It’s the most wonderful time of the year. And no NBA zealot is going to ruin it for college basketball junkies, as the first day of the NCAA Tournament—basically our Christmas—kicks off early Thursday afternoon.
Association stans, who vehemently hate the college game, relish the opportunity this time of the year to flame college fans with their hot takes about how superior the NBA is, about how much better the actual basketball is, about how bad college basketball is.
And every year, you hear the same, sad arguments: The college kids can’t shoot. They can’t score. They can’t dribble. There are too many fouls. The 3-point line is too close. Coaches get all the glory. And the NCAA is the worst.
the one-and-done format of the tournament only ratchets up the drama to levels the NBA wishes it could replicate aside from the occasional Game 7.
Yes, the NCAA is the worst. No college fan would argue otherwise. The hypocritical governing body that’s earning around a $1 billion just in TV rights for the tournament this year has an official candy, hangout, hamburger, hotel, ladder, pizza, and rental car company but can’t be bothered to pay the players a dime. They are garbage truck juice. Stuck in their archaic ways, proselytizing about the sanctity of the student-athlete, no one can argue the NCAA is anything but awful. One day, the empire will come crumbling down and the players who produce all this revenue and make executives, sports administrators, and coaches wildly rich will finally get what they deserve.
But getting back to the actual basketball, why can’t NBA stans just enjoy the college game for what it is? Especially this time of the year?
The NCAA Tournament is the best postseason in sports, producing as much drama in a couple of days as the NBA playoffs sometimes produce over three rounds. Where else do you get to see insane upsets reeled off in a matter of minutes during the first two days? Where else do you get to fill out a bracket and rub it in your friend’s face when you dust them with your picks? And where else, if you’re so inclined, do you get to revel in the gambling nirvana that is 32 games over two days, starting at noon and ending well after midnight?
Also, the quality of basketball only gets better as the tournament moves along. Watching high-level college games—like Duke-North Carolina or Arizona-UCLA—is a hell of a lot more entertaining and dramatic than a Kings-Nuggets matchup or a showdown between the seventh and eighth seeds in the East. And the one-and-done format of the tournament only ratchets up the drama to levels the NBA wishes it could replicate aside from the occasional Game 7.
So the NBA stans can save their hot takes on the college game for next November when the slog that is college basketball’s regular season begins again. The college game is far from perfect, and it’s an incredibly easy target for NBA junkies to rip to shreds. But as the most perfect postseason in sports officially tips, do us college basketball fans a favor and keep your slander to yourself. — A.C.
College Basketball is the Worst
Today is supposed to be one of the greatest days in the sports year, the start of the NCAA Tournament. (Well, the real start—shouts to the play-in games.) It’s the day everyone sneaks out of work to watch games for hours. It’s the day millions upon millions of people declare their precious brackets broken, courtesy of a traditional 12-5 upset.
It’s the worst. Wake me up when the NBA playoffs begin.
Those are kids, playing like kids. And even if the ending of a game is thrilling, most of what leads up to it is bad basketball. If I wanted to watch bad basketball, I’d go to a Knicks game.
Let’s start with this: College basketball just isn’t that good. In fact, it’s bad. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been to college. College everything is bad except to people who are actually in college, who think everything is amazing. And they’re not wrong. It would probably be for the best if college campuses were entirely self-contained environments where everyone there could just revel in their own amazingness without involving the rest of us at all. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves.
As bad as college basketball is (and it’s really bad) the NCAA is 100 times worse. Much has been made of late of the fact that everyone makes money off of NCAA athletes except for the athletes themselves. Yes, they get a free education that is at least theoretically worth something. Meanwhile, coaches and administrators and commentators and sneaker companies take home actual money earned off the backs of the “student-athletes,” even as they miss out on large swaths of actual education. Everyone knows this is unfair, and everyone watches anyway. Well, almost everyone.
Did I mention college basketball is bad? It’s worth mentioning again. Even the best teams, when compared to even the worst NBA teams, are terrible. Remember all those arguments over whether Kentucky could beat the Sixers? Stop making those. The Sixers would wash Kentucky, or Duke, or North Carolina or any other top program. Watch a college game some time. No, really watch it. Those are kids, playing like kids. And even if the ending of a game is thrilling, most of what leads up to it is bad basketball. If I wanted to watch bad basketball, I’d go to a Knicks game.
About the only thing college basketball has going for it is the tournament, because single elimination makes for exciting games, and brackets allow everyone to think they’re a basketball genius—at least until the games start. Of course brackets are just another way to throw money away, seeing that most office pools are won by someone who has never watched a college basketball game and just picks the cutest mascots. You’re better off giving that $20 to your mom and skipping the brackets entirely.
To be fair, I did fill out a single bracket this year. I tried a new technique, where I spent nearly no time thinking about any matchups, picked my favorite squad—UNC—to win it all, and didn’t even print a copy out. I have no intention of agonizing over every single game, or even watching any. I’ll care about it if I win. Otherwise it’s just another charitable donation. (The ASPCA gets a cut.) Now, when’s the next Spurs/Warriors game? — R.B.
