Final Four

Final Thoughts on the Final Four

 

Recent NY Times headline: "Low scores and slow games sap March Madness."  Facts: team scoring averages are down by nine points since the 1990s; teams average only 65 possessions per 40 minutes, equaling the pace of the 1940s; there are 19 timeouts in most games--nine for the media, and five  for each team; game attendance has declined for seven consecutive seasons.  Problems?  Not for me.  I like the game as it is.  Defensive slug-fests have a beauty of their own.  Fans of soccer, the so-called "beautiful" game, seem quite happy with scores that can be counted on one finger.  I'm happy with basketball scores in the 60s, even in the 50s.  However, to make the game more attractive to the spectateur moyen sensual, I suggest the following rules changes for NCAA men's and women's basketball:

1.  Permit an unlimited number of personal fouls, so that good offensive players can stay in the game

2.  Give the offended (fouled) team two points automatically for each common foul (including offensive fouls), two points automatically for each act-of-shooting foul except for attempted 3-pointers--in which case give three points--and two points for each technical foul.  Immediately disqualify any player charged with a flagrant foul

3.  Do not shoot any free throws (a sacrifice, but a necessary one, for a player like me whose only claim to high school fame was the setting of a school record for free throw percentage)

4.  Allow the offensive team only 30 seconds per possession.  In the last four minutes of the game, allow the offense only 25 seconds per possession, to minimize stalling

5.  Allow each team only one timeout per game, plus one for each overtime period.  Retain the nine media timeouts for revenue purposes (and use some of the revenue to pay the players a modest stipend).

These changes would increase scoring and pace of play.  Defenses would be less inclined to bang, hold, and shove.  Defenses would abandon the hack-a-Shaq ploy.  Spectators would be spared the tedium of sitting through the whole free-throw shooting process.  Spectators would be spared the tedium of sitting through team timeouts.  Coaches would be forced to prepare their teams in practice sessions (they could use the time now spent practicing free-throw shooting) for various end-of-game situations, ceding some of their control and giving some of the game back to the players and the spectators.

*****

Bo Ryan, the excellent University of Wisconsin basketball coach, has put an interesting spin on the notion of "privilege" that is so much talked about by social critics today.  None of his players were McDonalds high school All-Americans.  Of the other teams in this year's Final Four, Michigan State had one high school All-American, and Duke and Kentucky each had nine.  Ryan's players, while talented certainly, were not the prime targets of college recruiters.  They are not the one-and-done types already good enough for the NBA.  They stay in college four years and develop their games over that time, with one or two, like Frank Kaminsky, who happens to be white, finally reaching the level of NBA prospect.  "Not to be overly patriotic," said Ryan, "but we're an American story, that you can do that in this kind of a system.  Sometimes where it looks like the privileged, the ones that are identified as being great players and can't-miss-types, there can come that guy from behind in the race and then cross the tape first.  Frank is a guy who got a little later start as far as people noticing his abilities, but that's just a great accomplishment on his part."  We might infer from this that in basketball's upper levels white male privilege pales in comparison to black male privilege, since a majority of  high school All-Americans are black.  But can the privileged blacks be faulted for being more talented?  Is it likely that they too have worked very hard to achieve All-American status?  Would Ryan  be delighted to have some of those privileged guys on his team?  No, yes, and yes.

*****

On the other hand, after losing to Wisconsin, Kentucky's Andrew Harrison, who happens to be black, was recorded by a live microphone to have said "F*** that n****" in reference to Kaminsky, who was at that moment being interviewed on live television.  Let us note that it isn't only whites who harbor prejudice and regard members of other races and ethnicities with disdain that can range from condescension to open animosity.  In the tiny worlds of college and professional basketball locker rooms and courts, blacks, by virtue of their numbers are indeed privileged.  They can look around their microcosm and expect see lots of skins the color of theirs .  The white players?  Not so much.

*****

It is impossible to determine who is the one "best" coach in any sport.  It is meaningless to select a "Coach of the Year."  There are too many variables.  But it is possible to select that coach for whom you yourself would most like to play college basketball.  I'm not playing for the bully, the martinet, the whiner, the excuse-maker, the rationalizer--and there are a lot of those types, many of them highly successful in terms of wins and losses, out there.  No, I'm playing for Fred "The Mayor" Hoiberg, the Iowa State coach who gives his players a structure but lets them play fast and loose within that structure, who stays positive and doesn't berate or nag, whose teams win much more than they lose, whose teams seem to enjoy playing as well as winning.

*****

I like Muffet McGraw, coach of Notre Dame's women's team.  Her teams are always competitive and often outstanding.  I'd rather play for her than for smug Geno Auriemma of Connecticut or high-strung, intimidating Kim Mulkey of Baylor, two of the most successful coaches in the business.  But was McGraw a little addled in her postgame comments after Notre Dame edged South Carolina, 66-65 in the semi-finals of the women's NCAA tournament?  Said McGraw, "We didn't rebound, missed a bunch of shots.  Just a great basketball game.  We went to Jewell (star player Jewell Loyd).  She had to do everything.  Everyone contributed."   Let's charitably chalk up her self-contradictory statements to the giddiness of victory.

I don't so much like the slickness of John Calipari, Kentucky men's coach, although he's a recruiter nonpareil, and he's good at player development, Xs and Os, and in-game adjustments as well.  Was he, too, addled when he tweeted a day after Wisconsin upset his theretofore unbeaten team "All of us need to look at this season for what it was.  This season changed college basketball.  Not only historic 38-0 start, but it showed that All-Americans can be selfless and servant leaders that care about others more than themselves."  Sure, going 38-0 before losing in an NCAA semi-final game was historic, but in what way did it change college basketball?  And in what way are his nine high school All-Americans any more "selfless" than national champion Duke's nine high school All-Americans?

*****

I say let's be done with "one and done"--the argument against it, that is, not the actual practice itself.  Although losing a few good players to the NBA or other pro leagues after one year may detract a wee bit from the quality of the college game, forcing players to remain in college is or should be an illegal restraint of labor.  The current NBA rule states that its players must be one full year out of high school  or be at least 19 years old.  Even that is punitive.  All should have the right to enter the NBA at any age whatsoever if they can find a team smart enough, or dumb enough, as the case may be, to sign them.  Away with the plantation mentality!

*****

And let's also be done with quoting championship-winning coaches and players who boast, as if only they follow the Protestant work ethic, "This is a tribute to our hard work," "We just worked so hard," "All of our hard work was worth it."  A vast majority of coaches and players work equally hard, training, developing skills, scouting, and devising game plans, but only one team wins the championship.  Of course hard work is required of successful teams--but that's a given.  What sets teams apart, what results in championships, is a combination of intelligence, talent, and luck.

 

Latest comments

29.03 | 17:31

Hi Bruce,
I smiled a lot as I looked! Sometimes I didn't quite understand, other times I did! Keep doing this! You are a fun thinker!

05.07 | 23:04

hi! your blog is really fantastic! you are really lucky to have it. I have one but i did not have a single like apart from me

11.10 | 23:42

No longer pray for an outcome. Just do the footwork, if I can see any. I just pray for the grace to willing accept what the outcome will be.

30.06 | 02:37

yo that is so cool