UConn Routs Purdue, Becomes First Back to Back NCAA Champions Since Florida in 2007

The University of Connecticut (UConn) Huskies defeated Purdue 75-60 to claim their second consecutive NCAA title after beating San Diego State 76-59 in last year's NCAA Championship Game. Tristen Newton led UConn with 20 points while also dishing for seven assists and snaring five rebounds, becoming the first player to have a 20-5-5 NCAA Championship Game performance since Carmelo Anthony in 2003. Newton won the Final Four Most Outstanding Player award. Consensus National Player of the Year Zach Edey scored a game-high 37 points on 15-25 field goal shooting for Purdue while also grabbing a game-high 10 rebounds in 39 minutes. UConn's strategy was simple: shut down the rest of Purdue's team under the assumption that Edey could not win the game by himself. Edey's teammates scored 23 points on 9-29 field goal shooting. 

UConn has won six national titles--all since 1999--and the Huskies are the first back to back champions since the 2006-07 Florida Gators. Duke (1991-92) is the only other school to win consecutive NCAA championships since John Wooden led UCLA to 10 NCAA championships in a 12 year span (1964-65, 1967-73, 1975). UConn has won 12 consecutive Final Four games, with each victory by at least 13 points, and the Huskies became just the sixth team to win all six tournament games by double digits.

It is easy to see how UConn won 37 games this season but--to paraphrase an old line about dominant pitcher Sandy Koufax--it is not easy to see how UConn lost three games this season. UConn coach Dan Hurley declared that UConn has been running college basketball since 1999, a brash statement that is also true. Hurley has transformed himself from being Bobby Hurley's little known brother into being a future Hall of Famer; Bill Self and Rick Pitino are the only active coaches other than Dan Hurley who have won two NCAA titles (but one of Pitino's titles was vacated by the NCAA).

However, it is demonstrably false to suggest that the 2024 Huskies are a better basketball team than the legendary teams from the past, regardless of how many records the Huskies set. Just consider the strategy that worked so well against Purdue: let Edey run wild because his teammates--on a team that was clearly the second best college team this season--could be shut down. That strategy worked brilliantly because Edey may be Purdue's only NBA caliber player. Imagine trying a similar strategy against the 2007 Florida Gators, who had six future NBA players on their roster (including future All-Stars Al Horford and Joakim Noah); no intelligent coach would do that, because Florida had way too much talent and depth. Similarly, the 1992 Duke Blue Devils also had six future NBA players on their roster, including future Hall of Famer Grant Hill, and Christian Laettner, one of the greatest college players of all-time. The 1973 UCLA Bruins featured future Hall of Famer Bill Walton at center, and his teammates included future Hall of Famer Jamaal Wilkes, plus future pros Swen Nater (a two-time All-Star), Dave Meyers, Greg Lee, and Ralph Drollinger. 

Teams playing in the NCAA Championship Game used to routinely feature multiple future NBA players because the best college players used to stay in school for four years or at least three. There was no transfer portal, so teams developed chemistry, cohesion, and experience. In contrast, UConn is dominating an era during which the best players go to the NBA as soon as possible; the overall talent level in college basketball is not nearly as good as it used to be, and few teams stay together long enough to develop much chemistry, cohesion, and experience.

I love basketball, and I particularly love championship level basketball. UConn is a great college team in this era, but UConn is not better than the great college teams from the past precisely because the college game in this era is not better than the college game was in the past. It is not UConn's fault that the overall talent level in this era is watered down--but commentators who breathlessly hype up everything that happens now while ignoring the sport's historical realities should consider their words more carefully.

Further Reading:

UConn Defeats San Diego State 76-59 to Claim Fifth NCAA Title Since 1999 (April 2023)

The NCAA Tournament Provides Drama, but Does it Provide Great Basketball? (April 2022)

Baylor Dominates Gonzaga to Win the 2021 NCAA Title (April 2021)

Separating the Grownups From the Kids in Basketball (November 2018) 

Heels Stomp Spartans (2009 NCAA Championship)

C(h)alm in the Clutch: Kansas Defeats Memphis in OT, 75-68 (2008 NCAA Championship) 

Early Entry Players Have Diluted Both College and Pro Basketball (March 2008)

 

Bobby Knight Did it His Way

Bobby Knight, who passed away yesterday at the age of 83, coached the Indiana Hoosiers to three NCAA basketball championships (1976, 1981, 1987) en route to setting the all-time record with 902 career wins. Knight held that mark for four years (2007-11), and he now ranks sixth on the career wins list behind only Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, Bob Huggins, Jim Calhoun, and Roy Williams. Although Knight will be remembered most for his time as Indiana's coach, he also won an NCAA title as a role player for Ohio State's 1960 team led by future Hall of Fame players Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek. Knight coached at West Point after finishing his college playing career and before coaching Indiana.

Knight's 1976 Indiana team went 32-0 and is the last NCAA team to post a perfect record en route to winning the championship. The 1975 Hoosiers went 31-0 before losing to Kentucky in the Elite Eight as Indiana's star Scott May scored just two points while playing with a broken arm after scoring 25 points during Indiana's 98-74 regular season win versus Kentucky. Knight later insisted that his 1975 team was even better than the 1976 championship team. Knight won his second NCAA title with sophomore Isiah Thomas leading the way in 1981, and he won his third NCAA title in 1987 after Keith Smart hit a famous baseline shot versus Syracuse. John Wooden (10), Mike Krzyzewski (five), and Adolph Rupp (four) are the only coaches who won more NCAA titles than Knight, who is tied with Roy Williams and Jim Calhoun.

Knight was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991, even though he previously asked to not be considered after he was offended that he had not been elected in his first year of eligibility, calling that slight a "slap in the face." Knight is the only coach to win an NCAA title (1976, 1981, 1987), an NIT title (1979), an Olympic gold medal (1984), and a Pan-American Games gold medal (1979).

Knight won without cheating, and he emphasized the importance of academics. He reportedly said that the fun part of coaching is not cheating to get top recruits but beating the schools that cheated to get top recruits. The great success of Knight's teams is even more remarkable considering that just one of Knight's players became an NBA All-Star: Isiah Thomas. 

Wooden and Knight are fascinating character studies: Wooden's demeanor was much more gracious than Knight's, but the irascible Knight ran a clean program while Wooden's program will forever have the shadow of crooked booster Sam Gilbert hovering over it. Great men--or men who accomplish great things--also often have great flaws.

ESPN's multi-part, 20 hour documentary "Basketball: A Love Story" prominently featured Knight, including his success coaching Team USA to the 1984 Olympic gold medal. Knight was a master basketball tactician whose teams played stifling man to man defense and ran a precision offense featuring crisp ball movement. Knight and Dick Schaap co-wrote a 1998 article detailing Knight's ideas about how to reform college basketball; the basketball wisdom that Knight displayed 25 years ago is still relevant today, as he criticized the proliferation of unstructured summer leagues, the malign influence of the sneaker companies, and the overuse of the three point shot.

One of Knight's assistant coaches for the 1984 Olympics was Don Donoher, who coached at the University of Dayton from 1964-1989. Donoher led UD to the 1967 NCAA Championship game, the 1968 NIT title, and the 1984 NCAA Elite Eight. Knight was outraged after UD fired Donoher in 1989, declaring to Ritter Collett (a Dayton sports columnist), "When I was named coach of the U.S. Olympic team, nobody could have wanted to represent the United States better than I did. So why did I pick Donoher to help me? Because I couldn't get a better coach. I may not know a lot of things, but I think I know basketball and I know I know more basketball than (Tom) Frericks and Brother (Raymond L.) Fitz. Donoher has maintained a very good Division I basketball program during a period when his salary was probably $25,000 under the average Big Ten coaching salary. Over the years, I've had a lot of people call me and ask me if I thought Don would be interested in another coaching job. When I called him to ask if he was interested, he invariably said, 'No, I don't even want to talk to them.' He was content to stay in Dayton. He has had a love affair with the school and the community. I think that is what burns me the most. Here is a man who had chances to leave, and I'm talking about some major jobs that have come open. He has never gone in to Frericks and said, 'Look, I've got this opportunity and it will pay me such-and-such.' He's never tried to use that to improve his earning power."

In 2007, Knight spoke at the "Celebration of Flyer Basketball" and said, "There's nobody that I've enjoyed more as a friend, respected more as a coach and thought did a better job in coaching in the circumstances that developed throughout his tenure at the University of Dayton."

In 2013, I reviewed Knight's book The Power of Negative Thinking:

Knight explains that there is "a large helping of my version of humor in the title chosen for this book" and adds, "I am not arguing for being a strict negativist, for walking around with a sour look, for always seeing the dark side, always expecting failure. That's not my intent at all. Quite the opposite."

Knight's thesis is that instead of blindly believing/hoping that an endeavor is going to be successful, "being alert to the possible negatives in any situation is the best way to bring about positive results." Knight believes "Planning beats repairing" because "There are so many unintended consequences in any important action that we need to at least consider, like the best chess player, how our next move could produce an unexpected chain reaction down the line."

Knight observes, "most basketball games are not won, they are lost," so therefore Knight constantly reminded his players, "Victory favors the team making the fewest mistakes." Considering his confrontational reputation, it is not surprising that Knight also put a twist on a famous advertising slogan when he declared to his teams, "This ain't Burger King. We'll do it my way."

"Negative thinking" in Knight's parlance is analogous to what the great chess player/theoretician/writer Aron Nimzovich called "prophylaxis," which in chess means overprotecting a strategically important square, thus ensuring the overall safety of the position and also providing for smooth, harmonious deployment of one's forces.

Of course, there was another, much less savory side to Knight: he was a bully whose inability to control his temper cost him his job at Indiana. Knight infamously threw a chair onto the court during a game, choked one of his players, and committed battery versus a variety of people, including a Puerto Rican police officer. The final act of Knight's legendary coaching career happened at Texas Tech, where he landed in 2001 after being fired by Indiana in 2000. After Knight set the NCAA record for career wins, he retired in midseason, thus practically forcing Texas Tech to hire his son Pat as head coach. Texas Tech went 4-7 down the stretch of the 2007-08 season, and Pat Knight lasted lasted just three more seasons before being fired after posting a 50-61 record. During a televised interview, Knight lashed out at Dick Schaap's son Jeremy--declaring that Jeremy had a long way to go to be as good as his father--and Dick Schaap rightly fired back at Knight that Knight would have been "outraged if someone had used him similarly to criticize his son Patrick, his assistant coach."

Knight had no filter. Dan Patrick asked Knight what he thought about the Indiana University officials who fired him. Knight replied, "I hope they're all dead." Patrick then noted that some of them had in fact died, and Knight said, "Well, I hope the rest of them go." 

The paradox with Knight is that he taught his players to be disciplined yet he often lacked discipline in both his deeds and his words. "Complicated" may be the adjective most frequently used to describe his legacy, because there is no denying that he was a great coach who did not cheat and there is also no denying that he often treated people very shabbily. ESPN's Jay Bilas summarized his take on Knight: "He was OK with reasonable disagreement, as implausible as that seems to those who didn't know him. But when he believed he was right, even when he wasn't, there was no talking him out of it." Knight's intelligence combined with his stubbornness in a way that was both a great strength and a great weakness.

If you are familiar with some of Knight's most memorable quotes, then you know that there is only one way this obituary can end, namely with the last wishes he expressed in a 1994 speech: "When my time on Earth is gone and my activities here are past, I want they bury me upside down and my critics can kiss my ass."

UConn Defeats San Diego State 76-59 to Claim Fifth NCAA Title Since 1999

Few people expected to see the University of Connecticut (UConn) Huskies face the San Diego State University (SDSU) Aztecs in the NCAA Championship Game. Other than Huskies fans, few people are likely to remember much about UConn's 76-59 win. This was not high level basketball as much as it was one team outmatching the other from opening tip until final buzzer; SDSU made a second half run to cut the margin to 60-55 with 5:19 remaining, but UConn closed the game with a 16-4 burst to leave no doubt about their clear superiority. 

UConn's size, speed, and athleticism overwhelmed SDSU in the first half. UConn built a 16 point lead, and enjoyed a comfortable 36-24 halftime advantage. The Aztecs shot just 8-28 (.286) from the field while committing nine turnovers. Yes, SDSU had more first half turnovers than field goals made! The 60 combined first half points were the lowest total in an NCAA Championship Game since 2011, when UConn defeated Butler 53-41.

UConn's Tristen Newton scored a game-high 19 points, and he tied for game-high rebounding honors (10) with Adama Sanogo, who added 17 points and received the 2023 Final Four Most Outstanding Player award. Keshad Johnson paced SDSU with 14 points, while Lamont Butler and Darrion Trammell added 13 points each.

Since 1999, the Huskies have won five NCAA titles under the direction of three different coaches (Jim Calhoun: 1999, 2004, 2011; Kevin Ollie: 2014; Dan Hurley: 2023). 

UConn never trailed en route to a 72-59 win over Miami to advance to the NCAA Championship Game, and the Huskies won each of their NCAA Tournament games by double digits. As a fourth seeded team they were hardly a pre-Tournament favorite, yet in retrospect their championship run looks inevitable. Even though UConn had a dominant 2023 NCAA Tournament, it is difficult to picture this team even being competitive against NCAA champions from previous eras that had multiple future NBA All-Stars who stayed in school for three or even four years. 

In today's era, the best players play one year of college basketball--at the most--and then they receive highly paid on the job training in the NBA. Thus, the talent in college basketball is watered down, but the NBA is watered down as well, because the league is full of young players who do not yet really understand how to play--and who often miss games due to injuries or load management. Instead of watching Zion Williamson make multiple NCAA Tournament appearances, we watch him sit on the sidelines of NBA games in street clothes.

It never ceases to amaze me when anyone argues that college basketball is more fundamentally sound than NBA basketball. College basketball, even at the highest levels, is filled with young players who have not yet mastered the sport. The worst NBA team would beat either NCAA Finalist by at least 30 points, as I noted in my 2022 NCAA Tournament recap:

There are many reasons that the quality of play at the highest levels of college basketball is not as good as the quality of play in the NBA. The first, most obvious, and indisputable reason is that in no field of endeavor would it be reasonable to expect apprentices to outperform seasoned professionals: an apprentice craftsman is not superior to an experienced craftsman, and apprentice basketball teams/players are not superior to experienced professional basketball teams/players. The second reason is that there is very little continuity in major college basketball because the best players leave school after just one season; this is not to suggest that players should not be allowed to leave or that they should choose not leave: the point is that the best college-age basketball players in the world are, for the most part, playing in the NBA, not in college. The talent drain of young players going to the NBA means that every year the best college teams are rebuilding, which in turn means that rivalries--at least in terms of individual player matchups--cannot be sustained, and it also means that the best teams do not have a chance to build chemistry or work much on skill set development. Each college season consists of a breathless race to determine which group of talented freshmen can gel as quickly as possible to peak during the one and done NCAA Tournament before the best players jump straight to the NBA. This is the basketball version of fast food, not gourmet cooking, and that is why we see unwatchable games with wretched field goal percentages.

There is no question that the worst NBA team could beat the best NCAA team by at least 20-30 points. Not only are the NBA players more athletic, more talented, and more fundamentally sound, but they are coached better.

Tonight's telecast was the record 32nd--and last--Final Four of Jim Nantz' incredible career. Prior to Nantz' first Final Four in 1991, no broadcaster had worked more than six Final Fours. It is safe to say that Nantz' mark will stand for a long time. Nantz is a versatile broadcaster who will continue to work the Masters and the NFL, but for many sports fans he will forever be identified with and connected to college basketball's showcase event. 

Nantz prides himself on his thorough preparation:

Every basketball assignment Nantz has called for CBS (the number is somewhere in the vicinity of 575 broadcasts) includes a "game board": a white, wide, sturdy paper that is his colorful prep sheet of information and statistics about the players and coaches. Every one of them is treated as a treasured document. 

"No shortcuts," Nantz says, eyes down, pen to page and filling out the final board of his career. "Doesn't matter if it's a game like this or it's a regular-season game. The effort, the work behind it, has to be there. And otherwise you can't be comfortable. And I happen to enjoy this process." 

Nantz has never lost or thrown a single game board out. Every one from his career is archived, by year, at his Pebble Beach home in California. Last year, Hill stopped by Nantz's house, and while he was there, Jim pulled out his board from Dec. 22, 1990, the 10th game of Hill's Duke career--a game at Oklahoma.

When Nantz began doing Final Four games, I was still in college. It will feel strange next year when he is not part of CBS' NCAA Tournament coverage. Ian Eagle will do a great job, but the passage of time is relentless, and seems to accelerate the older that one gets.

Further Reading:

The NCAA Tournament Provides Drama, but Does it Provide Great Basketball? (April 2022)

Baylor Dominates Gonzaga to Win the 2021 NCAA Title (April 2021)

Separating the Grownups From the Kids in Basketball (November 2018) 

Heels Stomp Spartans (2009 NCAA Championship)

C(h)alm in the Clutch: Kansas Defeats Memphis in OT, 75-68 (2008 NCAA Championship) 

Early Entry Players Have Diluted Both College and Pro Basketball (March 2008)

Jim Boeheim's 47 Season Syracuse Coaching Career Ends Unceremoniously

Jim Boeheim's Syracuse coaching career is over. The circumstances surrounding his departure are bizarre and murky, but it is clear that he will not be returning because the university issued a statement noting that Associate Head Coach Adrian Autry will be Syracuse's coach next season without indicating if Boeheim retired, if the parties mutually decided that Boeheim would not return, or if Syracuse fired Boeheim without wanting to say so explicitly (it is also not clear why the statement capitalized "Associate Head Coach" but did not capitalize coach).

At a press conference after Wake Forest beat Syracuse 77-74 in the ACC Tournament, Boeheim stubbornly refused to answer a simple question: Is he retiring or not? Boeheim said that whether or not he retires "is up to the university." That is not how retirement works; that is how firing works: the employee decides whether or not to retire, while the employer decides whether or not to fire the employee. Boeheim also said, "I gave my retirement speech last week and nobody picked up on it." 

One gets the impression that Boeheim did not want to leave and Syracuse did not want to admit to firing him, so the parties are just acknowledging the breakup without applying a label to it. I cannot recall another coach of Boeheim's prominence whose coaching career ended in such a disjointed fashion; there have been successful coaches who received a farewell tour and there have been successful coaches who were fired after sticking around too long, but it is unusual for a successful coach to just abruptly disappear while hinting that he is not ready to go.

Before Boeheim became a coach, he played for Syracuse alongside future Hall of Famer Dave Bing, who told me, "Jimmy was one of those players who was just totally underrated. He came to Syracuse as a non-scholarship player and he did not get a scholarship until his sophomore year. We roomed together as sophomores and juniors and became very good friends and talked basketball quite a bit. It was evident to me way back then that Jimmy would become a good coach. He was a steady player. He was smart in that he knew how to get open and he was a good shooter. Whenever I drove to the basket he was smart enough to get to the open spot and he could put it down. He had a very good senior year."

Boeheim was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 2005, two years after he won his first and only national championship with a squad headlined by Carmelo Anthony. Boeheim led Syracuse to the Final Four five times in four different decades (1987, 1996, 2003, 2013, 2016). He posted a 1015-441 record, ranking second all-time on the Division I wins list behind Mike Krzyzewski. Boeheim played a significant role in the Big East's emergence as a dominant college basketball conference in the 1980s, and he later served as an assistant coach for Team USA's Olympic gold medal winning teams in 2008, 2012, and 2016. 

However, there is a less glamorous side to sustained high level success in college sports. Danny Tarkanian, an attorney and the son of Hall of Fame coach Jerry Tarkanian, insists that it is not possible to have great success at the top level of college basketball while running a clean program, as I discussed in my review of his book Rebel With a Cause: The True Story of Jerry Tarkanian:

He asserts that no current big-time collegiate sports program can survive without violating the NCAA's rules, quoting former American University Coach Ed Tapscott (p. 112): "The crime in the NCAA is not in breaking the rules. It's in getting caught. We have our own MAD--Mutually Assured Destruction. There's a threshold of dirty linen we can all build up, and know that all of us agree tacitly not to disclose it. Because none of us could succeed without breaking the rules."

Sam Gilbert, a so-called "booster," provided a host of improper/illegal benefits to UCLA's basketball players from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s, during which time Coach John Wooden led UCLA to an unprecedented run of 10 championships in a 12 year span, including seven in a row (1967-73). The NCAA did not take any action against UCLA during Wooden's run of championships, but in 1981--long after Wooden had retired, and after the Los Angeles Times conducted an in depth investigation--the NCAA determined that UCLA had committed over a decade's worth of violations. The NCAA did not vacate any of Wooden's championships, but only vacated UCLA's 1980 Final Four run, while also placing the basketball team on probation for two years. Coach Wooden denied having knowledge of Gilbert's activities, and it was never proven that Coach Wooden knew, but Coach Wooden also admitted that during that time he had "tunnel vision" and "trusted too much."

In 2015, Boeheim joined the long list of coaches punished by the NCAA for violating NCCA rules. The NCAA suspended Boeheim for nine games, and vacated 101 of his wins from 2004-2012. That is the third most wins ever vacated for a single school.

An even more disturbing scandal involving the Syracuse basketball program became public knowledge in 2011. Bernie Fine, Boeheim's right hand man for 36 years, was not criminally charged, but credible allegations of child abuse cost him his job at Syracuse. In a recorded conversation with former Syracuse ball boy (and Bernie Fine accuser) Bobby Davis, Fine's wife Laurie indicated that she knew that her husband's behavior with minors had been inappropriate. Boeheim publicly defended and excused Fine well past the point that it was acceptable or reasonable to do so, to the extent that two of Fine's accusers sued Boeheim and Syracuse for slander. Before the case proceeded to trial, Boeheim and Syracuse paid an undisclosed settlement to resolve the matter, with the university issuing this statement: "Coach Boeheim regrets that he made those statements and that he questioned the integrity of Bobby Davis and Michael Lang. Since then, he has publicly committed to focus his charitable efforts on providing assistance to victims of sexual abuse, which he continues to do. We are glad to announce that we have resolved the defamation case that Mr. Davis and Mr. Lang brought, and look forward to putting this behind us."

On February 20, 2019, Boeheim drove a car that struck and killed Jorge Jimenez, who had been standing at the side of the road next to a disabled car. Boeheim had been speeding on an icy road prior to the fatal accident, but after a police investigation the authorities declined to press charges against Boeheim. In 2020, the Jimenez estate filed a civil suit against Boeheim and Syracuse, alleging that Boeheim's negligent driving caused Jimenez' death. I found no public record of that case being resolved yet.

Boeheim's fans will understandably focus on Syracuse's 2003 NCAA title and nearly five decades of sustained on court success, but there are other aspects of Boeheim's career and life story that do not get nearly as much attention as the shortcomings exhibited by other similarly prominent figures who are regularly excoriated by media members who specialize in practicing selective outrage.

The NCAA Tournament Provides Drama, but Does it Provide Great Basketball?

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament (better known as "March Madness") is one of the sports world's most high-profile and beloved events. Passionate fans energetically cheer for their favorite schools (and, it must be noted, passionate fans wager on the outcomes of the games). No one can dispute March Madness' enduring popularity. However, passion and popularity should never be confused with high efficiency and skill set mastery; the notion that college basketball players and teams play a better and/or "purer" form of the game than NBA players and teams do is demonstrably false.

Put more bluntly and concisely, several of the biggest NCAA games of this season were almost unbearable to watch because the level of play was so bad.

Perhaps mismatches are to be expected during the NCAA Tournament's early stages, so this discussion will focus on the Elite Eight, the Final Four, and the Championship Game. If college basketball is a better and/or "purer" form of the game then surely this would be most evident in the most important games of the year featuring the top eight teams in the country.

In the first Elite Eight game of 2022, Villanova defeated Houston, 50-44. As the low score indicates, the pace of this game was painfully slow, bringing back nightmarish memories of the awful pre-shot clock era when stalling was a regularly used strategy; the NBA began using a 24 second shot clock in the 1954-55 season, but the NCAA did not start using a shot clock until the 1985-86 season, when the college game finally limited each possession to 45 seconds (that number was cut to 35 in 1993-94, and then reduced to the current number of 30 in 2015-16). Houston shot 17-57 from the field (.298), including a brutal 1-20 (.005--that is not a typo!) from three point range. Villanova shot even worse from the field (15-52, .288) but compensated by shooting 5-21 (.238) from three point range--which is bad, but not as bad as Houston--and making all 15 of their free throw attempts. Despite the low number of possessions and high number of missed field goals, the teams combined to commit a total of 20 turnovers.

It is true that defense and rebounding have always been essential elements for winning a basketball championship, but when the field goal percentages in a game would not even be good batting averages it is evident that we are not watching great defense as much as we are watching players and teams that are unable to execute basic, fundamental offensive strategies, and are unable to make shots under pressure. NBA defenses are more sophisticated than college defenses, and NBA players are much more athletic, so if Houston and Villanova players cannot make shots under NCAA Tournament conditions then that does not bode well for how those players may perform at the next level.

The second Elite Eight game featured Duke defeating Arkansas, 78-69. Duke played at a high level, with team shooting splits of .547/.400/.889, but this just highlighted how outmatched Arkansas (.419/.300/1.000) was. Duke led by as many as 18 points, and the margin was not closer than 10 points during the final 11 minutes until Arkansas made a layup with :46 remaining, after which neither team scored the rest of the way. Duke is one of college basketball's elite programs of the past four decades, and Arkansas was not competitive for most of the game.

Kansas stomped Miami 76-50 in the third Elite Eight game. Miami kept the score close in the first half before being outscored 47-15 in the second half; it is difficult to imagine that anyone other than a diehard Kansas fan considered the game entertaining, or even watchable: how can a supposedly "elite" college basketball team score just 15 points in 20 minutes? It is not inconceivable that an NBA team, if motivated to do so, could hold a major college basketball team scoreless for 10, 15, or even 20 minutes, because far too many college teams and players simply lack the necessary fundamental skills to make shots against any kind of defensive resistance.

The Elite Eight concluded with North Carolina jumping out to a 9-0 lead versus Saint Peter's, and never looking back en route to a dominating 69-49 win. Saint Peter's shot 7-31 (.226) from the field in the first half, and trailed 47-20 with 15:33 remaining in the second half before "heating up" to only lose by 20 on 18-60 (.300) field goal shooting--and it's not like North Carolina shot the lights out, either, as the Tar Heels finished with shooting splits of .410/.273/.619. How can anyone consider any of these games, or the NCAA Tournament as a whole, to represent great--or even fundamentally sound--basketball?

This analysis is not meant to take anything away from what Saint Peter's accomplished by advancing to the Elite Eight as a small school; the point is about the overall quality of play at the highest levels of college basketball.

The Final Four opened with Kansas beating Villanova, 81-65. Kansas opened the game with a 10-0 run, and pushed the lead to 38-19 before settling for a 40-29 halftime advantage. Kansas shot 15-31 (.484) from the field in the first half, while Villanova shot just 10-29 (.345) from the field. Kansas outscored Villanova 10-5 to take a 50-34 lead early in the second half, but Villanova rallied to cut the margin to 64-58 before Kansas outscored Villanova 11-1 to remove any doubt. Villanova shot 12-28 (.429) from the field in the second half to finish 22-57 (.386) for the game.

The much anticipated second Final Four game featured Duke versus North Carolina. North Carolina ended Coach Mike Krzyzewski's regular season career by beating his Blue Devils 94-81 at Cameron Indoor Stadium, avenging Duke's 87-67 win at North Carolina on February 5--and North Carolina ended Kryzewski's NCAA Tournament career by beating his Blue Devils 81-77. The first half was very competitive, with neither team leading by more than six points, but the offensive execution was sloppy at both ends of the court: North Carolina shot just 12-34 (.353) from the field, while Duke shot 16-37 (.432) from the field as the Blue Devils led 37-34 at halftime. Both teams were awful from three point range in the first half, with North Carolina shooting 3-13 (.231) and Duke shooting 2-12 (.167). The Tar Heels shot 5-6 from three point range at the start of the second half en route to taking a 60-55 lead. Duke kept attacking inside, and used a 10-4 run to go up, 65-64. With North Carolina clinging to a 75-74 lead, Duke's Mark Williams missed two free throws, and then Caleb Love hit a dagger three pointer to make the score 78-74; that sequence exemplified the game's two big themes: the Tar Heels shot 7-13 (.538) from three point range in the second half to finish 10-26 (.385) overall, while Duke struggled to make free throws (12-20, .600). North Carolina shot 27-64 (.423) from the field overall, while Duke shot 30-72 (.417), including 5-22 (.227) from three point range.

Kryzewski's resume--including five NCAA championships and a record 13 Final Four appearances--indicates that he is one of the greatest college coaches of all-time, but it is worth noting that his Duke team this season lost seven times to an unranked team while being ranked in the AP Top 10, the most such losses in one season since the AP poll expanded to 25 teams in 1989-90. Throughout his career, his teams have often lost to underdog teams in the NCAA Tournament--including a loss as the second seed to 15th seed Lehigh in 2012, one of just 10 times a second seed has lost to the 15th seed, and a loss as the third seed to 14th seed Mercer in 2014. Kryzewski did a great job of building Duke into a recruiting powerhouse, but it could be argued that--considering the amount of talent his teams had relative to other teams during the past several decades--he could/should have won even more than he did.

The NCAA Championship Game featuring Kansas and North Carolina epitomized the characteristics and trends described above: we saw an abundance of energy and passion, but that should not in any way be confused with high level execution or a consistent display of basic fundamental skills. Kansas won 72-69, making history with the biggest comeback (16 points) in NCAA Championship Game history. Kansas began the game with a 7-0 run, but trailed 40-25 at halftime, tied for the fourth largest halftime deficit in NCAA Championship Game history. Kansas shot 10-33 (.303) from the field in the first half, including 2-7 (.286) from three point range and 6-21 (.286) in the paint. North Carolina built a 15 point halftime lead despite shooting just 12-33 (.364) from the field in the first half, including 3-11 (.273) from three point range. Kansas opened the second half with a 20-6 run to erase most of North Carolina's advantage, and then Kansas tied the score at 50 on a three point play by Ochai Agbaji with 10:53 remaining in the contest. Agbaji, who scored 12 points on 4-9 field goal shooting in the Championship Game after scoring 21 points on 6-8 field goal shooting in the Final Four rout of Miami, was voted the Final Four Most Outstanding Player. Kansas soon took a 56-50 lead, and was on top most of the rest of the way, though North Carolina briefly went up 69-68 with 1:41 remaining. Even after shooting 19-33 (.576) from the field in the second half, Kansas shot just 29-66 (.439) from the field overall, including 6-17 (.353) from three point range. North Carolina shot just 11-40 (.275) from the field in the second half, including 2-12 (.167) from three point range, finishing 23-73 (.315) overall, including 5-23 (.217) from three point range.

There are many reasons that the quality of play at the highest levels of college basketball is not as good as the quality of play in the NBA. The first, most obvious, and indisputable reason is that in no field of endeavor would it be reasonable to expect apprentices to outperform seasoned professionals: an apprentice craftsman is not superior to an experienced craftsman, and apprentice basketball teams/players are not superior to experienced professional basketball teams/players. The second reason is that there is very little continuity in major college basketball because the best players leave school after just one season; this is not to suggest that players should not be allowed to leave or that they should choose not leave: the point is that the best college-age basketball players in the world are, for the most part, playing in the NBA, not in college. The talent drain of young players going to the NBA means that every year the best college teams are rebuilding, which in turn means that rivalries--at least in terms of individual player matchups--cannot be sustained, and it also means that the best teams do not have a chance to build chemistry or work much on skill set development. Each college season consists of a breathless race to determine which group of talented freshmen can gel as quickly as possible to peak during the one and done NCAA Tournament before the best players jump straight to the NBA. This is the basketball version of fast food, not gourmet cooking, and that is why we see unwatchable games with wretched field goal percentages.

There is no question that the worst NBA team could beat the best NCAA team by at least 20-30 points. Not only are the NBA players more athletic, more talented, and more fundamentally sound, but they are coached better. 

The NCAA Tournament is very popular and generates much passion, but popularity and passion should not be confused with mastery of basketball fundamentals. 

Further Reading:

Baylor Dominates Gonzaga to Win the 2021 NCAA Title (April 2021)

Separating the Grownups From the Kids in Basketball (November 2018) 

Heels Stomp Spartans (2009 NCAA Championship)

C(h)alm in the Clutch: Kansas Defeats Memphis in OT, 75-68 (2008 NCAA Championship) 

Early Entry Players Have Diluted Both College and Pro Basketball (March 2008)

Baylor Dominates Gonzaga to Win the 2021 NCAA Title

Baylor took a 9-0 lead over Gonzaga in the NCAA Championship Game en route to a wire to wire victory over the previously undefeated Bulldogs. Jared Butler led Baylor with 22 points and seven assists to become the first player to post at least 20 points and at least seven assists in the NCAA Championship Game since Carmelo Anthony did this for Syracuse in 2003. Butler, like Anthony, won the Final Four Most Outstanding Player award. 

Gonzaga is the fifth team since 1976 to enter the NCAA Tournament with an undefeated record, and the fifth such team to not win the title. The last NCAA Division I basketball team to cap off an undefeated regular season with an NCAA title is Bobby Knight's 1976 Indiana Hoosiers. Just seven Division I teams have had an undefeated championship season, starting with the 1956 University of San Francisco team (coached by Phil Woolpert and led by Hall of Fame center Bill Russell), followed by the 1957 North Carolina team coached by Frank McGuire, and then four UCLA teams coached by John Wooden (1964, 1967, 1972, 1973). Coach Knight, who often publicly expressed his disdain for the improper benefits UCLA provided to its players (which, if uncovered at the time, could have resulted in the disqualification of those championship teams), must have taken great joy in eliminating UCLA from the 1976 tournament as part of Indiana's perfect season, even though Wooden had retired by that time and passed the baton to Gene Bartow.

In his Foreword to Runnin' Rebel (Jerry Tarkanian's autobiography, co-authored with Dan Wetzel), Coach Knight identified two ingredients for success "over the long haul of a season": "getting players to play as hard as they can play each possession of the game at both ends of the floor and doing it as intelligently as possible." Coach Knight declared that he has never seen another coach consistently do a better job of this than Coach Tarkanian did. Coach Knight further stated that three key elements for success are getting players to run back on defense, getting players to attack the boards aggressively, and getting players to commit to playing defense. 

While dominating Gonzaga, Baylor put on a 40 minute clinic exemplifying all of the ingredients and elements mentioned above by Coach Knight. Anyone who focuses on Baylor's 10-23 three point shooting does not understand why Butler beat Gonzaga, as simple math demonstrates: take away the three point shot--subtract one point for each three pointer that Baylor made--and Baylor still wins the game. Baylor would have won that game without the three point shot rule because the crucial elements for Baylor's success are defense and rebounding. Defense and rebounding shut down Gonzaga's high-powered offensive attack while also creating numerous scoring opportunities for Baylor.

Baylor set the tone on the very first possession of the game, as they pounded Gonzaga on the glass until they finally scored. Mark Vital finished with a game-high 11 rebounds, including a game-high eight offensive rebounds, and the 6-5, 250 senior had half as many rebounds as Gonzaga's entire squad as Baylor dominated the boards, 38-22. 

Baylor's pressure defense not only forced turnovers, but it destroyed Gonzaga's rhythm, turning normally confident players into hesitant players. Soon the Bulldogs were bobbling and fumbling the ball even before Baylor applied pressure. 

It became evident that Baylor is the superior team athletically, but that should not overshadow the fact that Baylor also was the more physical team and the more mentally poised team; the Bears showed no fear from the outset, they played a very disciplined game at both ends of the court, and they made an undefeated, confident team look very beatable and not very confident.

Rules may change, and styles may evolve, but championship basketball has always been about fundamentals. No matter how good a team is offensively, a team can go on a cold streak and miss shots. Defense and rebounding are all about effort, toughness, and focus; well-coached teams comprised of mentally-focused, tough players play with effort, toughness, and focus every game, which means that they force other teams to shoot poorly while also being able to, if necessary, survive when they shoot poorly. Although Baylor shot well from three point range, the Bears did not shoot a great field goal percentage overall (.448), and they attempted fewer free throws than Gonzaga, but Baylor's defensive pressure and rebounding prowess generated 67 field goal attempts while limiting Gonzaga to 49 field goal attempts. 

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Further Reading:

Early Entry Players Have Diluted Both College and Pro Basketball (March 2008) 

C(h)alm in the Clutch: Kansas Defeats Memphis in OT, 75-68 (2008 NCAA Championship) 

Heels Stomp Spartans (2009 NCAA Championship)

Separating the Grownups From the Kids in Basketball (November 2018)

Will the Supersized Big East Become the Greatest Conference Ever?

Seven Big East teams qualified for the NCAA Tournament this year, three earned number one seeds and two have made it to the Final Four. This is an article that I wrote for the November 2005 issue of Eastern Basketball (a sister publication of Basketball Times) examining the top conferences in college basketball history and discussing the possibility that the Big East might top all of them.

Remember when conferences consisted of 8-10 teams? This year the Big East expands to 16 members. If conferences get any bigger they will need to use the U.N. General Assembly to hold their Presidents' meetings.

The Big Ten sent seven teams to the NCAA Tournament four different times—1990, 1994, 1999 and 2001—and the Big East accomplished this feat in 1991. The supersized Big East is expected to break this record in the 2006 NCAA Tournament, which has led some to suggest that it will become the greatest conference ever (3/31/09 Note: the Big East sent eight teams to both the 2006 and 2008 NCAA Tournaments). That is a bold prediction because the new Big East has a formidable task just to match the excellence attained by the original Big East during the 1980s. The Big East had seven charter members in 1980—Boston College, Connecticut, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Syracuse—before adding Villanova in 1981 and Pittsburgh in 1983. The upstart league quickly asserted itself as a formidable competitor to traditional power conferences such as the ACC, Big Ten, SEC and PAC-10; in the Big East's inaugural year three of its seven teams earned NCAA bids. St. John's lost to Purdue in the second round, Syracuse lost to Iowa in the Sweet 16 and Georgetown made it to the Elite Eight before also bowing to Iowa—not a bad showing but this was just a taste of things to come.

In 1985, the Big East placed six of its nine teams in the NCAA Tournament, became the first conference to provide three of the teams in the Final Four and topped it off by producing both participants in the championship game; that contest turned out to be one of the most memorable upsets in NCAA history, with Villanova shooting a championship game record .786 from the field to defeat the defending champion, Patrick Ewing-led Georgetown Hoyas, 66-64. Big East teams went 18-5 in the 1985 NCAA Tournament. No conference has ever won more games in a single NCAA Tournament; second place is 15 wins, accomplished by the Big Ten in 1989 and 2000.

The Big East had tremendous individual star power in 1985 as well: future Dream Team members Ewing and Chris Mullin (St. John's) shared Big East Player of the Year honors, Villanova's Ed Pinckney (the 1985 Final Four Most Outstanding Player) and Syracuse’s Dwayne "Pearl" Washington joined them on the All-Big East First Team and future NBA players Walter Berry (who won Big East Player of the Year in 1986), Bill Wennington and Michael Adams made the All-Big East Second Team. The 1985 Big East also had three coaches who eventually earned Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement: Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, St. John's Lou Carnesecca and Georgetown’s John Thompson.

Some Ground Rules for Comparing Conferences

One challenge in comparing conferences, teams and players from different eras is that NCAA basketball has changed so dramatically over the years: from 1967-68 to 1975-76 the slam dunk was illegal during games and pre-game warm-ups, the 45 second shot clock was first used in 1985-86 (and then changed to 35 seconds in 1993-94) and the three point shot was introduced nationally in 1986-87—and these are just a few of the on-court changes. There have also been major shifts in the structure of post-season play. The NCAA Tournament field consisted of only eight teams from 1939-1950. In 1951 the field doubled to 16 and from 1953-1974 between 22 and 25 teams participated each year. Then came rapid growth starting in 1975—from 32 teams (1975-78) to 40 teams (1979) to 48 teams (1980-82) to 52 teams (1983) to 53 teams (1984)—culminating in 1985 with the creation of the 64 team field. In 2001 a 65th team was added via a play-in game. Younger fans who have grown up watching "The Road to the Final Four" may be surprised to learn that the phrase "Final Four" has not always been a part of college basketball’s lexicon. Its first documented, official use came on page five of the 1975 Official Collegiate Basketball Guide—and the phrase was not capitalized until the 1978 Official Collegiate Basketball Guide.

In 1966 Texas Western became the first team with five black starters to win the NCAA title, an achievement that literally changed the face of college basketball by shattering a senseless taboo. If we arbitrarily declare 1966 to be the beginning of the modern era, we can split the past 40 years nearly in half by dividing it into pre-1986-87 and post-1986-87. Post-1986-87 includes the shot clock, the three point shot and the 64 team field.

Now that we have a manageable period of time to examine, neatly divided in two, the next step is to define our terms. What makes a conference great? The most emphasis has to be placed on winning championships and generating legitimate title contenders. Another important consideration is the conference's depth. A great conference should have electrifying star players and fierce, competitive rivalries between its members.

Great Conferences of the Early Modern Era (1965-66—1985-86)

The ACC earned more Final Four berths than any other conference during this period, with four schools combining for 14 appearances and three championships. The PAC-10 (and its predecessors, the PAC-8 and the AAWU) made 11 Final Four appearances—all of them by UCLA, which won eight championships (one of the Final Four appearances was later vacated by the NCAA). The Big Ten sent six different teams to a total of eight Final Fours, winning three titles.

While UCLA was the dominant team of this era, the ACC and Big Ten were deeper, stronger conferences:

• In 1973, three ACC teams won at least 23 games--North Carolina State (27-0), North Carolina (25-8) and Maryland (23-7). North Carolina State, led by the sensational David Thompson, defeated Maryland 76-74 in the ACC championship game, but Maryland earned the conference’s NCCA Tournament bid because North Carolina State was ineligible for postseason play that year due to recruiting violations. Maryland made it to the Elite Eight. North Carolina, ranked 11th in the final regular season AP poll, finished third in the NIT.
  

• In 1974 the ACC could very well have provided two NCAA Finalists like the Big East did in 1985—but at that time each conference could receive only one NCAA Tournament bid. That made the ACC championship game pivotal not only in determining who went to the tournament but very possibly who would be that year's national champion. Not surprisingly, this situation produced one of the classic games in NCAA history, North Carolina State's 103-100 overtime victory over Maryland. Thompson scored 29 points for North Carolina State and 7-3 center Tom Burleson led the way for the Wolfpack with 38 points and 13 rebounds. Six All-Americans and 10 future NBA draft picks played in the game; Maryland's John Lucas (18 points and 10 assists) became the number one overall pick in the 1976 NBA draft. North Carolina State defeated Marquette 76-64 to win the national championship while Maryland, ranked fourth in the final regular season AP poll, did not participate in postseason play. North Carolina State finished the year 30-1, while Maryland went 23-5.
  

• The NCAA changed its rules in 1975 and allowed two teams from the same conference to receive tournament bids; five years later the NCAA permitted more than two teams from the same conference to receive tournament bids. In 1976 the Big Ten became the first conference to send two teams to the Final Four—and both made it to the national championship game. Indiana, led by future pros Scott May, Kent Benson, Quinn Buckner, Bobby Wilkerson and Tom Abernethy, went 32-0 and beat Big Ten rival Michigan 86-68 to claim Bob Knight's first national title. Indiana is the last undefeated team to win the national championship. Indiana and Michigan combined for a 9-1 NCAA tournament record, the most wins by a conference in one tournament in the 1970s.
  

• In 1978 four of the seven ACC teams won at least 20 games and all seven finished over .500, for a combined winning percentage of .673. North Carolina (23-8) lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, North Carolina State (21-10) fell 101-93 to Texas in the NIT championship game and ACC champion Duke (27-7) lost 94-88 to Kentucky in the NCAA championship game. Virginia (20-8), the ACC's fourth 20-win team, dropped a 70-68 overtime decision to Georgetown in the NIT.
  

• Six of the eight ACC teams in 1980 won at least 20 games; five made it to the NCAA Tournament and the sixth, Virginia, won the NIT. Duke and Clemson each advanced to the Elite Eight before being eliminated. The ACC's winning percentage in 1980 was .654, paced by Maryland’s 24-7 record.
  

• In 1981 the ACC had two 29 win teams and five 20-plus win teams. Four ACC teams went to the NCAA Tournament and two more went to the NIT. Two ACC teams reached the Final Four: Virginia (29-4) lost 78-65 to North Carolina (29-8) but defeated Louisiana State 78-74 in the third place game; North Carolina lost the NCAA Championship Game 63-50 to Isiah Thomas and Indiana.
  

• The 1982 ACC boasted four 20-plus win teams, including two 30 game winners led by future NBA All-Stars—North Carolina (32-2), which had Michael Jordan and James Worthy, and Virginia (30-4), which had 7-4 Ralph Sampson. All four 20-game winners made it to the NCAA Tournament, but only North Carolina enjoyed an extended run. Boosted by the jump shot that freshman Jordan later said put him on the map, Dean Smith won his first national championship as the Tar Heels defeated Georgetown 63-62.
  

• The ACC enjoyed similar success in 1983, but produced a most unlikely—and memorable—national champion. Five ACC teams won 20-plus games and four were selected for the NCAA Tournament. The fifth, Wake Forest, won three games in the NIT before getting blown out by Fresno State. Three ACC teams made it to the Elite Eight, but only North Carolina State made it past that round. The Wolfpack shocked everyone by upsetting heavily favored Houston 54-52 in the NCAA championship game; Houston, known as Phi Slama Jama because of the team's tremendous dunkers, had Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, who were both named to the NBA's 50 Greatest Players list in 1996. North Carolina State finished with a 26-10 record, becoming the first team with at least 10 losses to win the NCAA title (since then Villanova had 10 losses in 1985 and Kansas had 11 losses in 1988).
  

• In 1984 the ACC produced five 20-plus win teams and none of its eight teams had a losing record. All five made it to the NCAA Tournament and two made it to the Elite Eight. Wake Forest lost in that round and Virginia lost 49-47 in overtime to Houston in the Final Four. Jordan's Tar Heels went 14-0 in conference play and 28-3 overall, but lost to Indiana 72-68 in the NCAA Tournament.
  

We have already mentioned the tremendous season enjoyed by the Big East in 1985, possibly the greatest single season by a conference. The SEC is similar to the PAC-10 in the sense that one team accounted for most of its NCAA Tournament success during this era—Kentucky, which made four trips to the Final Four and won the 1978 national championship. In 1986 the SEC posted a 12-4 NCAA Tournament record, sending LSU, Kentucky and Auburn to the Elite Eight. LSU advanced to the Final Four before losing to "Never Nervous" Pervis Ellison’s Louisville Cardinals, the eventual national champions.

Great Conferences of the Recent Modern Era (1986-87—2004-05)

Four ACC teams have made 20 Final Four appearances and won six championships since 1986-87, while seven Big Ten teams earned 15 Final Four trips and three titles. No other conference has even 10 Final Four appearances during this time. Duke has accounted for three of the ACC’s NCAA championships and nine of the Final Four berths, leading all teams in both categories. North Carolina is second in Final Fours (seven) and tied for second with Connecticut and Kentucky in championships (two).

ACC teams won at least 10 games in the NCAA tournament for seven straight years, 1989-1995. No other conference has come close to putting together such a streak. Duke won back-to-back titles in 1991-92 and North Carolina made it three straight for the ACC by claiming the 1993 crown. The ACC sent at least one team to the Final Four from 1988-1995. The rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is one of the best in sports and the drama is only heightened by the fact that most years the Blue Devils and Tar Heels are not only fighting for conference supremacy but are both viable national championship contenders—including 2005, when North Carolina won the title and Duke made it to the Sweet 16.

As for the Big Ten, let's start with the four years that the conference earned a record seven NCAA Tournament bids, the mark that the newly formed Big East is expected to break. In 1990 only Minnesota made it to the Elite Eight and the seven teams combined for an 8-7 record in the tournament. The Big Ten went 11-7 in the tournament in 1994, with Michigan and Purdue reaching the Elite Eight. In 1999 the Big Ten again sent two teams to the Elite Eight and this time both--Michigan State and Ohio State--made it to the Final Four before losing, leaving the Big Ten with a 13-7 tournament mark. Two years later, the Big Ten went 10-7 and sent two teams to the Elite Eight, with Michigan State advancing to the Final Four before being eliminated. The accomplishment of sending seven teams to the NCAA Tournament on four different occasions is somewhat diminished by the early exits of most of those teams and the failure of any of them to make it to the title game in the years in question.

The Big Ten had more impressive showings in 1989 and 2000 despite sending fewer teams overall. Michigan's Glen Rice set single season NCAA Tournament records for points (184; 30.7 ppg) and three pointers made (27) in 1989 while leading the Wolverines to the national title. Illinois made it to that year's Final Four and four of the Big Ten's five entrants advanced to the Sweet 16, giving the Big Ten an outstanding 15-4 tournament record. In 2000, the Big Ten went 15-5 in the tournament, producing three Elite Eight teams, two Final Four teams and the eventual national champion, Michigan State.

Who can forget Michigan's Fab Five teams? Who can name the "other two" who played alongside current NBA players Chris Webber, Juwan Howard and Jalen Rose? (Ray Jackson and Jimmy King) The Fab Five Era began with lofty expectations but only produced championship game losses by Michigan in 1992 and 1993. In 1992 Ohio State and Indiana joined the Wolverines in the Elite Eight and Indiana made it to the Final Four; in 1993 Indiana returned to the Elite Eight but lost in that round. The Big Ten went 14-5 in the 1992 tournament and 10-5 in the 1993 tournament.

During most of this period, PAC-10 teams tended to make early exits from the NCAA Tournament. Notable exceptions to this pattern occurred in 1995 and 1997. In 1995, five PAC-10 teams compiled a 9-4 NCAA Tournament record, headlined by UCLA winning the conference's first national title since John Wooden's Bruins claimed the 1975 crown. The PAC-10 did even better in 1997, with Arizona winning the championship, UCLA joining the Wildcats in the Elite Eight and five conference teams combining to win 13 tournament games while losing only four. The PAC-10 went 13-5 in 2001, sending three teams to the Elite Eight--but only Arizona advanced, eventually losing to Duke in the championship game.

The SEC enjoyed a great five year stretch from 1994-98, with Kentucky (two) and Arkansas (one) winning three titles; each team also lost once in the championship game during that time. That period accounts for five of the SEC's nine Final Four appearances during the recent modern era.

The Big East has enjoyed notable success in the recent modern era. In 1991 the Big East tied a record by sending seven teams to the NCAA tournament but none of them made it to the Final Four. St. John's and Seton Hall reached the Elite Eight and the seven teams finished with an 11-7 tournament record. Like the Big Ten, the Big East's most impressive seasons are not the ones that involved earning seven tournament bids. In 1999, five Big East teams went 10-4 in the NCAA Tournament, with Connecticut winning the championship and St. John's also making the Elite Eight. Syracuse won the 2003 championship, capping a 12-3 performance by four Big East teams in that year's tournament. Connecticut made it two titles in a row for the Big East in 2004; that year six Big East teams went 12-5 in the tournament.

The Challenge

So what does the new Big East have to do to become the greatest conference of all-time? Sending a record eight, nine or ten teams to the NCAA Tournament is not sufficient unless several of those teams advance to the Elite Eight and the Final Four. For single season excellence it will be difficult to match the 1985 Big East's combination of three Final Four teams, two Dream Teamers sharing conference Player of the Year honors and one very memorable NCAA championship game. The teams from the new Big East must make 20-25 Final Four appearances and win a half dozen or so national championships in the next two decades to rival the ACC's sustained excellence.

Wilson Sporting Goods and the NCAA Team Up to Fight Cancer

Wilson Sporting Goods and the NCAA are taking advantage of the popular Facebook site to run a promotion enabling college hoops fans to participate in the fight against cancer.

All you have to do to take part in the "Every Pass Counts: Ultimate Assist" program is log in to Facebook and search for "Wilson Sporting Goods." Sign up to become a fan and then send virtual passes with a Wilson basketball to all of your friends with just a click of a button. Wilson will donate 10 cents to Coaches versus Cancer for each pass and the user who makes the most passes will win $1000 in Wilson Sporting Goods equipment. Wilson Sporting Goods has set a goal of 500,000 virtual passes.

Early Entry Players Have Diluted Both College and Pro Basketball

March Madness is always exciting and this year is no exception but it is obvious that the overall level of play in college basketball is not as high as it used to be--and that is hardly a surprise considering how many of the very best players are "one and done" guys who go to the NBA after their freshman seasons, not to mention the number of players who went straight to the NBA from high school in the past decade before the NBA forbade that from happening. For better or worse, most of the best basketball players in the world who are 19 or older are all in the NBA. I say "for better or worse" because, on the one hand, a prodigy like LeBron James blossomed instantly and is already his franchise's career scoring leader. No one can honestly say that skipping college was a mistake for him. On the other hand, we did not really need to see Kevin Durant bricking shots all year long for an atrocious Seattle team. Just about everything that Durant learned this season he will have to unlearn in order to be a significant contributor on a winning team; the Sonics let him shoot the ball whenever he wanted and the team is indifferent at best defensively and does not always seem to play hard. Those are all traits and tendencies that will have to be corrected.

If Durant had stayed in college he likely would have had a spectacular season and perhaps he could have even led Texas on a magical NCAA run like Danny Manning did with Kansas in 1988. Both the college and the pro games would have been better off if Durant had stayed in school. I'm not saying that he should not have the right to turn pro but the exercising of that individual right does have an obvious negative effect at both levels of the sport.

Another consequence of the dilution of talent at the college level is that results that may look like upsets on paper really are not shocking to people who watch the games closely. The nation's blue chip programs used to get all of the best players and they used to keep them for at least three seasons. Teams consisting of great players who have been well coached and have played together for several seasons are less likely to be upset in the NCAA Tournament than teams consisting of young players who are already counting the days until they play in the NBA. Also, smaller programs who feature players who are not considered top NBA prospects tend to keep their teams together like all teams used to do, so sometimes you have a situation where a team consisting of young, highly touted players is facing a team of experienced college players--and experience is a valuable commodity in a pressure-packed tournament situation.

Number seven seed West Virginia beat number two seed Duke 73-67 on Saturday. That "looks" like an upset not just because of the seeding but because Duke is such a well established program--but if you watched the game you realized that West Virginia is a bigger, more physical and more talented team; this was not a Cinderella team that got hot or made a lucky shot late in the game. West Virginia basically just pounded Duke into submission, outrebounding the Blue Devils 45-19. Frankly, in this year's field the only thing that would have really shocked me is if one of the 16, 15 or 14 seeds had won their first games; the rest of the teams are fairly evenly matched.

While some fans may enjoy the fact that there is not a clear favorite, I much preferred it when the college game was played at a higher overall level and there were player rivalries that carried over from one season to the next. None of the players who participated in last year's Florida-Ohio State championship matchup will play a major role in this year's NBA playoffs but those teams could have been fun to watch this season if their key players had not elected to turn pro. Instead, those teams did not even qualify for this year's NCAA Tournament while their former stars received on the job training in the NBA. Florida actually gave us a taste of what NCAA basketball used to be like because the Gators kept their 2006 championship team together in order to make a title run in 2007.

Five Reasons the NCAA Tournament is Better than the NBA Playoffs

Selection Sunday is here and March Madness will soon be in full effect. Here are five reasons that the NCAA Tournament is better than the NBA playoffs:

1) The unsurpassed drama of the one and done format.

2) "Bracketology" has become a national pastime.

3) Big shots like this one: "There is the happiest man in America!"

4) Big upsets like this one: "A miracle! An absolute miracle!"

5) You may not want to admit that you like this song, but you do: "One Shining Moment, 1987" (the first time the song aired after the NCAA Tournament).

Do you disagree? Post a comment explaining why and be sure to click here and read my "Six Reasons the NBA Playoffs are Better than the NCAA Tournament."