Journey to the Final Four- A Hole in the Game

Geoff Nathanson
Guest Blogger

Is it just me or is this year’s version of the March Madness tourney lacking something? It used to be that the teams that advanced were playing their best basketball of the season at just the right time. Not this year. Now it is about survival as the perennially dominant big name schools are getting challenged more and more by the smaller schools. Siena? Cleveland State, Dayton. Just a few referee calls or breaks makes all the difference. The question is why?

The answer is quite simple. Nowadays, college teams turn over faster than even before. Any player with a pro future is gone after two seasons at old college U, sometimes even after only one. That makes recruiting tough and makes playing together as a team and progressing even tougher. UCLA lost to Villanova and guess what they were missing? 6-10 center Kevin Love, who lead UCLA last year as Pac 10 MVP, only to forego his final three years in Westwood for the NBA dollars. I can’t blame him or any other guy for going for the money. In this economy, players have to go get the money.

But, back to the initial theme here – quality of games. With a dearth of big guys, the paint is a foreign space for many teams. Sure they work it in practice, but in the games, its about three point bombs, despite the fact that numbers don’t add up. Lost on today’s players is the simple probability equation that the longer away from the basket the shot is, the less chance it will made. Its easier to launch long range shots and so grand when they fall, even if its only 20% of the time.

So college basketball has several issues. The great players are spending less and less time in college, leaving large holes in teams such as UCLA, the quality of the game is suffering, due to a lack of fundamentals and the smaller schools are catching up. Look for a 16 seed to upset a #1 seed next March.

Geoff Nathanson  is a long time sportscaster in Los Angeles.

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