The State of College Basketball: Trending Up or Down?

It's the most dreadful time of year for a college basketball fan. March Madness has come to a close, the game is absent from the sports world, and along with that, underclassmen begin to declare for the NBA Draft later in June. Spurning one to three more years of college for the chance at fame and millions of dollars seems like a no-brainer, and the amount of young men who choose that path illustrate that thinking. But while players sign agents, fans are left with the changing landscape of college basketball.

Is the game improving? Quite simply, it is not. A case could be made that the game has been stagnant, but it's difficult to argue that college basketball has improved in the last decade. Choppy gameplay due to fouls, conference realignment, coaching changes and early draft entries have affected the game negatively and continue to do so.

The national championship game between North Carolina and Gonzaga was difficult to watch despite the close score. 44 fouls meant constant stoppages, which led to poor shooting and no rhythm in gameplay. The final 20 minutes seemed to take a lifetime as it became a free throw contest. 52 free throws were shot before the end of the night and both teams were in the bonus with 13 minutes left. In the second half alone there were 27 fouls and it sent nearly every big man for both teams to the bench in foul trouble.

Unfortunately, the national championship was not an anomaly. UCLA, a run-and-gun team that featured quality shooters, versatile big men and Lonzo Ball to orchestrate it all, was a breath of fresh air during a season that would frequently feature games in the 60's.

Four different conferences were represented at the Final Four this season (ACC, SEC, WCC, PAC-12), but not one of those conferences has had the same members for longer than five seasons. Football and the pursuit of the almighty dollar for television networks has led many conference to shift and change over the years. This is nothing new, but it's reached a new level in this decade. It's taken away fantastic basketball rivalries like Kansas-Missouri, Syracuse-Georgetown and Duke-Maryland.

Instead, fans are treated to games like Missouri-Auburn, Syracuse-Clemson and Maryland-Nebraska. Sure, there are still plenty of great rivalries, but a Missouri fan has lost the two best games of the year. A Maryland fan is watching their team in games with no history or passion. A Syracuse fan is pleased to see games against Duke and Carolina, but it's not Georgetown or UConn. The realignment is not what is best for the game despite being what's best for the bottom line.

Speaking of the bottom line, did you watch ESPN's 30 for 30 One and Not Done on John Calipari? His players have made plenty of money in the NBA and very few of them stuck around for more than a year or two in college. The one-and-done topic has been beaten to death, but despite all the talk, there has been no action to fix what plagues the game and the NBA.

For the college game, it's an issue for the fans and that's it. The teams and coaches must continually replenish their rosters, but that has not been difficult for the game's best. For the fans though, they are watching a revolving door. Players come and go and there is hardly any connection between the player and the university. Kyrie Irving can claim to be a Dukie, but 10 games doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Consider all the freshmen who have gone through Kansas in recent years: Xavier Henry, Andrew Wiggins, Josh Selby and Josh Jackson. They have all done well in Lawrence, but departed after a year. Perhaps only a Jayhawk fan can truly answer the question, but is that fun? Those players have brought plenty of wins and that's fun, but is it truly fun to root for the program when the best player is someone new every season? There's rarely a long-term connection with stars anymore like J.J. Redick or Adam Morrison. That's why teams like this year's North Carolina and Gonzaga squads should be treasured.

And it's not just players who leave early. Coaches are guilty as well. No one could ever fault someone for moving up in the ranks and bettering their career, but coaches don't last long at one place anymore. Jim Boeheim vs. John Thompson or Gene Keady vs. Bob Knight? Those kind of coaching rivalries are hard to come by now. Is that a death sentence for the game? Of course not. The game can go on without those, but it doesn't make for a better product.

Make no mistake though, college basketball is a great game. March Madness continues to thrill the masses year after year, but that can't be the sole barometer for the state of the game. There are plenty of factors that contribute to college basketball as a whole and as the book closes on another season, it's safe to say there is work to be done.

A Rare Final Four Caps College Basketball Season

And now for the grand finale. In a season of twists and turns and unpredictability, the NCAA
Tournament has fit right in with the regular season's drama and rollercoaster ride. The dust has now settled after two weekends of bracket busting and the Final Four is set with blue-blood North Carolina, basically first-timer Oregon and newbies South Carolina and Gonzaga.

Raise your hand if you picked that Final Four.

This Final Four feels different than most and that's because it is. Final Fours like this one don't come around often. In fact, they are so rare that the younger generation has never seen anything like this before. It's been 20 years since two teams west of the Mississippi River qualified for the national semifinals. The last time it happened was 1998 when Mike Montgomery and Rick Majerus took Stanford and Utah, respectively, into San Antonio. Enter Oregon and Gonzaga.

The Ducks have flirted with the Final Four before under Dana Altman's watch and after toppling Kansas in Kansas City, they seem primed for a title run. All that stands in their way is North Carolina, a team on a mission after last year's heartbreak courtesy of Kris Jenkins and Villanova. The Tar Heels survived a scare from Arkansas in the second round and Luke Maye carved out his spot in Carolina lore with his game-winner against Kentucky in the Elite 8. Mission nearly complete.

The two will fight for the right to move to the title game. North Carolina has been to the Final Four six times since 2000 and won two titles in the span. The last time Oregon was in the Final Four the championship game was played in Evanston, Illinois, FDR was only halfway through his Presidency and the Yankees were starting a World Series season with featured superstar Joe DiMaggio. Oregon won the title during that 1939 season, which was the first NCAA Tournament ever held.

On the other side it's a whole new world for both programs. South Carolina came out of nowhere, defeating Duke in the second round and defeating Florida in the Elite 8. Frank Martin has the Gamecocks playing lockdown defense, but they will have to handle a Gonzaga team that has only one loss this season and finally broke through after years of second weekend exits.

In 1999, Gonzaga made a run to the Elite 8 as a 10 seed and since then they have appeared in seven Sweet 16's and two Elite 8's. Mark Few now has the Bulldogs in the Final Four with a legitimate shot at a national championship. This is for all the former lovable Zags who came up a bit short (Casey Calvary, Dan Dickau, Derek Raivio, Adam Morrison, Jeremy Pargo).

This Final Four is college basketball parity at its finest. Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and others are watching at home while three new teams take the big stage. Complain if you want that South Carolina is unappealing to watch, Gonzaga got an easy road or that Oregon's jerseys are too much for the eyes. The point is this: this Final Four sums up why March Madness is just that - madness.

Significant history will be made and college basketball is a winner once again. In a season that has given us so many surprises, what else did you expect out of the tournament?

Decision to Skip Bowl Games Sends a Horrible Message

It has been known for several days that star LSU running back Leonard Fournette will not be playing in the Citrus Bowl this year, but today another college standout followed suit. Stanford's Christian McCaffery has also chosen to forgo his team's bowl game, the Sun Bowl, to focus on the NFL Draft. Fournette and McCaffery, though full of both talent and potential, have also shown that loyalty and character are not exactly in abundance in college football.

Fournette was on perennial Heisman watch at LSU

Let me start off by saying this: the amount of bowl games in college football is absolutely stupid. You hear all these coaches complaining about society, about youth sports. Everyone has an issue with every single kid getting a trophy and, quite frankly, I completely agree. I hate that. I think it sends the wrong message entirely. Yet college football adopts that same mindset and sends how many schools to a meaningless bowl game every single year? That needs to change and the reason I bring that up is because the bowl games play a huge part in the way these athletes and coaches who leave early are being viewed.


First off, let's address the way the media is relaying their decisions not to play. "Skipping the bowl game" is sugar coating it. Call it like it is. They are quitting. Fournette and McCaffery have decided not to join their teams in preparation for the game and they will not be in uniform. They have quit the team. What kind of message does that send?

The Citrus Bowl and the Sun Bowl. I would be lying if I said I had any desire to watch either of those games. But you know what? They're still games. They're still on the schedule. The teams still have to prepare, show up, and play. There is still a winner and a loser. The decision to not play by Fournette and McCaffery is wrong, regardless of how much money in the NFL is on the line.

Few backs have the physicality and durability of McCaffery

Everybody wants to say that the risk of injury is too high and that it could cost them millions of dollars and draft stock. That's true and there is no denying either of those things. Everybody wants to argue that this game means nothing. Again, also true. But LSU and Stanford's last five regular season games meant nothing. If playing for a spot in the playoffs is the only way a game can mean something, then Fournette should have stopped playing when LSU lost two of their first four games, and McCaffery should have quit taking the field when Stanford lost three out of four games in mid-October. That's when their playoff hopes were shattered, right? So every game after that essentially meant nothing just like these bowl games, right?

No. Fournette and McCaffery signed up to play football. It's a dangerous game and you can get hurt at any moment. Welcome to the world of being an athlete. If injury is the big fear here then those guys should have never played another down once LSU and Stanford dropped in the AP Poll and had no hopes of making the playoffs. They are quitting not only on the teammates that helped shape their careers and bring them to the spotlight, but they are quitting on the coaches that helped them grow, and they are quitting on the schools they represented. If I'm a teammate, a coach, or a member of either school's athletic department, I would be immensely disappointed.

If Fournette and McCaffery can leave their teams because these games don't mean anything anyway, then how do you look the guys in your locker room in the face and say you're walking away? Those guys that blocked for you, those guys that handed the ball off to you, those guys that came to practice and analyzed film every single day so that they could do their job to protect you and you leave them in the final game of the season to focus on yourself? I understand the safety concerns, I truly do, but I believe that is a selfish move to leave your teammates to protect yourself. Those guys are going to be out there fighting and trying to bring home a win. You should be too.

It would be interesting to see how NFL scouts and executives view situations like this. To me, I think seeing guys make decisions like this tells me all I need to know: he's out for himself. They could be nice guys with great work ethics, but their final moment as college athletes was them quitting on their teams and walking away before the season was over. I don't want a guy like that on my team. I want loyalty and dedication whether it's the national championship or a scrimmage in practice. 

So where does this leave college football? It's been an on-going issue with coaches bailing on schools before bowl games, but now players are doing it too. You can't hardly stop it, but there's no doubt it hurts the NCAA, and God knows the NCAA doesn't need another reason to look foolish. Maybe we'll see a fix to this issue, or maybe we'll eventually see coaches and athletes that put their present team first all season long. I hope it's the latter. Regardless, the decisions have been made and they aren't going to change. Fournette and McCaffery will go on to get drafted, but not without leaving a final bad impression.

If I Could Get A Ticket...

Sports bless us on regular occasion. Buzzer beater threes for national titles, chase down blocks to seal a city's long-awaited title, walk off home runs to beat a rival -- we crave that kind of drama and heroism. Lately, sports has provided some instant classics, and as a viewer of many games each week, I've loved every second.

Still, for all the games and plays that have made me say wow and for all the moments I've relished the Twitter explosion, I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could have been there for the biggest of games because there is truly nothing better than witnessing it all. So, here's the deal: I've made a list of five games I wish I could have been present at. Some of these I watched on television while others took place long before I was even thought of on this Earth. But if I could go back in time and somehow get a ticket then here's where I would go...

Boston Braves 3 - Brooklyn Dodgers 5 - April 15, 1947
Just over 26,500 fans were in attendance at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947 and if I could have been one of them I would certainly have taken the opportunity. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier that day, starting at first base and batting second. It was a monumental moment in history at the time, but it seems even bigger now as we look around sports today. African Americans have provided some of the finest play we've seen and Robinson blazed the trail for all of them, suiting up for the Dodgers on that April afternoon. Robinson was not particularly great in the opener, finishing 0-for-3 with a run scored, but there are some things that go beyond the box score and this certainly qualifies as one of them.

Villanova Wildcats 77 - North Carolina Tar Heels 74 - April 4, 2016
You really don't need a play-by-play for this one because certainly you remember. Even before Marcus Paige hit his acrobatic three-pointer to tie the game with six seconds left and before Kris Jenkins made the greatest shot maybe ever, this game was magical. Carolina took a five-point lead into the break, and Villanova led by five with three minutes to go. Paige's three may be forgotten as time passes, but it was one of the greatest clutch shots we've seen. The only problem: Jenkins topped it on the other end of the floor with a buzzer-beating three to give the 'Cats their second national title.

Texas Rangers 9 - St. Louis Cardinals 10 - October 27, 2011 (11 innings)
Texas and St. Louis gave baseball fans arguably the greatest World Series game ever in Game 6 of the 2011 Fall Classic. With Texas leading the series 3-2, the Cardinals were facing elimination in their own ballpark. Needing a win to force a Game 7, the Cards led 2-1 after the first inning in a game that featured at least one run in every inning but one. The Rangers chased Jaime Garcia after three innings and led 7-4 after seven innings. St. Louis got one back in the eighth and went to the ninth trailing by two. Down to their last strike in the ninth, David Freese unloaded a deep fly to right that Nelson Cruz couldn't handle. Freese wound up with a triple and drove in Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman to tie the game and force extra innings. Josh Hamilton homered in the 10th to give Texas the lead again, but Berkman singled on a 2-2 count in the bottom of the frame to tie the game at nine. In the bottom of the 11th, Freese played the role of hero again, launching the walk off home run to centerfield, forcing a Game 7 which the Cardinals would win for their 11th World Series.

Florida State Seminoles 34 - Auburn Tigers 31 - January 6th, 2014
One of the greatest BCS National Championship games in history featured a 21-point comeback and a game-winning touchdown pass with 13 seconds left on the clock. The Seminoles entered as the top-ranked team with Jameis Winston fresh off a Heisman trophy win, but Auburn looked impressive out of the gate, leading 21-3 late in the first half. FSU scored a touchdown right before the half to trim the lead to 11 and then connected on a field goal in the third quarter to make it 21-13. Then things got fun in the fourth. Winston threw a touchdown pass with 11 minutes to play to make it a one-point game, but Auburn pushed it to four with a field goal at the 4:42 mark. However, on the ensuing kickoff, Florida State ran it back 100 yards to take a 27-24 lead. The Tigers didn't give in though, scoring a touchdown with 1:19 to play to take a 31-27 lead. That set the stage for Winston's signature moment. The Heisman winner drove the Seminoles down the field and threw a two-yard TD pass to Kelvin Benjamin with 13 seconds remaining to win the game.

Chicago Bulls 87 - Utah Jazz 86 - June 14, 1998
After failing to close out the Jazz in Game 5 at the United Center, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls had to go back to Utah for Game 6 to try and complete the franchise's second three-peat. The Jazz won the first three quarters and led by five heading into the fourth quarter. Jordan, playing in his last game as a Chicago Bull, poured in 45 points on 15-of-35 shooting, but saved his best for last. Down by one with under 10 seconds to play, Jordan drove left and pulled up for his final shot as a Bull. He sank it and sealed the win as only the greatest to ever play could do it. Six rings, six Finals MVPs and one lasting memory for Bulls fans.

These five games were something special that fans still talk about today. However, there are hundreds of others that could be talked about. What are yours? Leave a comment with games that you wished you could have attended...

The Youth of the MLB Continues to Shine While the NBA Struggles to Figure it Out

If you pay attention to any sports-related news outlet, you've surely heard the name Trevor Story by now. The Colorado Rockies rookie has wasted no time in making a name for himself this past week as he's already belted seven home runs in his first six major league games, including one in each of his first four games. The season is only eight days old, yet Story already has his batting gloves and helmet displayed in Cooperstown at the Hall of Fame. And while Story's week is certainly one for the record books, his instant success is further proof that the MLB has more than enough young superstars on the rise.

Story has become a household name very early in the season

You hear the argument in college basketball and the NBA about college athletes being "one and done" meaning they attend school for their freshman season then declare for the NBA draft immediately following the conclusion of the season. It's become a trend and it has become an issue not only for the NCAA and its universities, but also for the NBA. The league is watered down with these kids that have no business leaving after one year of college and it's also killing the college game. Kids don't hang around, they treat college as if it's a one-year sentence and then chase the money that very few of them actually end up getting long-term.

Don't get me wrong, every now and then you get a Kevin Durant, a John Wall, or an Anthony Davis who become All-Stars and some of the best in the league. But for every Kevin Durant there's a Greg Oden, for every John Wall there's an Anthony Bennett, and for every Anthony Davis there's a Michael Beasley. The young guys that come into the NBA rarely have any staying power and if they do, they don't make the impact that they were projected to. What's worse is that once these young guys get cut from the NBA they have nowhere to go in order to truly improve and work for another shot at playing professionally. The D-League does absolutely nothing for the players and rarely if ever do we see players get called up to the pros. I understand that there aren't as many players on an NBA roster as there are in the MLB, but the NBA and NCAA don't give the younger players who could have potential any help. They're cheating them by allowing them to leave after one year and they're cheating them by allowing them to rot in the D-League after they're cut from the NBA.

Bennett, once a number 1 pick, averaged 4 minutes in 19 games this season

This is where the MLB has made all the right moves. Trevor Story has already been mentioned, but before Story even came to the league there were guys like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Kris Bryant,  Manny Machado, and Giancarlo Stanton. These players have already reached a high level in the MLB and have had more than enough individual success in their very young careers. But what sets these young stars apart from the young stars in the NBA?


The difference is that the MLB's minor league system is set up with more intention of teaching and allowing adjustment to the professional game than the NBA. In the NBA, you are drafted straight to the pros. You play in the summer league and that's all well and good, but there's no way to adjust to the physicality or speed of the NBA when you're playing other guys your age who are also just coming off their college experience. In the MLB there are three levels of play you could possibly go through before you even set foot in an MLB ballpark. Even Bryce Harper, as successful as he has been, spent time in the minors after he was drafted. There is no rush for players who are drafted into the MLB and rarely if ever are they drafted straight to the professional level. The ball clubs draft their players and then send them through the minor league system so that they learn from multiple coaching staffs and get plenty of higher level experience before being called up to "The Show".

That's what makes the MLB's young stars so exciting. It's the excitement of watching a player grow through AA and AAA ball before they get called up. Being a Cubs fan, I can't tell you how many conversations I've had these past couple years that have involved the sentence "Have you seen how so-and-so is doing in AAA?" Guys like the aforementioned Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Addison Russell, and Jorge Soler have all made a big impact on the Cubs at some point in time because they were ready for the challenge when they got called up. They weren't treated like the one-and-dones from the NCAA in that they weren't thrown into the fire at age 18. And because of that we see far more success stories in the MLB than we ever will in the NBA.

With the embarrassing way the NCAA handles itself and its business combined with a watered down NBA, there's no fix to the problem coming anytime soon. Players who have no business leaving after one year will still leave and the majority won't even be heard from two or three years from now. That's really sad, especially when you're able to look at how many young stars there are in the MLB who haven't even turned 25 yet. The overall excitement over baseball will most likely never trump that of basketball, but it's no secret that the MLB gives fans more to look forward to in the way they foster the young talent. Players are given a chance to succeed in the MLB and if they don't pan out immediately, they're sent right back down the minors where they can figure things out and gain more experience. The NBA doesn't look out for the young players and because of that the league will continue to struggle to find consistent, productive draft classes.