With the NCAA Men’s Basketball celebrating the big victory of Connecticut over Purdue, and South Carolina defeating Iowa before record-setting ratings the day before, there’s a lot for college basketball to cheer about, and fans to eagerly anticipate another season of “bracketology” next year as UConn and the Gamecocks try to defend their titles.
It’s therefore too bad that college basketball’s postseason is dying.
Like Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” there aren’t merely a lot of suspects. There are also plenty of perpetrators in the imminent demise of the Big Dance.
NIL payments were supposed to be a really good idea, at least on paper, where players are getting paid for their performance. It was even hoped that with such money, college stars may stick around a little longer, and not be a “one-and-done” player, leaving the university after a short time for professional sports.
It seems that paying players and transfer portals seems to have hurt the ranks of coaching. Witness the criticism by a legend like Rick Pitino, and Purdue’s Coach Matt Painter, who claim that players seem to care more about how much they’re getting paid, rather than coming to campus to soak up the knowledge and develop the skills to play well in professional sports, hopefully absorbing several additional character lessons and knowledge along the way.
It could explain why Coach John Calipari may leave a great situation at the University of Kentucky for a less-storied school like the University of Arkansas. At Kentucky, he recruits, and is expected to get, a ton of talented players, who have even less incentive to listen to the future Hall-of-Fame Coach than they did before the days of the NIL. But at Arkansas, he’s more likely to get hungrier players (paid less, if even paid), who need his tutelage to make it to the NBA. Normally such a move wouldn’t make sense, but would you rather coach David or Goliath?
In terms of character, Colorado Football Coach Deion Sanders raged about a letter from a college professor, who was decrying the talent-privileged players whose attendance and attitude may have left a lot to be desired. And Sanders is justifiably upset with his players. In the past, keeping one’s scholarship was a priority, which meant you had to do well in school. Now, with the NIL, you don’t need to. And if you don’t go to the NBA, there are plenty of overseas basketball leagues that will also pay, whereas the value of a college degree, while incredibly tangible, comes well into the future, a long way off for a short-sighted player.
Much of the focus on conference realignment has covered college football teams leaving one conference for perceived greener pastures in another. Well, what do you suppose that means for college basketball, where traditional rivalries and stability become an endangered species?
If you watch some of the games, you’ll see more empty seats than you should be seeing. Flying teams across the country into small venues where locals just don’t have a dog in the fight isn’t helping the Big Dance. I live a short distance from Auburn University, where fans from the SEC Conference Champion wondered who they inadvertently insulted to have to fly up to Spokane, Washington for a first-round game against Yale on short notice. You’d think a successful regular season and a great conference performance would be rewarded with a packed house for a home match, instead of being forced halfway across the USA on short notice without a home crowd. And witness the rude racist reception awaiting the diverse Utah women’s team in Idaho; Utah had to stay there because there were no rooms in Spokane. The fact that college basketball keeps this highly unproductive tradition around may be the real March Madness.
It’s not that we won’t have a college basketball tournament. It’ll be more like the National Invitational Tournament, or the College World Series in baseball, still in existence, but much diminished from its past glory, or even present potential, unless some serious reforms are made.
John A. Tures is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Political Science Program at LaGrange College, in LaGrange, Georgia.