College basketball, March Madness, losing the glimmer

This archived article was written by: Trenton Kinney

While watching the final game of the 2010-11 season taking place in Houston, I have been thinking about what can make college basketball a better product. The upsets are a good thing and bring attention to the game but that is just for one month out the year.
The mid-majors of the college world are gaining on the BCS conferences when it comes to making deep tournament runs. With Bulter being in their second straight National Championship game, we may see a chance of a non-BCS conference winning a title for the first time since University of Nevada Las Vegas.
Upsets are becoming more common and not stopping just with the first or second rounds of the tournament, like in year’s past. Soon enough, “upsets” might not be a word we use at all. The problem is an exciting month of basketball is being confused with the overall product being better.
This is far from the truth and the quickest way for the product to be improved is the “One and Done” rule has to be changed. With so many talented players being forced to go to college for a year, it has hurt the quality of play in college basketball.
Teams jump up for a year and then fall back down as soon as the superstar comes and then goes. Fans don’t follow their teams as closely anymore because every year their superstar heads to the NBA. The recruiting process has changed dramatically as well because most coaches now have to sell the first round of the NBA draft, instead of winning a Championship in College.
The NBA needs to help the college game by making it so high school players can once again go straight into the league. This will help the overall quality of college games because players in college will want to be there and not just be biding time so theybe eligible for the draft after one year.
I feel the rule that must go into place will not only allow those that don’t want to go to college to jump straight to the league, but those that go to college must stay through their Junior year. This will raise the level of the college basketball to heights it hasn’t seen for quite sometime as well as help the NBA. You have to think a player after one year of college is going to far less mature than a player who has been in college for three years.
I know this is wishful thinking, as both organizations are all about their pride and not quick to make changes. The overall talent is watered down in the NCAA with less stars staying for more than a year and it becomes normal for a “Cinderella” team to make a deep tournament run it opens up stronger than ever argument for more expansion. The argument will be well looked at with VCU and Butler. If they can do it so can a team or two even from the current NIT field.
As this opinion grows the tournament will lose its legitimacy as well as more people losing interest in college basketball all together.
It has gotten bad enough that 90 percent of America doesn’t care about college basketball except in March. More expansion will lead to less caring to the point that the tournament won’t gain as much excitement.
As soon as this happens, maybe the NCAA will pay attention to the growing problem but by then it will be hard to revive the sport at all.
I’m concerned that college basketball is becoming more and more irrelevant and because of this eventually maybe March will lose its luster as well. I will say how unimportant the regular season has become takes away from college basketball all together. If we can get some changes than college basketball can return to the levels it once was at.