Proof of concept

 

One of the toughest things about college basketball for a stretch of about 20 years was the brevity of the stays in college for the best players. It was hard for schools to build momentum, and the tournament made little sense. The tournament is still a challenge to forecast, but now, teams can build and grow because players are starting to stick around a bit longer. 

The money almost certainly helps. NIL deals get a lot of attention on the football side of it, but they are a boon for basketball players as well. Part of players staying in college involves a high rate of transfers, playing for multiple schools while opportunity and revenue increases along the way. 

Still, whatever money can be made playing college basketball doesn't hold a candle to the riches of the NBA, or even many leagues overseas. For so long, players jumped to the NBA early, and NBA teams often avoided drafting upper classmen, fearing that they wouldn't get better, or there was no "upside" as draft speak goes. 

The thinking seems to be turning around, as teams are starting to realize that college donors can play for a players' development, rather than the team, and having that player spend time deep on their bench. This year, 6 seniors were drafted in the first round. Generally, seniors have been the lottery ticket, selected at the end of the second round, but now, teams are recognizing that they may be able to be inserted into a lineup right away. 

Tonight, Bronny James got the attention for the Lakers, but it was former senior Dalton Knecht who was the first rookie off the bench of LA. College fans will remember Knecht for his sharp shooting at Tennessee, where he ended up after starting at Northern Colorado (that transferring for money and opportunity thing, a prime example). Not many teams are looking for the overall health of the league versus their own success, but having a player with more name recognition as they come into the league is only going to benefit everyone. 

Zach Edey is playing for the Memphis Grizzlies, and is going to start at center. He was the 9th pick in the draft, and everyone who follows basketball knows who he is. He was 2 time player of the year at Purdue, and a force to be reckoned with for the past two years, and totally unrecognizable, save for the 7'4" height, from the player he was as a Freshman. 

The money is a good base to keep players grinding away in college, as is the ability to move more freely from school to school. Now, there is a proof of concept - you can stay in school and still get paid. College basketball is getting it's passion back, and basketball across the country will be better for it. 

The NCAA season starts in less than a week, and the NBA began today.

I'm ready for College hoops

 Tonight is opening night on the college basketball schedule, and if all goes as expected, this will be the first "normal" season, nose to tail since 2018-19. After two screwed up seasons, it will be good to level set one of my favorite sports after it was one of the first and most significantly disrupted sports by the Pandemic.

Covid-19 destroyed the 2020 NCAA basketball post season just recently underway when the whole world ground to a halt. First conference tournaments were scrubbed, then the rest of the league. While professional leagues later came back in bubbles later that summer, the 2020 NCAA season was just done and gone forever. Then, the beginning of the 2020-21 season was affected by the same problems the rest of the world was, with breakouts, delays and cancellations. VCU missed the tournament because of a late positive on their team.

This year? There shouldn't be as much, if any of that. College basketball will return to represent sports as chaos again, in such a good way. Today, there are a few big match ups, and a lot of games featuring huge disparities in talent, like Purdue's opener with Bellarmine, a small school from Louisville. It will offer the first samples of teams with big names choking away games against smaller teams, but will also be the first introduction to the best teams in the country. 

Purdue is one of the best squads in the country, and I'm excited about that, as you might imagine. Minnesota Gophers basketball was my first sports love, and even though they will likely be bad, they are a full on mystery, and I'm excited about that. St. Thomas is D-1 now, and I am excited to see them play. I have no Following the Compass teams for this season (it was the New York Giants and Colorado Rapids this season), but that's no matter, as I will still keep tabs on ever team I've tracked in the past, I'm sure, and I'm excited about that.

But mostly, I'm just excited that there will be basketball in gyms, at the right time of year again. I think that we have all learned a lot about preventing and mitigating the spread of contagious diseases, and of course, are finding more and more people getting vaccinated, so it will be safer this season. There will be games on my TV almost every night I want them to be on. We've been grasping for normal for almost 2 years now, and by God, tonight's excitement feels normal. 

Now here is a wild idea

Source: The ACC will propose that ever single team in Division 1 will make the 2021 NCAA Tournament.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) September 9, 2020

You know, there is a lot to like about this proposition. The main thing is that an extended, single elimination tournament would be intense. There would be a lot of basketball, and most basketball fans would enjoy it, but networks would probably enjoy it more. 

The TV windfall would be the top reason I would expect that the ACC of all conferences would suggest this. Most of that conference makes the tournament in a given year anyways, so this seems like an olive branch to the mid-majors and lower conferences in a year that is going to be supremely weird, especially at the start.

Most teams are already looking at the prospect of abandoning their non-conference schedule, so perhaps this was an idea to allow some smaller programs to recoup losses without putting the burden of support directly on major conference schools, who are hurting just as bad (see: The University of Minnesota cutting a handful of sports).

The shock value of having a 320+ team tournament, and the cynical motivation of welcoming everyone into the fold distract from an important feature of college basketball. Unlike in college football, from the outset, every team has a chance to get into the Big Dance, and ultimately win the championship, no matter how unrealistic that might be. 

Win your conference tournament, you make the Big Dance. Not only that, the small teams get a moment in the sun when they win those conference tournaments, which they would be likely to lose if they are wiped out in the 2nd round by a team like Wake Forest in an enormous tournament.

It sounds good, but an all teams tournament should only be used as a break glass measure. It takes away too much from every team in college basketball, and would otherwise only provide a brief, cheap thrill and would serve primarily as fan service. Still, with as strange as this year has been, and the accommodations that have been needed across the board, how can anything be ruled out?

Ba$ketball

The easiest sport in the world to negotiate the influence of money is basketball.  Players are generally healthier, so we don't tend to worry about long term effects, and the rules of the game are pretty well established. Fan interest is high, and we aren't concerned about attracting new audiences. Nope, the only thing that causes debate in basketball, aside from which team or player is better, is cash.
There are currently two enormous stories being slung around the world of basketball, and in their own way, are all about money. The most obvious is from the amateur world, where laws revolving around the compensation of college athletes for use of their likeness are being passed, much to the chagrin of the NCAA.
The NCAA stipulation is a foolish one, in my opinion. Amateurism is a fine and egalitarian goal, but the practice of it is poorly mishandled by the league. What other scholarship student is restricted from making money off of their talents? I agree with the opinion that education and boarding is a salary in it's own right, offered up by the school, and I don't necessarily agree that they should be forced to offer any more than that, however they certainly shouldn't be allowed to restrict a player's earning potential with above board sponsorship opportunities.
Think of it this way: A kid on an academic scholarship will not be prohibited from making money tutoring, so why shouldn't a basketball player use his God given talent to complement the stipend he gets for attending a particular school? The answer is fairly apparent. It isn't competition or fairness between schools. It's all about the money, as it often is.
Right now, endorsement opportunities are available to schools and coaching staffs, but not the players. If a company, say Rhino and Compass, wanted to affiliate ourselves with Purdue because their player, Ryan Henning was very popular, we could only sponsor Purdue and plaster our name over their facilities. We couldn't ask Ryan Henning to endorse our site though, even though paying him would potentially be more effective, and would likely cost our site less money. The endorsement opportunities for players would likely result in less revenue for the schools.
The professional ranks have an entirely different money related story. Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey spoke in support of protesters in Hong Kong, to which the Chinese government took offense. The NBA apologized, Morey deleted his tweet, and players distanced themselves from his comments. There was backlash in the United States, and now the NBA is trying to backtrack the backtracking.
China is a lucrative market that soaks up the NBA and is still growing. While the NBA was lambasted at home for kowtowing to the Chinese and showing how spineless and "anti-freedom" they were, they were really just adhering to the most capitalistic principles: Money over everything.
They were in even bigger trouble, of course, with the home crowd, who is nearly universally against China's humanitarian record, and supportive of Hong Kong, as Morey was, so Commissioner Adam Silver and the league had to do some double talk to make sure they weren't unpatriotic at home, and non confrontational overseas.
In both situations, the organizations look silly in their attempts to chase the dollar. Other leagues try to appeal to fans or simply raise prices to increase revenue. Basketball just finds trouble.

Upper Midwest's best are in South Dakota

When trying to imagine a place for another NCAA D-1 team in Minnesota, I've recently taken to doing so within an Upper Midwestern conference. I like to check in with my fictitious Upper Midwestern conference every once in a while to remind myself of the viability of such a group, if only there was one Minnesotan school just to complete the dozen.
This year, the two best schools in that group are the two from South Dakota, with the University of South Dakota the top school according to Ken Pomeroy, with South Dakota State as the second best team. For reference, their ranks are 66 and 78 respectively. The University of Minnesota is 88.
While the point of this is to suggest that there is enough talent to support another team in Minnesota, neither South Dakota school has more than 3 Minnesotans on the roster. But maybe that's the point. Neither team is awash in South Dakotans, either, with many of their athletes coming from Nebraska and Wisconsin. The region is teeming with athletes that are willing to spend the best 4 years of their life in Vermillion, if only for the chance to play Division One College basketball.
As Championship Week starts up, it's hard not to be disappointed that no schools in Minnesota have dared to make the leap yet, especially since many of the rivals of schools like Minnesota State or St. Cloud have already departed, and also, because the one school local college fans can cheer for has been rocked by injury and scandal all year.
If you were curious, the rankings of all the schools that I would envision in an Upper Midwestern conference placed like this, according to Ken Pom this season:
South Dakota
South Dakota State
Northern Colorado
Northern Iowa
Drake
North Dakota State
Denver
Milwaukee
North Dakota
Green Bay
Omaha

College basketball is weird this year

In a given season, I think we generally expect three of a group of 6, Duke, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan State, Kentucky and Kansas to be near the top of the heap and earn tournament 1 seeds, with a second tier, including Syracuse, Villanova, Connecticut, Memphis, Louisville, UCLA, Florida and Gonzaga occupying several of the higher seeded spots, with maybe one or two upstarts filling in a final 1 seed, or claiming a stray 2 or 3 seed. This year, looking at the top 12 teams in the country, there are several new faces. Looking at the AP poll, those schools are
2 - Virginia - an ACC team usually forgotten behind the rest of a formidable conference, though resurgent in recent years
3 - Purdue - Despite my high regard for them, this is the best Purdue team in decades.
4 - Oklahoma - OU can usually recruit, and has the best freshman in the country, for the first time since the days of Blake Griffin.
6 - West Virginia - Bob Huggins is still coaching, but doesn't seem to be getting in as much trouble as he used to. He might just be good at his job.
7 - Wichita State - They even switched conferences to raise their profile. Mission accomplished!
8 - Texas Tech - what
11 - Xavier - The A-10's finest, which is usually only good for being ranked 20th or so.
12 - Cincinnati - By these rankings, Cincinnati isn't even the best team... in Cincinnati! And yet, they are the 12th ranked team in the country.

That's 75% of the top 3 seeds that would go to teams that most people wouldn't describe as blue bloods. That's going to make for an interesting tournament this year. (But it will probably be Villanova vs Duke in the championship game.)