No debate on how much the quality of play in college hoops has fallen off. Poor footwork, poor team defense, poor shooting. Almost unwatchable. Not only Arkansas.
NBA 1 and done hurts college hoops. AAU hurts the college game on a broad basis. These problems can be fixed by the NBA and FBI.
There are no real attachments to players anymore. I bet many people on these board know moncrief, balentine’s, kleine’s, robertson’s, walker’s, Mayberry, day, big nasty, Scotty, beck, d hood, Bradley, Karen Reid’s numbers. I know nobody’s number now or in last decade. Who do we actually have to imitate and pretend to be in the driveway now? Portis was great but gone in a flash. The last guy I felt was a HOG was ky madden.
These two transferring was a microcosm of the garbage college game…even worse to put out a quote about always being a hog and hiding behind prayers. Just a delusional 19 year old.
This is an excellent post. I also think one of the issues unique to Arkansas and maybe other schools in the south is that the education and economy is so poor in Arkansas, generally, that there are a bunch of uneducated, financially needy and gullible parents that will do anything to try and advance the pro basketball prospects of their children. Or, there are no parents at all.
I of course don’t know the extent to which Darius’s parents were involved in his decision here, if at all. But it strikes me that we seem to recruit lots of these type players, mostly I guess out of necessity. Yeah, Arkansas has pretty good high school basketball. But the types of players we recruit just don’t seem to be altogether reliable, whether it’s from early exits to the pros, criminal mischief, or transferring. There are a few big exceptions of course – Gafford, Macon and Barford. We need more like those guys. Villanova sure has a bunch of them.
You don’t know anything about the parents of the players. You said so yourself. Yet you called them gullible. Uneducated and financially needy is probably a good guess. But gullible?
It is tough to be born poor. I don’t see anything wrong in these people pursuing their financial goals using their abilities as they see fit. They don’t owe anything to us fans and college basketball.
I have a friend who was an NBA All Star several years (late 80’s early 90’s). He played college ball for one of the top programs in the country. We discussed how “big bucks” have impacted the game. He said that most of the kids coming out of HS today have been given “special treatment” since they were early teenagers because of their BB abilities. He hinted AAU ball has impacted players ego’s and coaches, parents and street agents have hurt the game. He said that the lure of millions of dollars get’s in everyone’s eyes. He asked me what I would have done if I received millions at 19 years of age (that was a scary thought). He had no answers but expressed sadness for the state of things today.
I miss loyalty, playing for the love of the game and HS ball being the stepping ground for college. But then again I grew up in another age.
Comments: You fail to include Clark, Mickelson and Hazen, as it pertains to not being reliable, due to transfers. I say it is simply the signs of the times and get ready for more either transferring in or out. These young millennial (Generation Y ) may not do things exactly the way you or I may do them regardless of their methods they seek resolve. I’ve said this before as it relates to these millennials if you are not the means to their ends, you better have a strong relationship with them…
Comments: You fail to include Clark, Mickelson and Hazen, as it pertains to not being reliable, due to transfers. I say it is simply the signs of the times and get ready for more either transferring in or out. These young millennial (Generation Y ) may not do things exactly the way youunderstand or I may do them regardless of their methods they seek resolve. I’ve said this before as it relates to these millennials if you are not the means to their ends, you better have a strong relationship with them…
[/quote] with all due respect I don’t understand what you’re trying to say
The reason Final Four is on TBS is that they want to make sure that TBS is carried by all providers. It is their opportunity to showcase TBS. I am not arguing against the main point of OP, but just your statement about who carries the Final Four.
Listening to NBA all-stars from that era, I get the feeling that they are jealous of today’s players that they themselves did not get courted the same way.
THIS IS EXACTLY what I have been thinking for a few years. Couldn’t grasp a way to make this point. There was a time I knew every player coming back and what we looked like for next year.
34 YEARS of BB tickets gone. I always thought I would keep them and have kids who would want them. My son for one. A U of A grad. (Fay. Arkansas) LOL.
Now he has kind of put the Razorbacks on the back burner. ME, health reason. Only went to 4 games last year. Almost 2,000 bucks for 4 games. 5 rows from the court. Would you pay that? And then fall down the stairs?
FBI, cheating everywhere. It’s all about ME, ME, Me today.
Still love my hogs but today I’m recovering from a full knee replacement. If you have never had one of those come on down. Along with neck, prostate, other knee. So, I’ve had to start looking at myself and health.
I still really enjoy watching the Hogs play basketball, and I enjoyed watching the NCAAs this year. Who couldn’t like Loyola? I don’t particularly like Villanova, but I admire the way they play the game.
College basketball’s underbelly has been there for a long, long time, it’s just more systemized now with bigger bucks involved. That’s mainly because of the shoe companies/endorsement deals/salary sizes and the potential payoff for agents/hangers-on.
I do think the “I am a future pro” culture that pervades college basketball has caused quality of play to suffer, as that belief makes some guys harder to coach, and causes more guys to leave for perceived greener pastures(whether they be one and dones or transfers).
On the other hand, I don’t really blame guys who transfer looking for more playing time. No body except a walk-on is going to be happy playing four minutes a game in their junior year.
You make some points that are spot on, but I think basketball is sometimes unfairly singled out. The overall system of college athletics is greatly flawed. The rules in place in football and baseball are much more restrictive and this throw a veil over their issues, football especially. From the pro level on down basketball players are more vocal and have seized more control of the system. Thus they exercise more control of their future. Obviously this can be problematic but it is capitalism in its purest form; I want my slice of the pie. I don’t like the iron-fisted ways of the NFL and the way they treat their players but I also detest the one & done rule and constant transfers in college basketball. Hopefully responsible minds will arrive at a happy medium but when there is as money at stake as there is it will not be easy. It just bothers me when basketball is branded as this outlaw enterprise and football as a paragon of virtue. I don’t think that is near accurate.
The reason Final Four is on TBS is that they want to make sure that TBS is carried by all providers. It is their opportunity to showcase TBS. I am not arguing against the main point of OP, but just your statement about who carries the Final Four.
[/quote] - PJHog
Any comments on this? Is PJ correct, or was the Final Four not on a major networks because of ratings issues?
BTW, I’m not picking on PJ. He’s usually right on with his posts. I just thought it was so odd that these games were on TBS and not ABC, NBC, CBS or ESPN.
Regardless of who has the players ears, it seems at the very least they are stealing the kids youth by putting them in the position of not being able to mature and develop in a safer setting. These colleges who are selling their souls to attract these players are finding the process is not as easy with the mindset around the players. Both Memphis and Mizzou hired Fathers to get talented brothers and while Memphis may have messed their situation up by reassigning the Lawson Dad, it appears the Porter’s worked a deal that looks far better for them than Mizzou.
I think people get to easily tainted by the money/being poor aspect. No, fortunately I have never been poor, so I recognize I am less qualified to put myself in these players’ shoes, but before this environment became so mercinary, I wonder if college sports environment did not work better?
Part of the problem on defense are the new rules and the interpretation by the refs. It is very difficult to do anything proactive on defense without drawing a foul, especially since offensive players are allowed to initiate contact and get rewarded with FTAs. What do they want defenders to do? Runaway? Fouls are also called on plays that wouldn’t have any material effect on the game if they were not called.
I actually believe Macon and Barford played the game like it should be played. They tried to create space to make shots. However, it would have helped us at times if they had sought contact more diligently and gotten to the line more. I hate the style of basketball in which drivers dive into the lane, look for somebody to run into, and then fall down, but it gets rewarded. I don’t know you can cutoff guard penetration in those circumstances without playing passively and giving up shots. But very passive defense tends to slow the game down, the opposite effect of what they are trying to create. There is little downside to passing profusely in order to try to create an easy look since the defense is not attempting to disrupt the offense. You can always take the open jumper late in the shot clock. Aggressive defense punishes patience and rewards rapid ball movement. You better take the first open look. It might be the best one you get before turning the ball over.
I think they need to balance the rule changes for freedom of movement by calling offensive fouls much more liberally and giving the benefit of the doubt to defenders on block-charges. That would force the offense to look for lanes and space instead of creating points off the dribble because the defense is trying.
In breathlessly catering to the top 30 or so players and 6-7 programs and turning a complete blind eye to enforcement the industry is going down a slippery slope.
While its primary talking heads wail about how the top players should be paid (as if that will curb cheating) and minimize the opportunity at a free education, state of the art facilities and most importantly the opportunity to compete on TV against other quality players, I think the industry is setting itself up for irrelevance.
Once the talking heads get their way, I think an already watered down sport is going to be crippled. Without the best players, without the team brands, with rampant transfers and coaching changes and accessible, competing minor leagues that lack a school component the interest in college basketball will be severely impacted.
And why? All because they want to cater to the top 1% and don’t want to make common sense eligibility/draft changes and also actually commit to enforcement. It’s insane.
CBS and Turner are partners in this deal. Last year CBS had the final, this year TBS, next year CBS.
I looked up the ratings. CBS got a 13.2 with 23 million viewers in 2017. TBS got a 9.2 with 16.5 million this year, and a 10.6 with 17.7 million for Nova-UNC in 2016.
I guarantee you CBS doesn’t get a 13.2/23M for its normal Monday night programming. In fact, they get more like 5M viewers on a normal Monday.
(By the way Arkansas-Duke in '94 got a 21.6, 32 million viewers, but there weren’t distractions like Netflix and cordcutters then).