Basketball is back

November 9, 2021

Happy November! I decided to write something daily here all month… hope you’ll stop by occasionally to see what’s on my mind.

College Basketball returns today!

Five Reasons to Be Excited about the greatest game ever invented:

1. NCAA March Madness is still the greatest sports event. It’s one and done. That means the pressure is on, for three weeks.

The bracket alone makes the event all-inclusive, not only for the 68 invitees who all feel they’ve got a shot at the title, but also to the casual sports fan who isn’t necessarily following the college season closely until the bracket arrives. (In point of fact, you can Tune Out if you like until the Selection Sunday pairings are announced. But why would you?)

Along with the NFL, the tournament is a product tailor-made product for television. Unlike pro football, March Madness throws a unique first weekend at viewers — with 48 games coming at you rapid-fire, broadcast schedulers having more or less perfected coverage that’s calibrated to see game-endings.

The ‘Cinderella factor’ happens every year. Teams not given a puncher’s chance annually will upset their Power 5 opponents; Cinderella can in my opinion also apply when an insane individual performance gives a mid-major the win over a blue-blood.

Semi-recent favorites… I’ll take the Shaka Smart-led VCU Rams of 2011, who barnstormed to the Final Four from a play-in berth. And the 2013 Florida Gulf Coast Eagles put on a show.

For an individual, I can cite as an all-time favorite Weber State player Harold Arcenaux’s 36-point TORCHING of heavy favorite North Carolina in a west regional Friday late night TV game in the 1999 tourney.

2. Traveling actually exists. In college, high school, middle school, elementary school, travel ball, and (most of) AAU, a travel is defined the same way. Not so in the NBA where a guy getting four steps is not uncommon.

(I’m not even gonna bring up the NBA’s latest travesty, the “walking inbound” of the basketball after a made basket.)

Without a doubt the NBA boasts elite-level athletes putting on a show, night in and night out, of their skill, control, and hoops IQ… so why dilute the product?

To me, the Association’s non-enforcement of the travel, carry, lane violation, and illegal screen (and more I’m simply forgetting) are Deal Breakers every season until about mid-May.

But the NCAA still more-or-less respects the rule of law here… a very good thing.

3. The home court advantage is real. Ask those normally dominant home teams after the no-fans allowed 2020. Referee bias from crowd influence matters in basketball. It has been statistically shown that loose ball fouls, balls tipped out of bounds, and charge vs. block calls go the home team’s way. The larger and the closer the crowd is to the refs, the more pronounced the effect.

(One of THE COOLEST aspects of the tournament with regard to crowd support is when you have four fanbases in one building during March… and three of them unite against one. Example: 1993 Chicago, Jason Kidd and underdog Cal start pushing Duke to the limit. The fanbases of the both BYU and Kansas – the scheduled other half of the day’s doubleheader – join the Cal contingent as the entire building lifts Kidd and Co to the win as if it’s a Cal home game. Awesome.)

College homecourt advantage was ‘perfected’ by amazing student-section energy, great pep bands and cheerleaders keeping the crowd focused. Meanwhile the NBA has to generate arena excitement by pumping in dopey sound, and blasting music that actually bleeds into the live action. 

4. Defense happens in college basketball. It never takes the night off. Defense is played in the regular season and in the post-season. And it’s awesome. 

5. Indiana moves into the future under the direction of old-school Mike Woodson. 

Pro:  High-character+legacy guy, NBA 30-year career, defensive minded

Con:  Almost 100%, perception. “Hasn’t coached in college” = Uncertainty.  “He’s old”

Perception is the larger issue than Woodson’s age. Having never coached in the college game, he’s still younger than Beilein, Kelvin Sampson, and a full decade younger than K and Boeheim.

For those who might not understand the move, I submit this video. It’s the spontaneous reactions from the entire New York Knicks squad — players lighting up upon seeing “Woody,” who had just taken the IU job days before and was returning to surprise his former team make its 2021 playoff debut. (Woodson started the 2020-21 season as an assistant with the Knicks, and he was reunited with his former players one-by-one at Madison Square Garden.)

The addition of Thad Matta to the IU athletics staff will be a huge plus. Indiana AD Scott Dolson may not get instant praise for that innovation, but I do not remember anyone else doing something like this in college. Best of all, no one seems to be talking about the presence of the native Hoosier who is also one of the more accomplished Big Ten head coaches of recent vintage not named Izzo. 

Really, Dolson got two for one. I like to think of it as stealing Michigan’s 2019 move of adding not just Juwan Howard, but Phil Martelli as well. The difference here is the “gray beard” is the guy doing the Xs and Os on the sideline. 

Can it work? According to small-minded media out there on Twitter, of course not. One media genius, someone called Aaron Torres, says Indiana basketball is dead.

Will it work? We’ll all find out together.

Oh yeah and One More Reason to get excited about college basketball… Good luck UT Dallas Comets and Rob Wade! The Comets tip off at Schreiner University tonight!