauty of the NCAA tournament that a team like this year's Butler squad could make it to the final game, even if they didn't seem to belong in last night's game.

I'd also point out that the previous year's NCAA title game was a classic and we were looking at four sure-fire future NBA draft picks in that game (Hayward, Mack, Nolan Smith, Singler), none of whom will be top 10 picks, which is about the same as last night's game (Walker, Lamb, Mack, and I think Oriakhi will end up getting drafted if he continues developing). The game wasn't competitive, so that colors everything negatively, but the lack of NBA talent on the court wasn't what made last night ugly.
 

Crappy games/series are going to happen. We've had crappy Super Bowls before (too many to count), crappy World Series (see last year) & crappy NBA Finals series. Unfortunately, they all can't be classics.

My main problem with college basketball is I've watched 14 straight NCAA Tournaments without witnessing a Gopher win. What makes that even harder to stomach is seeing schools like Butler and VCU rip off 5 wins in a row. ... in a single tournament.
 

Go4 said:
huh? that has nothing to do with the problem of cbb. that has everything to do with this particular matchup. the uconn - kent had at least 6 future first round picks. and i guarantee you shelvin mack will play in the nba.
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Yes, the game was a dud. It could have been a dud if there were 10 NBA caliber players on the floor (though unlikely). You can have a hotly contested, interesting game featuring two not very good teams. The long term problem is that the quality of play just wasn't very good and that's not unusual. Combine that with the continuous stoppages in play and it just doesn't bode well for the sport. The FF and the championship game has traditionally been my favorite sporting event. Combine that with a great story line. Last night I was flipping channels.

I would be surprised if Mack makes it in the NBA. A very good college player but I'm not sure that his game translates. I've been wrong a time or two before.
 


Flipping channels

It's interesting you mention flipping the channels. Was doing the same thing. Here it was Championship Monday and I found myself watching Pawn Stars and reruns of Criminal Minds on ION.
 

I was switching to the Twins game ... it was that bad. The one area that probably will never change (unless it went true pay for view) is the self promotion of CBS.. So sick of part of the screen during freethrows showing video of The Good Wife that I could scream.
 

SelectionSunday said:
It's interesting you mention flipping the channels. Was doing the same thing. Here it was Championship Monday and I found myself watching Pawn Stars and reruns of Criminal Minds on ION.
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The Twins early, flipped on to something on HBO just as a woman was disrobing, so I had to stay with that for a few minutes, and then finished up with Stewart and Colbert. I'll bet that I didn't watch more than 60% of the game and none of the halftime or post game shows.
 

While everybody was gushing about Butler and Brad Stevens, nobody really brought up the fact that they came out of one of the easiest regions in recent memory. This terrible match-up was the fault of the committee. Pittsburgh, Florida, BYU, Wisconsin as the top 4 seeds?

Then they get a Final Four match-up with an 11 seed! VCU made a great run, but the magic had to run out at some point, and they had played an extra game to boot.
 



There is no problem in college basketball. Uconn overmatched Butler inside, most teams do. Butler usually makes a good deal of their open 3's. Mack had a horrible shooting night. Pittsburgh, Florida, BYU, and Wisconsin are all good teams. VCU knocked off Kasas what do you want?

Mack is built alot like "the microwave" Vinny Johnson. I see a similar role for him at the next level.
 

Mack, Howard, Oriakhi, and Roscoe Smith (at least) will all play in the league.
 

There are a few points I'm going to agree with you on Jamiche. Butler's run may have been a great story, but they "won ugly" (and lost ugly too). On the night they defeated Wisconsin, I switched over to their game after Arizona had taken apart Duke; it was quite a contrast in style and it was not pretty basketball to watch, especially after watching the previous game. In their semi-final game against VCU, I found myself having a tough time keeping my eyes on the screen and outside of Mack's long-range bombing, there were few pretty moments from Butler that I witnessed (although Howard drawing charges on two straight UConn possessions last night was pretty sweet).

The other thing I'll certainly agree with is the sludge that the game is becoming at the end with the excessive timeouts that teams are given-it is utterly ridiculous. And one of my bigger pet peeves in the college game is a coach calling a full timeout, at say, 7:50 on the clock; we come back to action and then at 7:30 a dead ball situation occurs and we go to another full timeout. I know the reason, but why can't they just roll those two time-outs together into one? The flow of the second half of these games is really not a good trend.
 

There are so many great games during the tournament. The final game very rarely can live up to being the best of all.
 



The most boring NC game I can recall was when UNLV thrashed Duke by 30 in 1990. That game was loaded with future NBA players and some of the greatest college players of all-time. Sometimes you get a dud. The same two teams re-matched in the Semi's a year later and played one the greatest games of all time.

It should be noted that due to UNLV's cheating, neither game happened.:cool:
 

Jamiche,

College basketball has plenty of problems, but the absence of potential NBA players is definitely not one of them.

One significant problem is that some fans of the college game assume its role is to serve as an NBA developmental league rather than as a league for student-athletes.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Mack, Howard, Oriakhi, and Roscoe Smith (at least) will all play in the league.
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Disagree on Matt Howard. He struggles mightily to create his own shot and finish against NBA caliber athletes.

Though I understand there is room in the league for guys like Mad Dog, Aaron Gray, etc - so Howard may get a cup of coffee.
 

Last I checked it's still a 'team' sport, not one on one competition. How a team performs should decide the team championship, not how many NBAwannabe's, might be's, are on the floor. If the game was competitive, that's what counts.
They should play these games in basketball arenas instead of massive domes where perspective is totally lost. If you have ever played in Williams Arena (I have) compare it to playing in the Armory or fieldhouse (played in both) and it's world's apart. Couldn't even draw iron for a while until you successfully pull in your focus to the massive spacial differences.
 

I have NEVER found the championship game to be the most compelling part of the tournament - even when it's a "classic." I would much rather have an exciting first two weekends and a less exciting championship than a boring, predictable tournament ending with a game between two #1 seeds..
 

bb

nothing wrong with the tourney and college bb. There were many games that were great down to the wire contests. The championship game was a dud but it didn't diminish the other games at all!!!!!
 

Two thoughts for Jamiche and coolhand

1) every win that involves Wisconsin is ugly
2) perhaps a little disrobing would help maintain interest levels during dull games
 

there is a big problem with the tourney in that we have sleazeball coaches in thr FF every year, this year we had two. As long as they let this AAU nonsense, and the Findlay preps (basically the equivalent of a hockey junior program funded by one university's rich alumnus) and the rest of this crap, it is a joke. The NCAA kills programs for doing things no worse than what UConn and KY do all of the time.
That is a big problem for me with the NCAA as the owner of the tournament.
 

The problem with college ball is that most of the kids aren't NBA caliber? By this logic, high school ball really sucks, but the NBA, ah, the NBA is terrific because all the players are of NBA caliber.

But wait. In reality it's just the reverse. High school ball is great and the NBA sucks.
 

sunnyday2 said:
The problem with college ball is that most of the kids aren't NBA caliber? By this logic, high school ball really sucks, but the NBA, ah, the NBA is terrific because all the players are of NBA caliber.

But wait. In reality it's just the reverse. High school ball is great and the NBA sucks.
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Depends who you ask ... I like the NBA and college equally and pretty much hate high school ball.
 

sunnyday2 said:
The problem with college ball is that most of the kids aren't NBA caliber? By this logic, high school ball really sucks, but the NBA, ah, the NBA is terrific because all the players are of NBA caliber.
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Yes, that is the logical implication. If you only want to watch the best players, watch the NBA and quit complaining.

If you only want to watch NBA talent, you should never bother to watch college basketball, because the vast majority of players are not going to get more than a cup of coffee in the league. On the flipside, all the best players now essentially have to play a year of college basketball, so you will have an opportunity to see the best talent, but you probably have to pay attention to something more than the Final Four to see it.
 

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