Two and a half months from now, when the NBA season will finally come to an end, sports pundits will no doubt talk about the historic 73 wins that Golden State achieved this season. And yet, when it comes to historical achievements in the world of sports, I can think of no event that has generated less interest than the Warriors breaking the Chicago Bulls previous record of 72 wins back in 1996.
It's hard to imagine that if some team broke the Major League Record for regular season wins that no one would care. Kentucky's loss to Wisconsin in 2015 was a pretty big deal because the Wildcats were two wins away from college basketball's first undefeated season since Indiana in 1976. The same can be said for the Patriots loss to the Giants in the 2008 Super Bowl which left them one win short of duplicating the Dolphins undefeated season in 1972.
How can a pro team in a major sport break the record for regular season wins and it not matter?
Because it plays in a league whose regular season doesn't matter.
The NBA regular season is a snooze-job--a parade of boring games played by millionaire players on teams that know before the season even starts who is going to be in the playoffs--and more recently who is likely to be playing for the championship.
The season starts in October (too early) and drags on until April (too late). After five and a half months of basketball, sixteen teams make the playoffs, which consist of best of seven match-ups after the first round--which is why the playoffs are also rather dull and drag on too long.
The regular season would be probably be more engaging if only eight teams--four from each conference--made it to the playoffs. More would be at stake over the marathon regular season. Teams that sleepwalk through the regular season would have to play as though if they lost the evening's game it might be the one-game difference in not making it to the postseason. Of all the major sports, the NBA is without question the worst when it comes to the number of games played and the length of the regular season meaning the least when it comes to eliminating teams from postseason competition. Why play so many games when over half the teams in the league are going to make it to a postseason that lasts half as long as the regular season anyway? Why not shorten the season by a month and have all the teams in the playoffs? Oh, right. Because that's the only scenario that could be more ridiculous than the current one.
But the biggest reason that the Warriors' 73 wins is so meaningless is the meager competition and low quality of play the NBA has to offer. The reason for these problems: the NBA has over-expanded, and too many players enter the league who are not good enough to be pro players.
The success of LeBron James going straight from high school to the pros, and of a few other players who played their obligatory "one-and-done" season in college, has created a widespread mentality among college players that anyone who has a pretty good season is ready to be in the NBA. The idea that former UK player Skal Labissiere--who looked totally lost and out-matched for much of the college season in a really, really down SEC--is a projected top 15 pick to play in supposedly the best professional basketball league in the world is a glaring example of how poor the overall quality of play in the NBA is, and how void the talent pool from which it has to draw has become. The 6' 11'' Labissiere occasionally showed he could hit a mid-range jumper, so that is enough to get him a million-dollar contract and a spot on a pro roster. Young players want to get to the NBA as quickly as possible, so it makes sense that they are less skilled and less prepared to play pro ball than players were 25 years ago. Michael Jordan didn't go to the pros until after his junior season. So I guess Skal Labissiere is going to be a better NBA player than Jordan? That is how far the quality of play and quality of players has fallen.
The NBA had its heyday during the 1980s, when cable television made it a regular viewing selection. Then people started to watch its games as regularly as they did pro baseball and football. That was a considerable improvement for a sport whose championship series was played on a tape-delayed basis up until the end of the 1970s. That's how second-class the NBA was to pro football and baseball.
Then, as any sports fan knows, the NBA enjoyed nearly a decade of the Bird-Magic era, when two of the best players ever converged to play for two of the league's winningest teams, the Celtics and the Lakers. Those teams brought together the ethos of the East Coast and West Coast, with the white Bird epitomizing the blue-collar toughness of Boston, and the African-American Magic personifying the glitz and glamor of L. A. and Hollywood with dazzling play that led a team called "showtime." Those two players and those two teams were really, really, really good. Between them, they won seven of the league's championships in the 1980s, and faced each other three times.
Right when Bird and Magic were passing their prime, and when the Celtics-Lakers rivalry was no longer the league's showcase, along came Michael Jordan, who led the Bulls to six titles in the 1990s/ That number would have been higher had Jordan not indulged his desire to become a major league baseball player for two seasons.
But once Jordan's dominance began to wane, the next great star was nowhere to be found. Really what happened was that a professional league that always has been challenged to stand on par with college basketball's popularity no longer had the incredible players and amazing rivalries to make the league as interesting as a college game that had geographic identity as a perennial guarantee of fan-base enthusiasm. The NBA has always been a big-city favorite, while most of America has a college team nearby that captures its loyalty. But once upon a time, even the best college players played at least three years, and many played all four, and while that may delay the financial bounty of making it pro, in terms of basketball quality, it made both the college and pro game really good.
After Jordan, there was simply no player, or tandem of players, who could capture the adoration of the public the way Jordan, Bird, and Magic did. On top of the amazing ability of those players, there were not as many teams, and the overall skill of the league was pretty good--way better than today. Rather than talk about how this year's Warriors team would do against Jordan's Bulls, Bird's Celtics, or Magic's Lakers--for the record, they would get destroyed--let's remember Charles Barkley's Phoenix Suns, Clyde Drexler's Portland Trail Blazers, Karl Malone's Utah Jazz, Patrick Ewing's Knicks, or Reggie Miller's Indiana Pacers. Those players and those teams were really, really good, and I point them out because they never won a championship. Anyone of those teams would be more formidable opponents for the Warriors than any team they will face until their (yawn, snore) inevitable re-match with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Some say that today's NBA players are more athletic than ever. But the term "athletic" is a euphemism for "not really that good at basketball"--which is what basketball players need to be good at. The NBA is not the decathlon. The high-flying dunks and other spectacular plays cannot make up for the generally dull and woeful play in a league where all but three or four teams have any realistic chance of competing for a title and where over half the teams are downright terrible, a revolving door of weak draft picks and players who come to the league too soon and under-skilled to be legit pro players no matter how much they sign for. Another UK player, Jamal Murray, has been projected as a lottery pick for the upcoming draft, and Murray looked intimidated, stiff, and tight in the NCAA tournament, having his worst game of the season against Indiana as UK went out in the second round. Murray went 1-for-9 from three-point range in UK's biggest, most pressure-packed game of the year. Are we to believe that a guy who put up a brick-fest in the NCAA tournament is ready to knock down big shots for millions of dollars in the conference finals? This guy could play with any of the studs mentioned above? Give me a break.
I could go on. LeBron James is a terrific player. Sometimes he looks erratic. He does not have the outside touch that the greats from earlier decades had. And Bird, Magic, and Jordan did not have to go play with another team with two other All-Stars to get a ring. But that is an unfair comment. James also did not get drafted by a team with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, or any other assortment of great players. I have no doubt James would hold his own with the greats from the 80s and 90s. He came along at a time when both college and pro ball were in decline.
But recent NBA seasons have been so awful that "in decline" is a drastic understatement. The NBA today is truly terrible, all the way around. Like I said: too many teams and way too many players are either too inexperienced or unskilled, or both, to be legit pros. There are too many teams because the NBA wants to have the same regional appeal that college teams do. It's not going to work. The NBA was at its best when its teams were exclusively big-city franchises. And the players are so fixated on getting to the NBA they clearly no longer care about being really, really good at basketball.
So Golden State's record-breaking 73 wins is a bit like a college player dominating pick up games against intramural teams. Anyone can look good when the competition isn't there and the reality is that everyone pretty much sucks.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Would It Be So Bad If There Were a Growing Rift Within the Democrat Party?
While coverage of the 2016 primary races in both parties has done its best to render the race as a soap opera--a major reason Donald Trump has been in the spotlight so much--a more serious issue seems to be coming to the surface. Last weeks' exchange between Democrat primary contestants Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton that the other one was "unqualified" to be President, along with Bill Clinton's response to Black-Lives-Matter hecklers, indicate there is a division within the Democrat Party, and that the differences between Sanders and Clinton and their respective supporters is more significant than either camp or the media have let on.
Thus far, the media's efforts to present the primary races as a soap opera have been both predictable and paradoxical. For every effort to fan the flames of drama during the primary season, the coverage has been predictable--more of Trump's antics--and made something that ought to be inherently exciting and interesting--a Presidential election--seem rather dull. Even though Sanders has now won seven of the last eight contests, the media have consistently covered the Democrat primary as though Clinton is the inevitable winner and Sanders' campaign as a largely symbolic one featuring a candidate who never had a chance of capturing the nomination. At the same, the contest between Sanders and Clinton has been described as largely civil, while the Republican contest has been depicted as puerile, as so divisive within the ranks that front-runner Trump will be blocked from the nomination at the Republican Convention in Cleveland this summer. There has yet to be a diversion from either perspective.
But I have a different take on both primaries, particularly the Democrat primary. The "Bernie or Bust" movement was one clear sign that people who currently identify with Sanders don't automatically identify with the Democrat Party. During the debates, Sanders and Clinton have made it a point that no matter their differences, the tone and focus of their debates clearly distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans. Both Sanders and Clinton made it a point to follow-up their alleged "unqualified" remarks (Sanders has been criticized for being touchy and defensive about something Clinton apparently didn't say about him) by praising the other and announcing that no matter what, should the other candidate be the nominee, that person would be far superior to whoever comes out of the Republican primary.
One has to ask, though, if such statements are not made in response to what both candidates and their entourage may recognize but not want to verbalize: the differences between Sanders and Clinton are quite significant, and their supporters have considerably less common ground than one might assume. In other words, efforts by both Sanders and Clinton to debate in a civil manner, and state their support for the other should that person become the nominee, betray a concern that there is greater turmoil within the Democrat Party than either candidate may want to admit.
Sanders supporters are clearly disgusted with the fact their candidate has not been taken seriously as a legit contender for the Presidency, and that the Democrat primary has been rigged from Day One to be a victory march for Clinton, regardless of the truth to that perception. The "Bernie or Bust" movement reflects a general disgust with the party, the primary, with the Clinton campaign, but most of all, the idea that they are obliged to vote for Clinton in the general election once she (inevitably) claims the nomination. Actor Susan Sarandon incurred quite a backlash when she made public she wasn't sure if she would vote for Clinton should Sanders lose the nomination. That backlash, in turn, makes it pretty clear there is a good deal of disgust among Clinton supporters for the Sanders campaign, especially Sanders supporters. "How dare you say you wouldn't vote for Clinton in November!" the Clinton supporters seem to be saying. This disgust seems consistent with the depiction of Sanders' message and the mentality of his supporters as childish, unrealistic, and disloyal. Sanders' supporters have been branded as people who believe in a candidate who can't possibly be President and a platform that is unachievable because, of course, "there is no way to pay for it." And how dare Sanders supporters jeopardize the Democrats' chances in November by saying if their beloved Bernie doesn't get the nomination, then Trump, or some other Republican can just go ahead and be President.
A number of things have not gone the usual way for the Democrats during this primary. For one, with a sitting Democrat president, the predictable arrangement would have been for Vice-President Joe Biden to be the presumptive nominee, and the primary would have just been a formality. But Biden chose not to run, and one gets the feeling that after losing in 2008 to Obama, Clinton has been the party establishment's choice to be the next Democrat to run for President. Usually the primary of the party already in the White House is a clear-cut choice. But while the party establishment may want it that way, that is not how it has turned out.
Sanders has given a voice and a face to a growing awareness within the population that super-rich people and corporations control the political agenda in the United States. Whether or not one agrees with this perception, or with the notion that such big-money influence is a major problem, that is the political trend. Thus, the Sanders' campaign has amounted to an attack on politics as we know it. That makes a lot of people more than a little annoyed, apparently. The displeasure Sanders' existence as a primary candidate has generated probably explains the ridiculous imbalance between the number of states Sanders has won and the number of delegates he receives when he wins a state. Sanders supporters complain (as the stereotyped version of them would have them do) that even when he wins a state, Clinton gets nearly as many delegates as he does. Thus the delegate total is not reflective of the will of the voters. If this imbalance between number of states won and delegate total indeed reveals that the Democrat establishment has made up its mind that Clinton will be the nominee, it is hard not to argue that whatever may distinguish the Democrats from the Republicans, it most certainly isn't that the former is "the party of the people," while the Republicans are the party of the rich and powerful.
Sanders has not made subtlety a cornerstone of his campaign. He has been quite blunt about the need for campaign finance reform and his stance that the current political system has been corrupted by super-PACs and big-money interests. Obviously, his supporters feel that currently neither party has either the incentive or the right people at the helm to represent the needs and interests of the non-rich, i. e. the ordinary people. As the primary contest enters its final months, and with a mathematically decisive primary in New York State a week away, I get the sense that for Bernie supporters the primary season has shifted from the excitement of seeing their candidate do better than expected and stay in contention longer than expected to a sudden frustration and anger that their candidate is nonetheless going to lose and was doomed from the start. If there is any truth to the perception that the Democrat party was never going to let Sanders win, then no matter how anyone may feel about either candidate, the party is coming apart at the seams.
It isn't the differences between Sanders and Clinton that matter, its the degree of those differences. And from the standpoint of the candidates' supporters, that degree is significant. It may be that the era of the Democrat Party appearing to be the party of the people while in reality being a party of the rich has run its course. For Sanders and his supporters, drawing attention to corruption in the political system and the perception that Clinton is first and foremost a candidate who will protect the interests of that system is not enough. Sanders supporters want their candidate to be taken seriously and to become the next President. His candidacy has not been a joke or a "socialist" diatribe against establishment politics just to make the primary more interesting and to make Clinton sweat a little. Rather, Sanders has delivered the most accurate and lucid message about our country's problems and what must be done to address them in recent memory. He stands apart not just from Republicans and from Clinton, but Democrat Presidential candidates in previous elections.
If the rift between Sanders and Clinton supporters is as great as it seems, it reflects a disconnect within the Democrat party that was growing long before 2016 and long before Bernie Sanders became a candidate. For the differences between the two groups to become a national dialogue is long overdue. The civility between Sanders and Clinton really amounts to a plea for people who may dislike one candidate or the other to keep the Democrat Party propped up. But if the party in fact does not unite the groups that stand behind the respective candidates, then both its establishment and those who automatically have voted for its candidates in the past will have to decide what direction the future of the party will take. That will mean deciding that if keeping the Republicans out of the White House will continue to be enough to keep the party united, or if the differences between the two candidates running in its primary and their supporters reflect a population that every day finds itself having less in common with others. The Democrat primary of 2016 may show that the Democrat party can no longer unite the supporters of the two candidates vying for its nomination, people who once had their differences but identified with a common cause. If that's the case, then the pretense of unity would be far worse than seeing the party fall apart, and then have to reinvent itself. It's OK for people of different political views still to be friends, but it's not OK if they can't stand one another's politics but feel obliged not to say so and vote to the contrary.
Thus far, the media's efforts to present the primary races as a soap opera have been both predictable and paradoxical. For every effort to fan the flames of drama during the primary season, the coverage has been predictable--more of Trump's antics--and made something that ought to be inherently exciting and interesting--a Presidential election--seem rather dull. Even though Sanders has now won seven of the last eight contests, the media have consistently covered the Democrat primary as though Clinton is the inevitable winner and Sanders' campaign as a largely symbolic one featuring a candidate who never had a chance of capturing the nomination. At the same, the contest between Sanders and Clinton has been described as largely civil, while the Republican contest has been depicted as puerile, as so divisive within the ranks that front-runner Trump will be blocked from the nomination at the Republican Convention in Cleveland this summer. There has yet to be a diversion from either perspective.
But I have a different take on both primaries, particularly the Democrat primary. The "Bernie or Bust" movement was one clear sign that people who currently identify with Sanders don't automatically identify with the Democrat Party. During the debates, Sanders and Clinton have made it a point that no matter their differences, the tone and focus of their debates clearly distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans. Both Sanders and Clinton made it a point to follow-up their alleged "unqualified" remarks (Sanders has been criticized for being touchy and defensive about something Clinton apparently didn't say about him) by praising the other and announcing that no matter what, should the other candidate be the nominee, that person would be far superior to whoever comes out of the Republican primary.
One has to ask, though, if such statements are not made in response to what both candidates and their entourage may recognize but not want to verbalize: the differences between Sanders and Clinton are quite significant, and their supporters have considerably less common ground than one might assume. In other words, efforts by both Sanders and Clinton to debate in a civil manner, and state their support for the other should that person become the nominee, betray a concern that there is greater turmoil within the Democrat Party than either candidate may want to admit.
Sanders supporters are clearly disgusted with the fact their candidate has not been taken seriously as a legit contender for the Presidency, and that the Democrat primary has been rigged from Day One to be a victory march for Clinton, regardless of the truth to that perception. The "Bernie or Bust" movement reflects a general disgust with the party, the primary, with the Clinton campaign, but most of all, the idea that they are obliged to vote for Clinton in the general election once she (inevitably) claims the nomination. Actor Susan Sarandon incurred quite a backlash when she made public she wasn't sure if she would vote for Clinton should Sanders lose the nomination. That backlash, in turn, makes it pretty clear there is a good deal of disgust among Clinton supporters for the Sanders campaign, especially Sanders supporters. "How dare you say you wouldn't vote for Clinton in November!" the Clinton supporters seem to be saying. This disgust seems consistent with the depiction of Sanders' message and the mentality of his supporters as childish, unrealistic, and disloyal. Sanders' supporters have been branded as people who believe in a candidate who can't possibly be President and a platform that is unachievable because, of course, "there is no way to pay for it." And how dare Sanders supporters jeopardize the Democrats' chances in November by saying if their beloved Bernie doesn't get the nomination, then Trump, or some other Republican can just go ahead and be President.
A number of things have not gone the usual way for the Democrats during this primary. For one, with a sitting Democrat president, the predictable arrangement would have been for Vice-President Joe Biden to be the presumptive nominee, and the primary would have just been a formality. But Biden chose not to run, and one gets the feeling that after losing in 2008 to Obama, Clinton has been the party establishment's choice to be the next Democrat to run for President. Usually the primary of the party already in the White House is a clear-cut choice. But while the party establishment may want it that way, that is not how it has turned out.
Sanders has given a voice and a face to a growing awareness within the population that super-rich people and corporations control the political agenda in the United States. Whether or not one agrees with this perception, or with the notion that such big-money influence is a major problem, that is the political trend. Thus, the Sanders' campaign has amounted to an attack on politics as we know it. That makes a lot of people more than a little annoyed, apparently. The displeasure Sanders' existence as a primary candidate has generated probably explains the ridiculous imbalance between the number of states Sanders has won and the number of delegates he receives when he wins a state. Sanders supporters complain (as the stereotyped version of them would have them do) that even when he wins a state, Clinton gets nearly as many delegates as he does. Thus the delegate total is not reflective of the will of the voters. If this imbalance between number of states won and delegate total indeed reveals that the Democrat establishment has made up its mind that Clinton will be the nominee, it is hard not to argue that whatever may distinguish the Democrats from the Republicans, it most certainly isn't that the former is "the party of the people," while the Republicans are the party of the rich and powerful.
Sanders has not made subtlety a cornerstone of his campaign. He has been quite blunt about the need for campaign finance reform and his stance that the current political system has been corrupted by super-PACs and big-money interests. Obviously, his supporters feel that currently neither party has either the incentive or the right people at the helm to represent the needs and interests of the non-rich, i. e. the ordinary people. As the primary contest enters its final months, and with a mathematically decisive primary in New York State a week away, I get the sense that for Bernie supporters the primary season has shifted from the excitement of seeing their candidate do better than expected and stay in contention longer than expected to a sudden frustration and anger that their candidate is nonetheless going to lose and was doomed from the start. If there is any truth to the perception that the Democrat party was never going to let Sanders win, then no matter how anyone may feel about either candidate, the party is coming apart at the seams.
It isn't the differences between Sanders and Clinton that matter, its the degree of those differences. And from the standpoint of the candidates' supporters, that degree is significant. It may be that the era of the Democrat Party appearing to be the party of the people while in reality being a party of the rich has run its course. For Sanders and his supporters, drawing attention to corruption in the political system and the perception that Clinton is first and foremost a candidate who will protect the interests of that system is not enough. Sanders supporters want their candidate to be taken seriously and to become the next President. His candidacy has not been a joke or a "socialist" diatribe against establishment politics just to make the primary more interesting and to make Clinton sweat a little. Rather, Sanders has delivered the most accurate and lucid message about our country's problems and what must be done to address them in recent memory. He stands apart not just from Republicans and from Clinton, but Democrat Presidential candidates in previous elections.
If the rift between Sanders and Clinton supporters is as great as it seems, it reflects a disconnect within the Democrat party that was growing long before 2016 and long before Bernie Sanders became a candidate. For the differences between the two groups to become a national dialogue is long overdue. The civility between Sanders and Clinton really amounts to a plea for people who may dislike one candidate or the other to keep the Democrat Party propped up. But if the party in fact does not unite the groups that stand behind the respective candidates, then both its establishment and those who automatically have voted for its candidates in the past will have to decide what direction the future of the party will take. That will mean deciding that if keeping the Republicans out of the White House will continue to be enough to keep the party united, or if the differences between the two candidates running in its primary and their supporters reflect a population that every day finds itself having less in common with others. The Democrat primary of 2016 may show that the Democrat party can no longer unite the supporters of the two candidates vying for its nomination, people who once had their differences but identified with a common cause. If that's the case, then the pretense of unity would be far worse than seeing the party fall apart, and then have to reinvent itself. It's OK for people of different political views still to be friends, but it's not OK if they can't stand one another's politics but feel obliged not to say so and vote to the contrary.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Oh Boh!: The Legendary Andy Boh Is Leaving Kentucky's Football Coaching Staff
Kentucky football's realistic hopes of winning the SEC and contending for the national championship just went out the window.
Andy Boh--a household name in the world of sports fans--is leaving his position as special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach to take a position at Maryland to be defensive coordinator.
Boh was earning $325,000 for his coaching duties at UK.
In case you hadn't detected it, this blog has a smidgen of sarcasm. Less than 24 hours after perhaps the greatest college basketball game of all time, today's news about Boh reminds us all too starkly how pathetic the college sports infrastructure is. It's nothing against Boh personally--give me $325,000 to coach anything and I'll take it--but a critique of the relentless waste most of college sports operations are.
Kentucky football has been a forlorn operation for decades. Some years UK has managed to do better than they normally do. In 2007, the Wildcats beat No.1 LSU in an overtime contest. In 2011 they actually beat Tennessee--for the first time in 27 meetings.
But with few exceptions, UK football has been terrible, and everyone knows it. After Rich Brooks returned UK to respectability, the program took its latest nosedive. Joker Phillips quickly returned UK to the basement of the SEC, and was replaced by current coach Bob Stoops. After a predictably poor first year taking over a program in the doldrums, the misguided hope that UK football was on its way to respectability made a resurgence, stoked all the more when UK began the 2014 campaign with home wins against vastly inferior teams before getting pummeled--as usual--once they entered the maw of SEC play. The same pattern repeated last year when, after beating probably the worst South Carolina football team in memory, the UK football entourage again fell under the spell of the pipe-dream that UK was on its way to being a serious player in the SEC. But that South Carolina team was so bad that Coach Steve Spurrier didn't even bother to finish coaching through the season, and, once again, when UK faced its toughest conference opponents, they got hammered.
The one constant in UK football's poor play against its toughest opponents has been they can play zero defense when they run into the likes of Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi St., Florida, and Auburn. In other words, anyone coaching outside linebackers and special teams under Stoops must know something about football that I don't, because I've always assumed that giving up lots of points to your opponent, and getting trampled by your opponents' running game, was not good football. Apparently, Maryland thinks otherwise.
While I'm on the subject, I must point out that Stoops doesn't seem to realize the one thing (at least) that his rival coach 70 miles to the west has always understood about putting together a winning football team: the quarterback is the most important player on the team, and you have to have a great quarterback. Last year's season finale proved that point, when UK's early 21-0 lead over Louisville turned into a second half U of L route because Bobby Petrino inserted a freshman quarterback who ran wild over the Wildcats, especially in the second half. That was UK's last game of the season. And it showed that they have no defense, no ability to stop the run, and a coach who is entering his fourth season at the helm without an SEC-caliber quarterback.
In other words, replacing Boh will be the least of Stoops' worries. Unless someone turns out to be surprisingly really good, UK will again be without an effective quarterback who can consistently pass accurately and run effectively. And once again, after UK pounds its chest after beating teams that have little chance of beating them, SEC play will be a carnage.
Stoops took on a difficult assignment, but he has nonetheless been a disappointment. And, because of the SEC's divisional scheduling, he's even had the good fortune of not having to face Alabama. The call here is after the 2016 campaign UK will be looking to replace more than just its special teams coordinator.
Andy Boh--a household name in the world of sports fans--is leaving his position as special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach to take a position at Maryland to be defensive coordinator.
Boh was earning $325,000 for his coaching duties at UK.
In case you hadn't detected it, this blog has a smidgen of sarcasm. Less than 24 hours after perhaps the greatest college basketball game of all time, today's news about Boh reminds us all too starkly how pathetic the college sports infrastructure is. It's nothing against Boh personally--give me $325,000 to coach anything and I'll take it--but a critique of the relentless waste most of college sports operations are.
Kentucky football has been a forlorn operation for decades. Some years UK has managed to do better than they normally do. In 2007, the Wildcats beat No.1 LSU in an overtime contest. In 2011 they actually beat Tennessee--for the first time in 27 meetings.
But with few exceptions, UK football has been terrible, and everyone knows it. After Rich Brooks returned UK to respectability, the program took its latest nosedive. Joker Phillips quickly returned UK to the basement of the SEC, and was replaced by current coach Bob Stoops. After a predictably poor first year taking over a program in the doldrums, the misguided hope that UK football was on its way to respectability made a resurgence, stoked all the more when UK began the 2014 campaign with home wins against vastly inferior teams before getting pummeled--as usual--once they entered the maw of SEC play. The same pattern repeated last year when, after beating probably the worst South Carolina football team in memory, the UK football entourage again fell under the spell of the pipe-dream that UK was on its way to being a serious player in the SEC. But that South Carolina team was so bad that Coach Steve Spurrier didn't even bother to finish coaching through the season, and, once again, when UK faced its toughest conference opponents, they got hammered.
The one constant in UK football's poor play against its toughest opponents has been they can play zero defense when they run into the likes of Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi St., Florida, and Auburn. In other words, anyone coaching outside linebackers and special teams under Stoops must know something about football that I don't, because I've always assumed that giving up lots of points to your opponent, and getting trampled by your opponents' running game, was not good football. Apparently, Maryland thinks otherwise.
While I'm on the subject, I must point out that Stoops doesn't seem to realize the one thing (at least) that his rival coach 70 miles to the west has always understood about putting together a winning football team: the quarterback is the most important player on the team, and you have to have a great quarterback. Last year's season finale proved that point, when UK's early 21-0 lead over Louisville turned into a second half U of L route because Bobby Petrino inserted a freshman quarterback who ran wild over the Wildcats, especially in the second half. That was UK's last game of the season. And it showed that they have no defense, no ability to stop the run, and a coach who is entering his fourth season at the helm without an SEC-caliber quarterback.
In other words, replacing Boh will be the least of Stoops' worries. Unless someone turns out to be surprisingly really good, UK will again be without an effective quarterback who can consistently pass accurately and run effectively. And once again, after UK pounds its chest after beating teams that have little chance of beating them, SEC play will be a carnage.
Stoops took on a difficult assignment, but he has nonetheless been a disappointment. And, because of the SEC's divisional scheduling, he's even had the good fortune of not having to face Alabama. The call here is after the 2016 campaign UK will be looking to replace more than just its special teams coordinator.
Monday, April 4, 2016
If All's Well That Ends Well, College Basketball Is Doing Quite Well, Thank You
I could choose not to write this blog, and let the more standard blog posted this same evening/early morning on the incredibly dramatic final possessions that concluded one of the best NCAA championship games ever played be my only thoughts on Villanova's brilliant championship victory.
But since I have engaged in a diatribe about how awful this college basketball season has been, including a vicious critique of the semi-final games on Saturday, I feel the need to address my criticisms just after a championship game that could not have more starkly contradicted every observation I have made about the game based on the 2015-16 season and the NCAA tournament up until Monday night.
I would begin by asking if tonight's amazing game made the three previous weeks of "poorly played, non-competitive basketball" as I called it, worth the wait.
It's hard not to argue "yes."
It may be that the very reason we sit through long stretches of disappointing games and sub-par play is that sooner or later, one of the best games we will ever see takes place before our eyes. And that's what it means not only to love sports, but to understand them and the humans who play and coach them.
The 2016 game between Villanova and UNC had it all. Both teams got off to good starts, connecting from three-point range, and answering one another basket-for-basket right from tip-off. Everybody came to play. The early going showed that the championship game was going to be a refreshing relief from the really bad basketball 48 hours earlier. The game was not going to be a blowout, and it was not going to be the display of bad shooting and dull play that was on display Saturday.
But the 2016 title game was far more than an improvement over Saturday's games: it was one of the best ever, including perhaps the most dramatic ending in NCAA championship game history, with each team hitting clutch threes in the final seconds: UNC's Marcus Paige a double-clutch three to tie the game, and Villanova's Kris Jenkins a buzzer-beating three to win it just four seconds later.
If ever a game was meant for me to eat my words about the national semi-finals and the season that led up to it, this was it.
Even Indiana's one-point win over Syracuse in 1987, and UNC's one-point win over Georgetown in 1982 fall short of the 2016 title game, because those dramatic endings involved a mistake by one team rather than back-to-back clutch plays by both teams in the final seconds. In '87, a missed front-end of a one-and-one by Syracuse's Derrick Coleman set up Keith Smart's game winning jumper for a one-point Hoosier win. In 1982, Michael Jordan's clutch jumper to give UNC a one-point lead was followed up by an unforced, inexpiable turnover by a Georgetown player who just passed the ball to UNC's James Worthy as though Worthy were his teammate. Even Villanova fans would probably agree that tonight's victory was even more amazing than the historic upset of Georgetown in the 1985 final.
No dramatic championship game I can recall ended with neither team making a mistake: a missed free-throw with a one-point lead or turnover when behind by one. On the contrary, one team making an incredibly difficult, clutch shot, and the other following that one with a buzzer-beating three sets the 2016 championship game apart. This game was college basketball's version of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better."
I could nit-pick and find something to criticize. But that would be in poor taste after such a great game.
I will give myself credit for ending my blog about Saturday's basketball debacle by pointing out that I did predict Villanova would win, and that I hoped the game had a chance to be well-played and would get the game back on track for improved play in the seasons to come. Perhaps Saturday was a bottoming-out for the college game, and tonight was the night college basketball got its groove back, and then some.
It is worth noting, I think, that this championship Villanova team bares no resemblance to the pro-team blueprint of one-and-done players that have been the core of recent champions, in particular last year's Duke team and the 2012 Kentucky squad. Villanova won because it could consistently score the ball, which was critical in a game when UNC hit a torrid 7-of-9 from three-point range in the first half yet only led 39-34 at halftime. Without good shooters and front-line players who could score in the lane and knock down smooth baseline fade-aways, Villanova would have had a very rough night hanging with a UNC team that played as well as it could in the first half, and came back to earth in the second, when Villanova controlled the game until the Tar Heels' late rally.
Villanova got stops, rebounds, and loose balls when Carolina had chances to regain the lead in the second half as well. And, of course, like any champion, when Villanova needed a big basket, or needed to make free throws, they came through time and again. Villanova was not built around a single superstar but instead was a well-balanced team that had multiple offensive threats and could really shoot the ball. Maybe this team will be the last of its kind. Or maybe it is a timely reminder of what makes a great college basketball team--a team that plays to win the big games and make the big plays and is not put together to prepare for a lottery-pick press conference. A team that reminds us the college game is a great game that can stand on its own and doesn't need to be a prep for the pros.
So the joke is on me. I will leave it up to whatever readers are out there to decide what kind of shape college basketball is in, and whether or not tonight's game shows that I am too quick and extreme in my criticisms. On the other hand, I don't know how anyone could have watched college basketball this year up until tonight and not thought the game had seen better days.
I will say this, however. The glory of championships fades quickly. Hours before the game, a group of commentators including Jay Williams and Jay Bilas had an at-times contentious discussion about the ills of college basketball. The issue of player compensation came up. The argument was made that the college game needs to be more like the pro game, including a 24-second shot clock. And the debate about the value of the college "experience," and how to keep players for more than one year was addressed. These are difficult issues, and they will still be around when the euphoria of Kris Jenkins' game-winner and the rush of a truly great game have faded.
It is fair to say that this college basketball season featured a great many poorly played, non-competitive games. Right now, just hours after one of the best college championship games ever played, it seems also fair to say that such games come with the territory, and if you really are a fan of the game, you don't give up on it, because legendary moments like Villanova's victory are the real marker of how great the game is.
I could say that my self-described "diatribe" about the game really means that I care about it so much and am pained to see the quality of play deteriorate and its institutional operations become such a farce. But that would be a defense cop-out. There is no denying that for all its faults and hypocrisy, college basketball gave us maybe its best game ever on Monday night.
But I do wonder: if it takes such a great game to equalize or even outshine a generally dull season, was tonight's championship game a clear sign the game is as good as ever, or was it college basketball's last hurrah?
But since I have engaged in a diatribe about how awful this college basketball season has been, including a vicious critique of the semi-final games on Saturday, I feel the need to address my criticisms just after a championship game that could not have more starkly contradicted every observation I have made about the game based on the 2015-16 season and the NCAA tournament up until Monday night.
I would begin by asking if tonight's amazing game made the three previous weeks of "poorly played, non-competitive basketball" as I called it, worth the wait.
It's hard not to argue "yes."
It may be that the very reason we sit through long stretches of disappointing games and sub-par play is that sooner or later, one of the best games we will ever see takes place before our eyes. And that's what it means not only to love sports, but to understand them and the humans who play and coach them.
The 2016 game between Villanova and UNC had it all. Both teams got off to good starts, connecting from three-point range, and answering one another basket-for-basket right from tip-off. Everybody came to play. The early going showed that the championship game was going to be a refreshing relief from the really bad basketball 48 hours earlier. The game was not going to be a blowout, and it was not going to be the display of bad shooting and dull play that was on display Saturday.
But the 2016 title game was far more than an improvement over Saturday's games: it was one of the best ever, including perhaps the most dramatic ending in NCAA championship game history, with each team hitting clutch threes in the final seconds: UNC's Marcus Paige a double-clutch three to tie the game, and Villanova's Kris Jenkins a buzzer-beating three to win it just four seconds later.
If ever a game was meant for me to eat my words about the national semi-finals and the season that led up to it, this was it.
Even Indiana's one-point win over Syracuse in 1987, and UNC's one-point win over Georgetown in 1982 fall short of the 2016 title game, because those dramatic endings involved a mistake by one team rather than back-to-back clutch plays by both teams in the final seconds. In '87, a missed front-end of a one-and-one by Syracuse's Derrick Coleman set up Keith Smart's game winning jumper for a one-point Hoosier win. In 1982, Michael Jordan's clutch jumper to give UNC a one-point lead was followed up by an unforced, inexpiable turnover by a Georgetown player who just passed the ball to UNC's James Worthy as though Worthy were his teammate. Even Villanova fans would probably agree that tonight's victory was even more amazing than the historic upset of Georgetown in the 1985 final.
No dramatic championship game I can recall ended with neither team making a mistake: a missed free-throw with a one-point lead or turnover when behind by one. On the contrary, one team making an incredibly difficult, clutch shot, and the other following that one with a buzzer-beating three sets the 2016 championship game apart. This game was college basketball's version of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better."
I could nit-pick and find something to criticize. But that would be in poor taste after such a great game.
I will give myself credit for ending my blog about Saturday's basketball debacle by pointing out that I did predict Villanova would win, and that I hoped the game had a chance to be well-played and would get the game back on track for improved play in the seasons to come. Perhaps Saturday was a bottoming-out for the college game, and tonight was the night college basketball got its groove back, and then some.
It is worth noting, I think, that this championship Villanova team bares no resemblance to the pro-team blueprint of one-and-done players that have been the core of recent champions, in particular last year's Duke team and the 2012 Kentucky squad. Villanova won because it could consistently score the ball, which was critical in a game when UNC hit a torrid 7-of-9 from three-point range in the first half yet only led 39-34 at halftime. Without good shooters and front-line players who could score in the lane and knock down smooth baseline fade-aways, Villanova would have had a very rough night hanging with a UNC team that played as well as it could in the first half, and came back to earth in the second, when Villanova controlled the game until the Tar Heels' late rally.
Villanova got stops, rebounds, and loose balls when Carolina had chances to regain the lead in the second half as well. And, of course, like any champion, when Villanova needed a big basket, or needed to make free throws, they came through time and again. Villanova was not built around a single superstar but instead was a well-balanced team that had multiple offensive threats and could really shoot the ball. Maybe this team will be the last of its kind. Or maybe it is a timely reminder of what makes a great college basketball team--a team that plays to win the big games and make the big plays and is not put together to prepare for a lottery-pick press conference. A team that reminds us the college game is a great game that can stand on its own and doesn't need to be a prep for the pros.
So the joke is on me. I will leave it up to whatever readers are out there to decide what kind of shape college basketball is in, and whether or not tonight's game shows that I am too quick and extreme in my criticisms. On the other hand, I don't know how anyone could have watched college basketball this year up until tonight and not thought the game had seen better days.
I will say this, however. The glory of championships fades quickly. Hours before the game, a group of commentators including Jay Williams and Jay Bilas had an at-times contentious discussion about the ills of college basketball. The issue of player compensation came up. The argument was made that the college game needs to be more like the pro game, including a 24-second shot clock. And the debate about the value of the college "experience," and how to keep players for more than one year was addressed. These are difficult issues, and they will still be around when the euphoria of Kris Jenkins' game-winner and the rush of a truly great game have faded.
It is fair to say that this college basketball season featured a great many poorly played, non-competitive games. Right now, just hours after one of the best college championship games ever played, it seems also fair to say that such games come with the territory, and if you really are a fan of the game, you don't give up on it, because legendary moments like Villanova's victory are the real marker of how great the game is.
I could say that my self-described "diatribe" about the game really means that I care about it so much and am pained to see the quality of play deteriorate and its institutional operations become such a farce. But that would be a defense cop-out. There is no denying that for all its faults and hypocrisy, college basketball gave us maybe its best game ever on Monday night.
But I do wonder: if it takes such a great game to equalize or even outshine a generally dull season, was tonight's championship game a clear sign the game is as good as ever, or was it college basketball's last hurrah?
Jenkins' Winner Caps One of the Best College Basketball Championships Ever
What had already been an exciting, well-played national title game between Villanova and North Carolina turned into a game of the ages in the final minutes.
Villanova rallied from a seven-point deficit early in the second half to lead 67-57 with four and a half minutes to go. Up to this point the game had already featured excellent outside shooting, lead changes, momentum shifts, and all-around competitive basketball. North Carolina's torrid three-point shooting in the first half gave way to a Villanova rally in the second. For one possession, it looked as though Villanova, up by ten, had a chance to take control of the game and win its second national title. But a turnover by the normally sure and steady Ryan Arcidiacono led to a quick 4-0 UNC run that closed the game to 67-61, and anyone familiar with college basketball could sense that this game was going to come down to the wire.
But what no one could have foreseen was how incredibly dramatic the finish would actually be.
Villanova looked still in control with a 70-64 lead going into the final minute of play. But a quick corner three from UNC's Marcus Paige cut the lead to three, and one possession later, Tar Heel big-man Brice Johnson cut it to one. Villanova played sound basketball on the ensuing possession, drew a foul, and knocked down both free throws to extend the lead back to three.
But UNC came up with a loose ball underneath on the other end to close to within one, 72-71. That's when an already terrific game turned into one of the best ever.
Villanova again took care of the basketball, drew a foul, and knocked down both free throws to extend its lead to three. At this point, UNC had to hit a three or the game, and the national title, would go to the Wildcats from Philadelphia.
That's when a sequence of incredible plays led to one of the most memorable endings ever in NCAA tournament championship game history. Paige took a pass on the right wing, double-clutched in mid-air with a defender flying at him, and drained another three-pointer to tie the game with 4.7 seconds to go. In a game of big-time plays and momentum changes, suddenly it looked like the Tar Heels had regained control, and that a sure Villanova victory was headed for overtime.
That's when Arcidiacono zoomed down court, and fed trailing Kris Jenkins, who pulled up from behind the three-point line, let fly a three-pointer with less than a second remaining, and watched with the rest of the college basketball universe as the shot went in with no time left. The final 4.7 seconds saw two of the most incredible, clutch baskets ever in a national title game. Fittingly, a game of momentum shifts and big plays ended with the most dramatic swings in momentum a title game has ever seen. Villanova saw Paige tie the game when victory seemed at hand. Then UNC was left stunned as Jenkins' three turned an apparently dramatic Tar Heel rally to send the game into overtime into a national championship for Villanova.
Villanova rallied from a seven-point deficit early in the second half to lead 67-57 with four and a half minutes to go. Up to this point the game had already featured excellent outside shooting, lead changes, momentum shifts, and all-around competitive basketball. North Carolina's torrid three-point shooting in the first half gave way to a Villanova rally in the second. For one possession, it looked as though Villanova, up by ten, had a chance to take control of the game and win its second national title. But a turnover by the normally sure and steady Ryan Arcidiacono led to a quick 4-0 UNC run that closed the game to 67-61, and anyone familiar with college basketball could sense that this game was going to come down to the wire.
But what no one could have foreseen was how incredibly dramatic the finish would actually be.
Villanova looked still in control with a 70-64 lead going into the final minute of play. But a quick corner three from UNC's Marcus Paige cut the lead to three, and one possession later, Tar Heel big-man Brice Johnson cut it to one. Villanova played sound basketball on the ensuing possession, drew a foul, and knocked down both free throws to extend the lead back to three.
But UNC came up with a loose ball underneath on the other end to close to within one, 72-71. That's when an already terrific game turned into one of the best ever.
Villanova again took care of the basketball, drew a foul, and knocked down both free throws to extend its lead to three. At this point, UNC had to hit a three or the game, and the national title, would go to the Wildcats from Philadelphia.
That's when a sequence of incredible plays led to one of the most memorable endings ever in NCAA tournament championship game history. Paige took a pass on the right wing, double-clutched in mid-air with a defender flying at him, and drained another three-pointer to tie the game with 4.7 seconds to go. In a game of big-time plays and momentum changes, suddenly it looked like the Tar Heels had regained control, and that a sure Villanova victory was headed for overtime.
That's when Arcidiacono zoomed down court, and fed trailing Kris Jenkins, who pulled up from behind the three-point line, let fly a three-pointer with less than a second remaining, and watched with the rest of the college basketball universe as the shot went in with no time left. The final 4.7 seconds saw two of the most incredible, clutch baskets ever in a national title game. Fittingly, a game of momentum shifts and big plays ended with the most dramatic swings in momentum a title game has ever seen. Villanova saw Paige tie the game when victory seemed at hand. Then UNC was left stunned as Jenkins' three turned an apparently dramatic Tar Heel rally to send the game into overtime into a national championship for Villanova.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
What Would Anyone Miss About College Sports?
I awoke this morning to the sound of lawn-mowers, the breeze in the spring air, and the sound of the occasional motorcycle revving down a nearby road. The sun came up, the grass has started to grow, and people apparently have things to do and places to go (even I have this blog to write). And all of these glorious events have managed to happen after the single worst day of organized basketball in the history of the game.
Since I've been on a diatribe (apparently my natural style) about how awful college basketball has become, I thought, what the hell? Why not keep it going? Whatever I write can't be any worse than than the farce college basketball has become.
What prompted today's disgust, you ask? After all, didn't I get that out of my system last night, eviscerating everything from the poor play to the historical non-competitiveness to the fact Syracuse was in the Final Four arguably because of a terrible officiating call?
ESPN commentator Jay Bilas, who does a fine job doing color commentary for college basketball games, recently posted two articles about college basketball and its problems. Let's start with acknowledging that Bilas recognizes something is wrong with college basketball. Where he and I diverge is that Bilas actually seems to think the game can be "fixed," or at least improved, whereas I argue it is a lost cause, and further tinkering serves no purpose.
First, Jay Bilas, and anyone else who makes a living talking about sports games, is not an "analyst." He is, as I said above, a commentator--that is, he comments (note the etymological connection) about games and the state of the game. An analyst performs tasks of intellectual rigor. Talking about college basketball is not the same thing as--for example--figuring out how to engineer an aircraft carrier.
Bilas' two recommendations for the college game have been that 1) the game would be better if the games were played over four quarters rather than two halves, and 2) players have a right to boycott the Final Four over not being paid despite being the star pieces of a multi-million dollar performance.
If Bilas is somehow impressed by women's college basketball, which has adopted a four quarter system this season, I am confused. Seeing Connecticut lead Mississippi St. 64-11 in the third quarter of a regional final does not seem to contrast yesterday's indescribably bad and non-competitive play in the men's national semi-finals. As for paying the players, that argument has been around for a long time. All that's happened is that coaches' salaries continue to skyrocket, along with that of athletic directors and university presidents. How could the players be paid on par with all of the other people making millions of dollars off of a game that, if you ask me, has become worthless? The better question after yesterday's shitty play: why pay them--or anyone else involved in the operation?
What I find aggravating about articles and proposals like the ones Bilas has made is that they acknowledge major problems with college basketball but insist that the game is essentially in good shape since only minor adjustments are all that's needed to address its problems. How will four 10-minute quarters improve perimeter offense and free-throw shooting? How will that make the two two-thirds of games that are designed blowouts to pump up the win column less boring and predictable?
As for the boycott idea, let's say that happens. Tomorrow (Monday) night Villanova and UNC decide that instead of playing for the national championship they've dreamed about and dedicated themselves to winning, the players will instead march onto the court and hold signs of protest at the financial absurdity of college basketball, form a circle at mid-court, announce they are not going to play, and then walk out, leaving a stadium full of fans and millions of TV viewers with nothing to do for the evening. Game of chess, anyone?
So the games go to four quarters, and some arbitrary, cryptic formula is devised for paying the players. Now what? Suddenly everything is OK?
I wonder, after watching yesterday's carnage of basketball, why anyone cares at this point if another college basketball game were ever played again. If you're good enough to be a professional player, then go for it. If not, join a rec center and show everyone how good you are. You got next, dawg.
The irony is that, of all things, low quality of play and non-competitive games--even at the Final Four--have proven that college basketball is an operation who's time has run out. One would think that the millions of dollars poured into the game, the state-of-the-art facilities, and the "rule" that the few who really are good enough to play in the pros only have to play in college for one year would have made the game better than ever. But rather than get into some complex discussion about why the opposite is true--college basketball has fallen apart--I would simply point out, yet again, the poor quality of play and non-competitive games as more than sufficient evidence that the game serves no purpose. It was bad enough that the coaches, ADs, and presidents raked in millions while the laborers were forbidden a piece of the action. Now the product itself isn't worth anyone's attention, let alone money.
Wouldn't it be great if, instead of the one-and-done "rule," universities announced that any students who got a 4.0 for their entire year as a freshman could go ahead and graduate? You think that might get students to buckle down instead of spending their first year at State U. funneling beer, skipping class, and exploiting bullshit policies like "freshman forgiveness" that essentially program young college students to treat their education like their lowest priority?
Or how about if professors automatically got tenure after one-year of excellent student evaluations and classroom observations from colleagues, plus a publication? How long does it take to figure out if someone with a PhD is smart and knows what they're doing?
Yet no doubt such ideas would be rejected as absurd. Students and teachers need to do the hard work and prove their mettle through the euphemistic "endurance test" of higher education. Meanwhile, one successful season as a coach--exceeded expected number of wins, a major upset win in the NCAAs--yields a raise that will be enough to live on for a lifetime. For the players, one season of good basketball means you're ready to be a pro.
College sports in general have become a toxin of the university. Large numbers of students attend universities first and foremost to be immersed in the university sports culture, while those who attend primarily to pursue an education, or possibly an academic career, face an unending number of requirements and critiques no matter how much or how early they excel. The point is, there is zero connection between quality of performance and financial success. Society has already decided before tip-off that the athletes will win and the intellects will lose, even when the athletic events have somehow exceeded the presumed dullness and irrelevance of intellectual pursuits.
Maybe more people would be impressed with the efforts of Aristotle and Plato if there were U-Tube videos of them bricking three-pointers and free-throws in front of a packed house at the Parthenon.
To make it even worse, students who excel academically and pursue graduate degrees are often saddled with debt, while college professors make meager salaries compared to that of coaches. And for what? So we can watch games like the ones played yesterday? It would be impossible to attend a lecture that boring. To extend the ironic comparison, yesterday's games did provide an epiphany: college basketball is no fun, and whatever pretense college sports may have had for existing can no longer prop them up.
It is bad enough to support a system of higher education that so blatantly promotes sports over education, where large portions of the student population live for the games, the pre-parties, after-game parties, all the while bemoaning the fact that next morning's class will interrupt their hangover. So much for critical thinking as an essential part of higher education. But such an inverted perspective on the purpose of universities did have, once-upon-a-time, well-played, competitive, exciting games to mask the hypocrisy and intellectual sabotage that was at the root of their business. Now, a pickup game between faculty and staff would be more interesting to watch than yesterday's national semi-finals.
Even President Obama, a Harvard-educated, well-spoken, professorial figure, feeds this archaic and toxic sideshow by making it a point to fill out a March Madness bracket on national TV. At least that is one thing he has been able to do without Congress getting in his way.
Even more demoralizing is that the combination of inattention to education and bad basketball result in a scenario where the college students, who camp out for days to get tickets and go ape-shit over the introduction of players are so poorly educated they don't even realize how bad the basketball they are watching really is. Never mind their apathy about anything academic or intellectual; even the thing that they think is worthwhile isn't worth knowing anything about.
The financial hypocrisy, greed, and warped priorities that college sports cast on the university have been major problems that have gone on way too long. But with the horrendous quality of play on display at yesterday's final four, along with the undeniable reality that most games are rigged to be boring, non-competitive wastes of time played in packed stadiums for national TV audiences, one has to wonder why the glaring question instead isn't why do people still think college sports have any appeal--rather than the long-standing criticisms of college sports that have always run into the obstacle of their entertainment value in spite of their ethical and intellectual validity.
There's an old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But a basic truth is that lots of broken things either get replaced or simply thrown away. Their value and duration is finite, as tends to be the human condition, save for the unending bullshit of everyday life, which doesn't need any deliberate reinforcement on the part of humans themselves.
Given all the problems of college basketball and college sports in general, there is no good reason to keep them going. Young people who excelled in sports in high school but aren't good enough to be pros--and that's most of them--need to figure out what life has to offer besides doing something with a ball. The college sports system serves as a cakewalk to lucrative financial success that is neither legitimate nor beneficial to society. But the real source of bewilderment for me after yesterday, when basketball undeniably turned into something too boring and poorly performed to offer any excitement or entertainment, is why all of the fans behave as though there is anything of value in it for them.
If the financial hypocrisy, greed and warped priorities of college sports weren't enough to get rid of them, the fact that they don't even deliver the fleeting, superficial excitement they are supposed to is plenty of reason to bid them adieu. It's worth it to fix something that still has something to offer; it's a massive waste of time to tinker with something that has never been good for higher education or college life and now is an exercise in poor performance and boredom. In other words, if you would actually miss life without college sports, that is the best reason yet that the time has come to end them altogether.
Since I've been on a diatribe (apparently my natural style) about how awful college basketball has become, I thought, what the hell? Why not keep it going? Whatever I write can't be any worse than than the farce college basketball has become.
What prompted today's disgust, you ask? After all, didn't I get that out of my system last night, eviscerating everything from the poor play to the historical non-competitiveness to the fact Syracuse was in the Final Four arguably because of a terrible officiating call?
ESPN commentator Jay Bilas, who does a fine job doing color commentary for college basketball games, recently posted two articles about college basketball and its problems. Let's start with acknowledging that Bilas recognizes something is wrong with college basketball. Where he and I diverge is that Bilas actually seems to think the game can be "fixed," or at least improved, whereas I argue it is a lost cause, and further tinkering serves no purpose.
First, Jay Bilas, and anyone else who makes a living talking about sports games, is not an "analyst." He is, as I said above, a commentator--that is, he comments (note the etymological connection) about games and the state of the game. An analyst performs tasks of intellectual rigor. Talking about college basketball is not the same thing as--for example--figuring out how to engineer an aircraft carrier.
Bilas' two recommendations for the college game have been that 1) the game would be better if the games were played over four quarters rather than two halves, and 2) players have a right to boycott the Final Four over not being paid despite being the star pieces of a multi-million dollar performance.
If Bilas is somehow impressed by women's college basketball, which has adopted a four quarter system this season, I am confused. Seeing Connecticut lead Mississippi St. 64-11 in the third quarter of a regional final does not seem to contrast yesterday's indescribably bad and non-competitive play in the men's national semi-finals. As for paying the players, that argument has been around for a long time. All that's happened is that coaches' salaries continue to skyrocket, along with that of athletic directors and university presidents. How could the players be paid on par with all of the other people making millions of dollars off of a game that, if you ask me, has become worthless? The better question after yesterday's shitty play: why pay them--or anyone else involved in the operation?
What I find aggravating about articles and proposals like the ones Bilas has made is that they acknowledge major problems with college basketball but insist that the game is essentially in good shape since only minor adjustments are all that's needed to address its problems. How will four 10-minute quarters improve perimeter offense and free-throw shooting? How will that make the two two-thirds of games that are designed blowouts to pump up the win column less boring and predictable?
As for the boycott idea, let's say that happens. Tomorrow (Monday) night Villanova and UNC decide that instead of playing for the national championship they've dreamed about and dedicated themselves to winning, the players will instead march onto the court and hold signs of protest at the financial absurdity of college basketball, form a circle at mid-court, announce they are not going to play, and then walk out, leaving a stadium full of fans and millions of TV viewers with nothing to do for the evening. Game of chess, anyone?
So the games go to four quarters, and some arbitrary, cryptic formula is devised for paying the players. Now what? Suddenly everything is OK?
I wonder, after watching yesterday's carnage of basketball, why anyone cares at this point if another college basketball game were ever played again. If you're good enough to be a professional player, then go for it. If not, join a rec center and show everyone how good you are. You got next, dawg.
The irony is that, of all things, low quality of play and non-competitive games--even at the Final Four--have proven that college basketball is an operation who's time has run out. One would think that the millions of dollars poured into the game, the state-of-the-art facilities, and the "rule" that the few who really are good enough to play in the pros only have to play in college for one year would have made the game better than ever. But rather than get into some complex discussion about why the opposite is true--college basketball has fallen apart--I would simply point out, yet again, the poor quality of play and non-competitive games as more than sufficient evidence that the game serves no purpose. It was bad enough that the coaches, ADs, and presidents raked in millions while the laborers were forbidden a piece of the action. Now the product itself isn't worth anyone's attention, let alone money.
Wouldn't it be great if, instead of the one-and-done "rule," universities announced that any students who got a 4.0 for their entire year as a freshman could go ahead and graduate? You think that might get students to buckle down instead of spending their first year at State U. funneling beer, skipping class, and exploiting bullshit policies like "freshman forgiveness" that essentially program young college students to treat their education like their lowest priority?
Or how about if professors automatically got tenure after one-year of excellent student evaluations and classroom observations from colleagues, plus a publication? How long does it take to figure out if someone with a PhD is smart and knows what they're doing?
Yet no doubt such ideas would be rejected as absurd. Students and teachers need to do the hard work and prove their mettle through the euphemistic "endurance test" of higher education. Meanwhile, one successful season as a coach--exceeded expected number of wins, a major upset win in the NCAAs--yields a raise that will be enough to live on for a lifetime. For the players, one season of good basketball means you're ready to be a pro.
College sports in general have become a toxin of the university. Large numbers of students attend universities first and foremost to be immersed in the university sports culture, while those who attend primarily to pursue an education, or possibly an academic career, face an unending number of requirements and critiques no matter how much or how early they excel. The point is, there is zero connection between quality of performance and financial success. Society has already decided before tip-off that the athletes will win and the intellects will lose, even when the athletic events have somehow exceeded the presumed dullness and irrelevance of intellectual pursuits.
Maybe more people would be impressed with the efforts of Aristotle and Plato if there were U-Tube videos of them bricking three-pointers and free-throws in front of a packed house at the Parthenon.
To make it even worse, students who excel academically and pursue graduate degrees are often saddled with debt, while college professors make meager salaries compared to that of coaches. And for what? So we can watch games like the ones played yesterday? It would be impossible to attend a lecture that boring. To extend the ironic comparison, yesterday's games did provide an epiphany: college basketball is no fun, and whatever pretense college sports may have had for existing can no longer prop them up.
Even President Obama, a Harvard-educated, well-spoken, professorial figure, feeds this archaic and toxic sideshow by making it a point to fill out a March Madness bracket on national TV. At least that is one thing he has been able to do without Congress getting in his way.
Even more demoralizing is that the combination of inattention to education and bad basketball result in a scenario where the college students, who camp out for days to get tickets and go ape-shit over the introduction of players are so poorly educated they don't even realize how bad the basketball they are watching really is. Never mind their apathy about anything academic or intellectual; even the thing that they think is worthwhile isn't worth knowing anything about.
The financial hypocrisy, greed, and warped priorities that college sports cast on the university have been major problems that have gone on way too long. But with the horrendous quality of play on display at yesterday's final four, along with the undeniable reality that most games are rigged to be boring, non-competitive wastes of time played in packed stadiums for national TV audiences, one has to wonder why the glaring question instead isn't why do people still think college sports have any appeal--rather than the long-standing criticisms of college sports that have always run into the obstacle of their entertainment value in spite of their ethical and intellectual validity.
There's an old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But a basic truth is that lots of broken things either get replaced or simply thrown away. Their value and duration is finite, as tends to be the human condition, save for the unending bullshit of everyday life, which doesn't need any deliberate reinforcement on the part of humans themselves.
Given all the problems of college basketball and college sports in general, there is no good reason to keep them going. Young people who excelled in sports in high school but aren't good enough to be pros--and that's most of them--need to figure out what life has to offer besides doing something with a ball. The college sports system serves as a cakewalk to lucrative financial success that is neither legitimate nor beneficial to society. But the real source of bewilderment for me after yesterday, when basketball undeniably turned into something too boring and poorly performed to offer any excitement or entertainment, is why all of the fans behave as though there is anything of value in it for them.
If the financial hypocrisy, greed and warped priorities of college sports weren't enough to get rid of them, the fact that they don't even deliver the fleeting, superficial excitement they are supposed to is plenty of reason to bid them adieu. It's worth it to fix something that still has something to offer; it's a massive waste of time to tinker with something that has never been good for higher education or college life and now is an exercise in poor performance and boredom. In other words, if you would actually miss life without college sports, that is the best reason yet that the time has come to end them altogether.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
The Terrible Twos: Thoughts on the Final Snore
This is how bad today's Final Four semi-finals were.
A seventeen point North Carolina win over Syracuse actually had moments of feeling like an exciting game. The Tar Heels--who had twice beaten Syracuse in the regular season--clearly had their opponent out-manned. But when the Orange twice managed to close the gap to seven in the middle of the second half, watching college basketball's showcase seemed for a moment to be more exciting than, well, listening to someone snore.
That's what happens when the first game is a record setting blowout: Villanova over Oklahoma, 95-51. In showtime terms, that was not a hard act to follow.
I blogged prior to today's train wreck in Houston that will be conceptualized as a pair of basketball games that the 2015-2016 season has been the worst I've ever seen in thirty plus years of being a college basketball fan. I qualified that statement by admitting that being a UK fan has tainted my outlook on the year's tourney (UK played lousy and lost to Indiana in the second round).
But today's Final Four match-ups did nothing to counter my assessment of play. On the contrary, the lopsided games and horrendous play on the whole by all four teams reinforces my claim that this year is an all-time low.
Villanova is a really good basketball team--one would expect that from any team that makes it to the Final Four--but the idea they are 44 points better than an Oklahoma team that beat them by 23 in December is wacko. What happened in today's first game is that Oklahoma never showed up. The game could have still involved two teams had the Sooners put on a display of functional basketball for more than two consecutive possessions. But that was not going to happen.
Buddy Hield was a non-factor after playing lights out in the regional, especially in the regional final against Oregon. As I mentioned in my previous blog, the locale in Houston did not have a shooter-friendly reputation based on the miserable offensive outputs from the 2011 Final Four participants. While I give Villanova credit for playing good defense, I find it hard to believe that the venue in Houston had nothing to do with Hield turning from lights-out three point marksman to brick-layer in one week.
Again I will say: for a college game where three-point shooting and even free throw shooting are making the game more difficult to watch one season to the next, it doesn't help the quality of play to have the Final Four played in giant domes where no one plays basketball until the biggest games of the college season come around. Never mind the hundreds of large arenas designed and built as basketball stadiums, where crowds would still be enormous and outside shooters wouldn't be looking at a backdrop that looks like the Grand Canyon.
Hield and the Sooners were not the only ones who looked lost this afternoon. At halftime of the second game, UNC and Syracuse were a combined 3-of-20 from long range. The Tar Heels were 0-for-10, yet they still led by eleven at the half. That's how inept and lopsided the second game also was. The Orange made 3-of-10 threes in the first half, but were only 3-of-10 from the free-throw line. In case you want to go on and on about how great the defense was this afternoon let me remind you: no one plays defense on free throws.
Neither game was well played, nor was it competitive, a microcosm of a season characterized by inconsistent play from even the highest ranked teams, and pre-conference schedules by the major programs that loaded up on blowout mismatches that obviously do nothing to add excitement to the game nor provide players and teams the challenges they need to improve from game one and be their best come tournament time. It's as though the season doesn't start until January, and even then conference play has degenerated, as I said previously, into redundant contests and too many predictable outcomes.
So, fine. Villanova played extremely well. They played with energy, hit some threes early, had offensive balance, and took Oklahoma completely out of its game. But no one in their right mind imagined that even with Villanova playing its best the result would look more like what one would expect of a first-round 1 versus 16 seed. Oklahoma's inability to compete fueled the Wildcats' impressive play as much as Villanova made the Sooners look bad. Again, for the basketball game to have been played in a basketball game arena would have helped--hypothetically--an Oklahoma team that relies on perimeter offense, especially from Hield.
But giving all the credit in the world to Villanova can't hide that today's first game was one thing: ugly. The game was incomprehensibly non-competitive. It's brain-racking to wonder how far the quality of play in college basketball has fallen that a team could make it out of an NCAA region and play like it had just been introduced to the game a week earlier. The game was so bad, it was surreal.
The closest to such lopsided results I can remember was in 1990 when an awesome UNLV team blew out Georgia Tech and then a Duke team in the finals that went on to win back-to-back titles in the next two years. So blowouts in Final Fours is not unprecedented. The horrible play and historical non-competitiveness of this afternoon is.
Of course, as a UK fan, I won't duck from the comparison of Oklahoma's performance to UK's horrendous second-half against Georgetown in 1984. But Kentucky actually led that game at halftime, if I'm remembering correctly, and still seemed to have a chance to win until the game got in the final minutes. In any case, it wasn't a 40-minute, 44-point thrashing. At least that UK team waited until the second half to disappear.
As for the victorious Tar Heels, they controlled a game in which it wasn't until less than seven minutes remained that they managed to hit a three-pointer. It's hard to believe that in any other season against any other opponent that that kind of cold streak from three wouldn't have meant the team's doom. But it's fitting for this season that UNC could shoot bricks nearly the entire game and it never felt for a moment they would lose. After the Tar Heels' Marcus Paige finally connected for a three, his team did find some rhythm from behind the arc, snuffing out whatever remote chance Syracuse had of repeating its comeback effort against Virginia last weekend.
Speaking of, it is also fitting that a couple of days ago Gonzaga coach Mark Few announced that officials admitted they blew a 10-second backcourt violation call against the Zags that contributed to their late-game meltdown against Syracuse, who benefited from that officiating fuck-up to pull out a one-point win. Gonzaga may have lost anyway--but as all sports fans know, one never wants to see a bad call late in a game turn out to be a pivotal factor in the outcome. What's too bad is that Gonzaga had been playing extremely well--shooting the ball well from the three-point range and hitting their free throws, so it is somehow fitting--in a twisted way--that bad officiating had to derail them from at least making the regional final, in which case either they or Virginia would have had a chance to take on UNC. Such a matchup would have been more competitive than today's second act--I guess. Who knows. The only reliable aspect of this year's season and NCAA tournament have been lopsided games and poor play.
In any case, while I'm bitching about everything else, I may as well point out that the average ten minute delay in games so the refs can look at monitor replays to determine how much time should be on the shot clock with 38 minutes to go in the first half or whether or not a hard foul is intentional or flagrant, it was not within their power to review a call that might have cost Gonzaga a chance to play for a Final Four birth. If we're going to have a shitty season, let's let everyone get in on it.
Oh--wait, yeah. The alarm clock in my head went off and I remember I can't end a blog like this without a prediction for the final. And since in my previous log I said Oklahoma would actually win the whole thing, I will include myself in the matrix of college basketball ineptitude. With that disclaimer, it's hard to tell if Villanova was that good or Oklahoma that bad. But a team that wins by 44 points is my favorite over a team that didn't hit a three until late in the second half against a team that very well wouldn't have been there had they not benefited from the worst call of the tournament. So my guess is that UNC is too one-dimensional for a Villanova team that beat a very talented Kansas team and proceeded to make OU look historically bad. I hope to see a well-played, competitive game. Maybe Villanova wins such a game, and sets college basketball back on track for next season. Maybe.
A seventeen point North Carolina win over Syracuse actually had moments of feeling like an exciting game. The Tar Heels--who had twice beaten Syracuse in the regular season--clearly had their opponent out-manned. But when the Orange twice managed to close the gap to seven in the middle of the second half, watching college basketball's showcase seemed for a moment to be more exciting than, well, listening to someone snore.
That's what happens when the first game is a record setting blowout: Villanova over Oklahoma, 95-51. In showtime terms, that was not a hard act to follow.
I blogged prior to today's train wreck in Houston that will be conceptualized as a pair of basketball games that the 2015-2016 season has been the worst I've ever seen in thirty plus years of being a college basketball fan. I qualified that statement by admitting that being a UK fan has tainted my outlook on the year's tourney (UK played lousy and lost to Indiana in the second round).
But today's Final Four match-ups did nothing to counter my assessment of play. On the contrary, the lopsided games and horrendous play on the whole by all four teams reinforces my claim that this year is an all-time low.
Villanova is a really good basketball team--one would expect that from any team that makes it to the Final Four--but the idea they are 44 points better than an Oklahoma team that beat them by 23 in December is wacko. What happened in today's first game is that Oklahoma never showed up. The game could have still involved two teams had the Sooners put on a display of functional basketball for more than two consecutive possessions. But that was not going to happen.
Buddy Hield was a non-factor after playing lights out in the regional, especially in the regional final against Oregon. As I mentioned in my previous blog, the locale in Houston did not have a shooter-friendly reputation based on the miserable offensive outputs from the 2011 Final Four participants. While I give Villanova credit for playing good defense, I find it hard to believe that the venue in Houston had nothing to do with Hield turning from lights-out three point marksman to brick-layer in one week.
Again I will say: for a college game where three-point shooting and even free throw shooting are making the game more difficult to watch one season to the next, it doesn't help the quality of play to have the Final Four played in giant domes where no one plays basketball until the biggest games of the college season come around. Never mind the hundreds of large arenas designed and built as basketball stadiums, where crowds would still be enormous and outside shooters wouldn't be looking at a backdrop that looks like the Grand Canyon.
Hield and the Sooners were not the only ones who looked lost this afternoon. At halftime of the second game, UNC and Syracuse were a combined 3-of-20 from long range. The Tar Heels were 0-for-10, yet they still led by eleven at the half. That's how inept and lopsided the second game also was. The Orange made 3-of-10 threes in the first half, but were only 3-of-10 from the free-throw line. In case you want to go on and on about how great the defense was this afternoon let me remind you: no one plays defense on free throws.
Neither game was well played, nor was it competitive, a microcosm of a season characterized by inconsistent play from even the highest ranked teams, and pre-conference schedules by the major programs that loaded up on blowout mismatches that obviously do nothing to add excitement to the game nor provide players and teams the challenges they need to improve from game one and be their best come tournament time. It's as though the season doesn't start until January, and even then conference play has degenerated, as I said previously, into redundant contests and too many predictable outcomes.
So, fine. Villanova played extremely well. They played with energy, hit some threes early, had offensive balance, and took Oklahoma completely out of its game. But no one in their right mind imagined that even with Villanova playing its best the result would look more like what one would expect of a first-round 1 versus 16 seed. Oklahoma's inability to compete fueled the Wildcats' impressive play as much as Villanova made the Sooners look bad. Again, for the basketball game to have been played in a basketball game arena would have helped--hypothetically--an Oklahoma team that relies on perimeter offense, especially from Hield.
But giving all the credit in the world to Villanova can't hide that today's first game was one thing: ugly. The game was incomprehensibly non-competitive. It's brain-racking to wonder how far the quality of play in college basketball has fallen that a team could make it out of an NCAA region and play like it had just been introduced to the game a week earlier. The game was so bad, it was surreal.
The closest to such lopsided results I can remember was in 1990 when an awesome UNLV team blew out Georgia Tech and then a Duke team in the finals that went on to win back-to-back titles in the next two years. So blowouts in Final Fours is not unprecedented. The horrible play and historical non-competitiveness of this afternoon is.
Of course, as a UK fan, I won't duck from the comparison of Oklahoma's performance to UK's horrendous second-half against Georgetown in 1984. But Kentucky actually led that game at halftime, if I'm remembering correctly, and still seemed to have a chance to win until the game got in the final minutes. In any case, it wasn't a 40-minute, 44-point thrashing. At least that UK team waited until the second half to disappear.
As for the victorious Tar Heels, they controlled a game in which it wasn't until less than seven minutes remained that they managed to hit a three-pointer. It's hard to believe that in any other season against any other opponent that that kind of cold streak from three wouldn't have meant the team's doom. But it's fitting for this season that UNC could shoot bricks nearly the entire game and it never felt for a moment they would lose. After the Tar Heels' Marcus Paige finally connected for a three, his team did find some rhythm from behind the arc, snuffing out whatever remote chance Syracuse had of repeating its comeback effort against Virginia last weekend.
Speaking of, it is also fitting that a couple of days ago Gonzaga coach Mark Few announced that officials admitted they blew a 10-second backcourt violation call against the Zags that contributed to their late-game meltdown against Syracuse, who benefited from that officiating fuck-up to pull out a one-point win. Gonzaga may have lost anyway--but as all sports fans know, one never wants to see a bad call late in a game turn out to be a pivotal factor in the outcome. What's too bad is that Gonzaga had been playing extremely well--shooting the ball well from the three-point range and hitting their free throws, so it is somehow fitting--in a twisted way--that bad officiating had to derail them from at least making the regional final, in which case either they or Virginia would have had a chance to take on UNC. Such a matchup would have been more competitive than today's second act--I guess. Who knows. The only reliable aspect of this year's season and NCAA tournament have been lopsided games and poor play.
In any case, while I'm bitching about everything else, I may as well point out that the average ten minute delay in games so the refs can look at monitor replays to determine how much time should be on the shot clock with 38 minutes to go in the first half or whether or not a hard foul is intentional or flagrant, it was not within their power to review a call that might have cost Gonzaga a chance to play for a Final Four birth. If we're going to have a shitty season, let's let everyone get in on it.
Oh--wait, yeah. The alarm clock in my head went off and I remember I can't end a blog like this without a prediction for the final. And since in my previous log I said Oklahoma would actually win the whole thing, I will include myself in the matrix of college basketball ineptitude. With that disclaimer, it's hard to tell if Villanova was that good or Oklahoma that bad. But a team that wins by 44 points is my favorite over a team that didn't hit a three until late in the second half against a team that very well wouldn't have been there had they not benefited from the worst call of the tournament. So my guess is that UNC is too one-dimensional for a Villanova team that beat a very talented Kansas team and proceeded to make OU look historically bad. I hope to see a well-played, competitive game. Maybe Villanova wins such a game, and sets college basketball back on track for next season. Maybe.
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