Everyone Needs To Stop Trying To Kill College Basketball, It's Not Going Anywhere
So I saw this clip over the weekend and it's a slow ass day, so I want to talk about something. The death of college basketball. You know what I'm talking about. Any time a prospect picked the G-League Ignite or overseas instead of college basketball, numerous would people started talking about how the sport is dying. Wrong, idiots.
First, keep Adam Silver the hell out of the sport. The only thing he should be doing is getting rid of the one-and-done. That's it. I don't want him in college basketball, even if he's 100% right about America needing a better system like Europe has. We're talking specifically college basketball here. What's he going to do to help the sport? Get rid of the one-and-done that's it. People love complaining that it ruined the sport, so get rid of it. Let the NBA decide if they want to draft a kid out of high school or not. Stop protecting dumb owners.
Once that's gone then you'll still have one-and-dones, sure. But you'll also have the multi-year players that we all slobber over. Well, except Zach Edey. Every non-Purdue fan is over him being tall apparently. I also know people love to bitch about NIL but it's keeping guys in college for four years. Instead of chasing an overseas contract or a 2-way deal or whatever, those fringe guys are coming back. That's good! Stop pretending like guys weren't making money before, it was all 'under the table.' Also good luck changing anything because the NCAA is just going to keep getting sued and likely losing.
Speaking of the G-League and G-League Ignite:
Whoops! Guess college basketball didn't die because a handful of decent prospects went that route. Almost, like college basketball can survive nearly anything because we cheer for laundry. You don't care who plays for your team, you cheer for your school. It's that simple. For those screaming transfer portal. Let's wait until after next year when the COVID free year is gone and there's a normal amount of people in the sport instead of extra. But the transfer portal should be an easy fix. One free transfer and then you sit out a year the second transfer unless it's because your coach took another job/got fired. That's the one exception.
Nobody loves college basketball because the players are better than the NBA or anything like that. There are still stupid, disgusting, hideous plays. Just watch Virginia try to run offense this year.
90 points combined in its last two games and one of those being a win is why college basketball is the best. It's dumb, it's ugly, it's all about the history and everything that goes along with it. Hell, right now you have a UConn team as a favorite to go back-to-back. People are already comparing them to the Florida team that did it.
There's ridiculous stories every single night. You have teams trying to win different ways. You have a million different styles. Look at the top-10 right now. UConn is seen as balanced. Houston will dogfight you to the death on defense. Purdue has a really tall guy. Iowa State is boring as hell but just wins. Alabama might try to shoot 100 threes in one game. There's no recipe for success. It's why the Tournament is the best event in the world. Everyone screams you gotta do this, you gotta do that and then San Diego State is playing FAU in a Final Four game. It makes no goddamn sense but it's beautiful.
So let's all agree to stop trying to kill college basketball. It's not perfect, no shit. There are things need to be changed. But college basketball is never going to be dying until they expand the Tournament and/or have the major conferences breakaway. Until the day happens, sit back and enjoy the show.