I often say to myself while watching NBA games, sure this is pretty interesting, but it would be so much better if we switched up tournament rules so as to minimize the odds chance of the best teams advancing while also massively degrading the talent-level of the athletes. After all, what kind of basketball fan would want to see the game played by the best basketball players out there? Not me! Far better to see competition where the average guy couldn't make it in the Spanish or Italian pro leagues. Three cheers for mediocrity.
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Madness
08 Mar 2008 04:02 pm
Comments (76)
Hiss!
Not sure what you mean here.
It is interesting, however, how the rules (or their enforcement) change from the regular season to the playoffs.
It's also tragic how many crappy teams can make it into the playoffs while a couple of good teams sit.
Do you watch college basketball, Matt? When I was in the Army Reserve there was an African-American officer and college basketball fan who explained to me why he preferred watching the college game: those kids are hustling, he said, for a chance to make pro money, while the pros are often mailing it in. It would seem that there is probably more incentive to mail it in in the NBA considering the long regular season includes many meaningless games and the playoffs involve interminable best-of-seven series instead of a single-elimination tournament.
Thanks, Colin Cowherd. Now let's hear about how Terrell Owens is like a stripper.
Just be happy we're not in that vast arid wasteland that is the time between the basketball and football seasons.
Wow this is some unusually unprompted bitterness Matt...did your girlfriend just run away with College Basketball?
Indeed, because it is obviously true that the entertainment value of a sporting event is directly proportional to per capita talent level of the players.
That's why All-Star games are always such riveting television.
Don't be an idiot, Matt. I'm the biggest NBA fan there is, but the NCAA Tournament is fantastic, even if, yeah, the players are worse than your beloved Roger Mason Jr.
The NCAA game is more fun.
I think playing 8 fewer minutes increases the pace too.
I would rather see a made 360 dunk in the NBA all-star game than a missed layup following a "hustle play" during the Round of 32.
I have a feeling Matt would have preferred Emerson, Lake & Palmer to the Stooges.
You, sir, are a crazy person.
Stop your crazy talk, crazy person.
I often say to myself while watching NBA games
Once again, Matt demonstrates how far out of step he is with mainstream American culture.
Seals it. You and Simmons have to do a podcast together now.
Come on, Matt. This is Goldberg-style intentional obtuseness. Obviously it's not the quality of basketball that makes the NCAA Tournament so great. Obviously, the 1 vs. 16 games are almost always snoozefests that we'd be better off not seeing. But don't be stupid.
The greatness is in the rush of one and done risk, the rabid college fans traveling to neutral sites with multi-game tickets, the emotion of opening weekend upsets, the exuberance teenage amateurs will always have over 20-something professionals, and the emergence of truly unknown heroes (not enough time to build reputations in a college career).
If you gave me a choice between watching a pro game at the highest level and a college game at the highest level with all other things (fans, stadium, stakes, risk) being equal, of course I'd take the pros. But those other things are not equal, and they matter. And that's what makes the Tournament so great.
MEDIOCRITY is EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!
I'm lucky enough to have attended both Tennessee-Vanderbilt and Golden State-Atlanta in the last two weeks.
Clearly the objective quality of the players doesn't contribute to an objectively "higher quality of play" - the GS-ATL game was amazing for the lack of defensive rotation, inability for either team to stop penetration, and a general sense of malaise that followed both teams when they didn't have the ball.
UT-Vandy was 100 times better.
Yeah, Ohio State, Florida, Georgetown, and UCLA sucked last year.
I have a feeling Matt would have preferred Emerson, Lake & Palmer to the Stooges.
That's a good point - Matt's preference for indie rock shows that he's more than willing to overlook amatuerish performance and limited skills for authenticity in music. Why is it so hard for him to understand that some people feel the same way regarding sports?
oh, and Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey says "hello" too.
Matt's hatred of the NCAA probably has to do with the fact that fair Harvard has been the worst Ivy team in league history.
I'm sure attending those games offered no excitement, no real interest, other than wondering if our boys will finally beat those scoundrels from Yale this year.
But for those of us who had the great fortune to sit in class with pro stars before they made the jump, college ball is something special.
Oddly enough, I was watching my college classmate, Allen Iverson, take on the Spurs last night. In the 4th quarter the Nuggets were up about 10 with 4 minutes to go. Sitting on the bench were Tony Parker, Ginobli, Duncan, and seemingly the rest of the Spurs' best players. They had basically ceded the game to Denver - and for no apparent reason! They just flat out gave up.
Great athletes in the NBA, but no heart.
Come on, Matt. This is Goldberg-style intentional obtuseness. Obviously it's not the quality of basketball that makes the NCAA Tournament so great.
So you're saying it's the alcohol and gambling?
No Matt you prefer watching the league that has refs fixing games.
every year I follow the same pattern. I pay no attention to college hoops other than my bruins. Then when tournament time comes around I start watching out of curiosity and before too long realize I'm in sports nirvana. It's far and away the awesomest event of the year. Matt's weird. He's like a Vulcan or something, approaching things the inherent awesomeness of which are their emotional intensity with a simplistic logic-based mindset.
Phil: they're not immaterial, that's for sure. Ever had fun at an 80s party? It's not because the music was actually good. It's because the environment in which it's being played is somewhat hedonistically (not actually a word) fun, and the music was tailor-made for that sort of environment.
"Madness" is, in fact, an apt title for this post.
Another advantage for college basketball - every team has a limited shelf life. If Detroit or San Antonio loses in the NBA playoffs, it's not that big a deal because their stars will all be back the following year to try again. A college hoops team only has two or three chances to win at most before having to recruit a new set of players.
This is the same post every year, there's no need to argue it. Matt is like a Hillary supporter on this subject, he'll simply ignore every point that challenges his NBA bias. Let's take Joakim Noah for example. Matthew repeated slammed him for failing to leave college after the 2006 National Championship and said he would be a mediocre pro player anyway. Take the money while you can, Matt said. Noah then proceeded to win a 2nd Championship and Matt slammed him (an anyone in the press who praised him) when he fell to 9th overall in the draft. Now that Noah is doing well in the NBA (in large part because of experience he gained by staying in school), Matt wants to jump on the bandwagon and make claims that the Suns should have traded Marion for him, that the Bulls should trade Wallace to get him on the court, and that it's all because he went to a NYC private school.
I think Matt's ideal basketball league would involve the best players in the world playing full court one-on-one. Can you imagine the efficiency numbers!
Sure one may prefer the NBA to the NCAA tournament. But this attempt to trash college ball reflects your lack of understanding of the game. Kind of like how you once wrote in favor of raising the rim, or making the NBA 4 on 4.
Matthew Yglesias:college basketball::Andrew Sullivan:Hillary Clinton
There are a lot of upsets in March Madness (that's a lot of what we like about it), but usually the team is pretty good that ends up winning the whole thing.
In strict experimental terms, you would probably get a better winner if you limited the field to 16 teams, and played best-of-three mini-series to advance to subsequent rounds. But so what? As a stand-alone sports event, only the NFL playoffs compare dramatically. By contrast, the NBA playoff structure is really terrible and adds nothing to the intrinsic interest of the contests themselves (though much of what is sub-optimal about the NBA playoffs is at the expense of the regular season, which there's no real reason to watch).
I wish I had an extra set of hands so I could give this post four thumbs down. This could honestly be the worst post in the history of this blog.
The point of the tournament isn't upsets for the sake of upsets - obviously there are occasions where the lesser team wins, but a lot of the teams that pull "upsets" are actually really good teams that just don't get much press during the regular season, just as some of the teams that get "upset" were vastly overrated throughout the regular season and finally got served.
****
Also, some crazy people enjoy the enthusiasm, pageantry, and human drama of sport (all of which college ball has plenty), as opposed of watching pros run isolation plays with the intensity of robots on sedatives in front of corporate assholes who can afford $800 tickets and don't give a shit who wins.
If you watch Duke/Carolina tonight (or any NCAA tournament game, for that matter), you'll notice that the arena won't have to play loud and annoying hip-hop songs during possessions to generate "atmosphere."
I don't pay attention to basketball once Spring Training starts.
Come on, Matt. This is Goldberg-style intentional obtuseness.
Quoted for truth.
I don't like college basketball very much because the screwups, bad shooting, and poor decision making of college players outweigh the "excitement" of seeing crazed college-age fans who have painted their bodies and the "thrill" of seeing my team blow a lead in the final 2 minutes because the point guard doesn't know how to close out a game. And the big men have between 1 and 0 post moves. In NCAA basketball, anything can happen!! Because a lot of the players are not very good. People who think that college players are trying harder are getting effort and lack of body control confused.
Support both, but prefer NBA. It helps my favorite team, the Spurs, is elite-class for all the right reasons. Tremendous basketball (usually) played.
That said, nothing compares to March Madness. No sporting event anywhere. NCAA basketball and football suffer due to most games being wildly mismatched, but that all melts away in March.
it would be so much better if we switched up tournament rules so as to minimize the odds chance of the best teams advancing
Even after fixing the "odds/chance" double-word, I don't know what this refers to. Is something afoot in the NCAA where they're no longer making 16th seeds play 1st seeds, etc.?
Aside from that, as a former high school basketball player who never had a chance to come near a court in college, I take issue with labeling 768 players who are all in the 99th percentile of basketball players nationwide, as representing "mediocrity".
"I take issue with labeling 768 players who are all in the 99th percentile of basketball players nationwide, as representing "mediocrity"."
There are hundreds of NCAA D I teams. Some of the teams that make the tournament are average at best, because they get in through automatic berths. If you watch a lot of March Madness, you are bound to see players on the court that would be pretty well-suited for competition in intramural ball at Notre Dame, Ohio State, or UCLA. In other cases, you're watching tall or athletic players with horrible fundamentals. College basketball is fine in itself, but preferring--not as a student at a college, but as a non-alum sitting at home watching ESPN--to professional ball is perverse.
"as a former high school basketball player who never had a chance to come near a court in college"
Assuming you weren't horrible in high school, there was probably a college somewhere that would have let you play (even if it wasn't D I).
Carolina / Duke will have more passion and drama than any pro game this year.
Not to mention that Just Karl is dead right about the true stupidity of the 'come out now' mentality. Most of these guys should stay through their junior year if they care about learning the game and their overall career.
Not too long ago, the ACC was loaded with talented 6'10" guys in one class, featuring Joe Smith, Rasheed Wallace and Tim Duncan. Smith was conference POY, and Wallace was generally thought to be second, with Duncan considered talented, but much more limited. Smith and Rasheed left early, Duncan stayed all 4. I'm just saying.
Gotta go watch hoops at the pinacle. Go Heels!
You know, I never thought about it but, yes! It is possible to be a troll on your own web site.
The NCAA's are fun, because it is one-and-done and the players are so poor that the games tend to be close.
Otherwise, watching college ball is indeed usually pretty painful.
I love it when MY goes on one of these anti-college ball rants, because he is both correct and going against the conventional wisdom that lionizes the terrible players in NCAA basketball.
Which then pisses off legions of readers, and the fun ensues.
Sorry, but I'm with Matt. I used to enjoy college basketball in the early 90s, but it seems like the last time I could get into it was the Iverson/Camby year. The quality of the play has just degraded to the point where I'd rather watch late night CSPAN than a regular season college basketball game. Just give me the best players and let me watch them play.
Oh, and you want the excitement of a one and done tournament with the best players in the world? Not a problem- it's called the NFL playoffs.
Madness is someone who would rather watch the Clippers play the Knicks than Duke v. Carolina because of the "quality" of play/players.
One day you might see the light, Matt. Doubtful, but stranger things have happened.
Are you a boxing fan? Do you hate Sugar Ray (pick one) because he would get clobbered by Mitch 'Blood' Green?
Drinkof - Really, you think Duncan's two extra collegiate years under Coach Dave Odom, during which Wake never reached the Final Four, was instrumental in forging TD into a champion? Funny, I thought it was learning from David Robinson, but what do I know?
methinks you protest too much
point 1: sports is entertainment
point 2: entertainment is subjective
point 3: "objective" level of players does not necessarily equal subjective entertainment value.
(as pointed out by previous commenters, really talented musicians can and often do produce very mediocre if not terrible and offensive music).
point 4: structure and context of ncaa tournament and college basketball leads to higher enterainment value than late season regular season nba basketball and arguably the interminable early rounds of the nba playoffs. (i concede that a late playoffs vigorously contested nba series trumps march madness.)
those that argue otherwise take some pleasure in purely contrarian point of views that cloud otherwise sound judgement. it's kind of like Krugman and Obama.
I was going to defend the NCAA, but then I thought about the two games UCLA won at Pauley this week -- two gift free throws against Stanford on a call that the Pac Ten supervisor of officials apparently said should not have been made, topped off by a "steal" against Cal today when the referee was either out of position or decided that it's not a foul if it's intentional.
The guy in the NBA that was on the take last year couldn't have topped that performance. At least the TV audience got to see Jack Nicholson looking like an ass.
Look, Matt isn't talking about what has the most entertainment value for the masses. He's arguing normatively that the NBA has value over college basketball because the players are better, and make far less mistakes. If you don't agree with him, and claim that a one and done playoff and more wild lead swings are more exciting, that is your right.
But then you and Matt are arguing from completely different positions. Matt is looking at this from the perspective of a basketball fan; you are looking at it from the perspective of a person valuing the atmosphere, ambience, fan devotion, player demonstativeness, etc. I come down on Matt's side of this issue, but you just have different priorities than him.
All I'll say is that this is a pretty entertaining game between UNC and Duke for the conference regular season championship that I'm watching here...
You know, I never thought about it but, yes! It is possible to be a troll on your own web site.
Yup. The post is a troll.
After all, as was pointed out above, if Matthew really thought that the best basketball experience inevitably resulted from the having the best players on the court, then Matthew would think that the best possible basketball experience is the NBA All Star Game.
Even Golden State at the height of the Dallas series last year didn't have the same type of experience as the Carolina-Duke game tonight.
Look, Matt isn't talking about what has the most entertainment value for the masses. He's arguing normatively that the NBA has value over college basketball because the players are better, and make far less mistakes.
That's bizarre. Without entertainment value, basketball, like any sport, is just a bunch of large men getting exercise. There is no inherent normative value.
Sure, an NBA game isn't the "same type of experience" as a Duke-Carolina game (although I disagree with Al in saying that the Warriors-Mavs series didn't offer that experience). You have to remember how much of that "experience" is due to the stands being full of drunk 20-year-olds. Take that away, and I'm not sure the action on the floor is so thrilling.
This season should be proof that NBA regular season games matter. The teams who are in contention for the playoffs are going hard every night, and they'll keep it up the rest of the year. It's only when you get two teams that have given up on the season do you get boring basketball.
I'm not interested in bashing college hoops or insulting the people who like it. It's just not really my thing. Apart from the style of play and the coach-centric customs, I find it frustrating to try to follow the game, because I have no idea who 99% of the players are. I don't care about rooting for a jersey, I want to root for the players, the personalities.
Usually I watch college sports without thinking about this, but sometimes I find myself realizing how corrupt the whole enterprise is, and that takes away from my enjoyment, too. Especially during the tournament, where it's just blatant how much money everybody is making, and how wrong it is that the guys who play the games don't get a dime of it.
"Drinkof - Really, you think Duncan's two extra collegiate years under Coach Dave Odom, during which Wake never reached the Final Four, was instrumental in forging TD into a champion? Funny, I thought it was learning from David Robinson, but what do I know?"
Actually yes.
All due respect, you're lawyering a bit (Final Four, champion, all that). What it did was mature him into a great player, who could then become a champion.
So many players are where Duncan was as a sophomore, but don't learn a damn thing once they hit the pros. Nobody's got the time to teach them and let them take it all in.
Odom was a decent to good big man coach, but Duncan also benefited from playing college ball on a good, solid team, led by an excellent lead guard (combo), Randolph Childress (the ACC tourney title run by Wake in Duncan's jr year included a 3 game display from Childress the likes of which have rarely been matched). I had the advantage of being here in ACC country, and you could see him doing it, game by game.
As Robinson himself admitted, Duncan was better than he was the day he got to SA. I like Robinson a lot, but his offensive game wasn't anywhere near as versatile as Duncan's, even early on.
I like Robinson a lot, but his offensive game wasn't anywhere near as versatile as Duncan's, even early on.
Interesting, since Duncan never won a scoring title, while Robinson did.
you are looking at it from the perspective of a person valuing the atmosphere, ambience, fan devotion, player demonstativeness, etc.
Right, because who wants drama from a sporting event? Very Serious Basketball fans know that true enjoyment lies in Player Efficiency Ratings and On-court/Off-court differentials even if they don't correlate to winning percentage.
If you go by the numbers, Robinson in his prime was a better player than Duncan in his prime. And it really isn't that close.
I read this three times and I have no idea what it means, or what you are trying to say. And I am a basketball fan.
Maybe Tim Duncan is the great player he is today because he spent 4 years in college. Maybe. But there are plenty of other great players who didn't seem to need it. Let's say Lebron went to college -- would he be any better than he is today? I doubt it, and we'd have been robbed of 1-4 years of watching him play. Then there are guys who truly would have been strangled by the college game. Garnett -- I could just see some asshole coach trying to turn him into a center. Same goes for Dirk.
From the amount of college ball I watch (which, admittedly, isn't a ton), the coaching is so bad that the players probably learn just as many bad habits as good ones. There are plenty of knuckleheads with really raw games who went to college, and some of the prep-to-pros guys actually have a lot of polish (Al Jefferson, for one).
oh cmon matt, didn't you see the unbelievable effort, hustle, determination, scrap and whiteness on display tonight by t. hansbizzy, or as we now know him, "Psycho T" (puke)
Speaking of guys who are just too white for the NBA, does anybody else think Kevin Love isn't that good? Yeah, he can pass, and that's fun to watch, but he's what, 6-8, even if he's listed at 6-10? And slow. Very, very, very slow. He has college 3-pt range but I don't think he has NBA 3-point range. So you've got a 6-8 power forward who can't run or jump or shoot 3s. But he can throw a mean outlet pass. Hm.
Matt-
You will never know the plasue of watching a group of pasty face dook students crying into their own hands.For that I pitty you.
Matt-
You will never know the pleasure of watching a group of pasty face dook students crying into their own hands.For that I pitty you.
Matt-
You will never know the pleasure of watching a group of pasty face dook students crying into their own hands.For that I pity you.
Hey, come on, we have some attractive people here! It's normally distributed; we just have a small population.
I'm just mad that they pissed it away. Had a better team on the ropes, and choked it away.
Two points need to be made. 1) NO, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE THERE.
2) When was the last time celtic and laker fans shouted insults at each other at 2 am on a political blog. It just doesn't happen. I'm sorry, but the NBA will never have the passion of NC v doook.
Yes, and I often think to myself how great it is to watch well-trained automatons laze around the court, and wonder at who'll be next to try for a few minutes. Nothing represents the excitement and beauty of sport so much as middle aged, overpaid professionals.
It's odd, becuase I was just thinking abou what college basketball needs, which really is about fifty more games for every team. We need to cram enough games in and extend the season for so long that any individual game is meaningless, just one of two to four games with every other team in existence, until a long term strategy actually becomes "Hope our star player gets a minor injury that sits him for two months so he won't be burnt out by June."
Then, we need to let over half the teams in the league into the postseason, and let them all play at least four games, becuase that 82-game season sure as hell wasn't long enough to actually weed out the good teams from the mediocre. After all, we really need a two month long postseason to fully appreciate the excitement generated by a bunch folks forced to punch a clock with a Jock Jams CD on repeat for three hours a night.
Carolina fans are going to be taunting Duke fans about this game for years to come. By next week you will have forgotten who the Wizards played tonight.
(And yes, there are no attractive people at Duke. Really.)
Matt is looking at this from the perspective of a basketball fan; you are looking at it from the perspective of a person valuing the atmosphere, ambience, fan devotion, player demonstativeness, etc.
Quite the opposite. Matt is looking at this as an NBA fan, not as a basketball fan.
"Interesting, since Duncan never won a scoring title, while Robinson did."
"If you go by the numbers, Robinson in his prime was a better player than Duncan in his prime. And it really isn't that close."
I'm guessing you guys are lawyers. In whose movie? Al, do you really think Robinson has as versatile an offensive game as Duncan? Blah, numbers or no, do you believe Robinson was was a better player than Duncan in his prime? Ever better a year in his career than Duncan has been ever single year of his career? (Duncan's stats are 21.7/11.9, Robinson's 21.1/10.9, not a whole lot of difference).
Robinson is a bona fide top 50, and all-time great. But he's a whole tier below Duncan if Duncan never dribbled another ball.
And while we're lawyering, how many titles did Robinson win without Duncan?
"Maybe Tim Duncan is the great player he is today because he spent 4 years in college. Maybe. But there are plenty of other great players who didn't seem to need it. Let's say Lebron went to college -- would he be any better than he is today? I doubt it, and we'd have been robbed of 1-4 years of watching him play. Then there are guys who truly would have been strangled by the college game. Garnett -- I could just see some asshole coach trying to turn him into a center. Same goes for Dirk."
Lebron, no. There are always a few exceptions, he's one. But Garnett? You're forgetting the godawfullness of his first year+. He was (with occasional bursts of amazing talent showing through) horrible. There were actually articles (wildly overstated, but still) speculating as to whether he'd make it. If he went to a college where he could learn, with a decent coach, two years would have done wonders for him. Dirk is a perfect counter-example, he came into the league at 21, with the equivalent of college in the European leagues.
"oh cmon matt, didn't you see the unbelievable effort, hustle, determination, scrap and whiteness on display tonight by t. hansbizzy, or as we now know him, "Psycho T" (puke)"
I believe the operative syllable here is the last one, which if my guess is correct, rhymes with your favorite school. I'm just saying.
But, if one admits the truth based on my college days, there are (or at least were, I am NOT young) quite a few attractive Duke students. And to follow up on what TH said, what are the odds that this thread would have spawned Wizards = anybody talk. One in more atoms than there are in the universe?
You guys just don't know where to look. Stay away from the science classes.
drinkof, you're wrong about Garnett. In his first year, he averaged 10 and 6, but by year 3 his PER was over 20 and he averaged 19, 10 and 4. (its all on basketball-reference.com) You really think if he spent 2 years in college he'd come into the league any better than that?
The reason guys don't learn much in college is because the coaching is so bad. I watched Ohio State whenever I could last year, and either Mike Conley was a terrible pg, or their coach is retarded, because they just refused to pound the ball to Oden in the post. I suppose he could have been learning crazy post moves in practice, but if he can't use them in game, how much is he really learning?
too many steves-
The reason Oden was just fed the ball repeatedly is that until late Feb. he was basically in the kind of shape Shaq is in, he got gassed after 5 minutes of continuous play, add to that the fact that he was unable to fully utilize his dominant hand, and it becomes clear why he wasn't the sole focus of the offense.
On the college add's nothing front, I'd agree with certain examples (Kobe, Lebron, Garnett) but the fact remains that unless you have superlative athleticism 2-4 years of college is basically mandatory for pro succuess (notice how virtually every straight to the pro's Big Man is either a complete failure, or at best a 5-10 year project, also note how there has been only a few straight to the pro's PG, and the Conley had an extremely unusual background-- essentially getting prep as a pro style point in High School due to Oden).
As to the person above who mentioned Love, I think its doubtful he'll be a superstar, but he should be at least Luke Walton.
That was me that mentioned Love. Is Walton really a good comparison, are are we being blinded by the shared whiteness? Walton's a perimeter guy, Love's an inside player. They share a certain melanin deficiency and they both come from rich, famous families, but the only real similarity in their games is that they can both pass.
The best case I see for Love is if he develops a mean streak. He could be a nice undersized banger power forward with decent range and good passing. Bill Laimbeer, but 3 inches shorter and better with the ball in his hands. Oh damn, I just got blinded by the white again.
Blinded by the light!...or was that white?....Nevermind. Too many steves is absolutely correct. The Walton comparison is ridiculous, completely different players and actually, Walton will end up having a much better career than that of Love. Love reminds me of Lonny Baxter, without the toughness, and a little more range. But in the NBA, will he ever be able to showcase that range? Most likely not because large, more athletic defenders will be draped over him constantly. If I was Kevin Love, which i never could dream as being as good as he is, I personally would not like the Lonny comparison, but I see it as the most plausible.
Don't even get me started on T. Hansbizzy.....
matt, is there a secret plot to take away your apple and replace it with an orange?
also, as an aside, have you ever played ball with guys with D-1 talent. i don't think you would be so dismissive if you had.
Comments closed March 22, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Boo!
Posted by John | March 8, 2008 4:08 PM