My wife asked me last night if this was the last basketball game. I said yes. It was the women's college championship. I don't count the NBA because I don't watch it. It's the least pure form of basketball. It's watch me, I'm the star, see me play one on one. I said, yes to her question. Then I said, tomorrow baseball begins.
So the basketball season is over. What did we learn. The women's game is purer than the men's game. Kentucky won the men's championship and all 5 of their starters will be playing in the NBA next season. Two of their stars are projected to be the number one and two picks in the NBA draft. They were both freshman this year. One and done. They went to college on the seven month plan. What a joke. Their coach, Calipari, will be busy now recruiting another bunch of seven month college students. The men's championship was boring. It was a done deal. Kentucky could have beaten some NBA teams. The final four teams every year have many players who are attending a college for a year or two before they enter the NBA draft. Who can blame them, as the thinking goes, they will make millions. Not so, women's college basketball. Their best player, Baylor's Brittney Griner, will be back for her senior year she said. She could go play in Europe and make a million or she can wait to play in the WNBA and make in the thousands. Women players go to school, play for their school; many men players have to check out their jerseys to remember what school they are attending. Women coaches of women basketball make millions less than their male counterparts. People like to watch the NBA minor league. Baseball drafts players out of high school but if they choose to go to college instead they have to wait until they are 21 to re-enter the draft. That would be a better plan for the NBA and it would make for better college basketball.
Some years there is a small college like Butler who made a run to the championship the past couple years. This is a team with no McDonald's All Americans, no big sports budget, no mega million dollar coach - just a lot of team chemistry and hard nosed players. They are definitely the underdog and the reason lots of people watch. Not this year. By the time the championship game was played on Monday night, it was hard to tell who was more bored - the Kentucky players or the spectators. Kentucky was up by 18 at one point and got so bored they almost lost the game. CBS had plenty of hype for the tournament but by the time it got past the first couple rounds there was little reason to stay and watch. Many of those one and dones and two and dones had given up playing hard and were thinking about staying healthy and making those NBA bucks while playing one on one.
