With all due respect to Winthrop and Nevada, Friday’s biggest collection of believe-it-or-don’t moments came from the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, who scorched the Blazers to the tune of a season high 65 points in last night’s 116-111 OT win.
The only players with more career 60+ games than Kobe ; MJ and Wilt Chamberlain.
While we’re enjoying the heck out of the NCAA Tournament (well, those of us who aren’t totally immersed in the rock biz’ version of spring break), True Hoop’s Henry Abbott questions the romantic mystique of the college game and concludes, “it’s a sham.”
In the last couple of years I have talked to so many people, many off the record, about basketball in America. One of the consistent themes is the filth that pervades high-level college basketball. Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney… as has been discussed a million times before, it’s going everywhere you can possibly imagine. Sure, those few stories about Chris Webber or Reggie Bush have made some headlines, but that’s the tip of the iceberg from what I have heard from multiple reliable sources. Boosters, agents, financial advisers, businesses, players, families, friends, “uncles,” coaches, fellow students… the stories make your head spin.
There’s a romantic notion that these guys are playing purely for the love of the game and the experience. But do we have any evidence that that in fact happens anymore at this level? I can’t tell you what percentage of players are getting paid, but, well, John Feinstein wrote that book about the Patriot League called “The Last Amateurs.” Amazingly, I’ve never heard anyone question the implication of that title–that the guys we’re watching on TV this weekend are, by and large, professionals.
At this point you’d have to be a pretty naive or uninformed fan to prefer college sports for its authenticity or purity, which is not to say many sports fans aren’t naive and uninformed. But part of being a sports fan is irrational passion. I’m not sure an Ohio State basketball fan is any more deluded about supporting “student-athletes” or the romantic notion of a university anymore than Philadelphia Flyers fans are deluded into experiencing their team as as a gritty reflection of a working class city instead of one content arm of a large multi-media corporation.
Personally I just find the college basketball and football products more unpredictable and entertaining, and the larger numbers of teams and heightened regional loyalties more captivating. The players should be paid, of course. Go Xavier.
– jc, enjoying my first year off from music business spring break in seven years.
I can’t argue about the unpredictability nor the entertainment value of college sports — and I’ll fully admit that everytime I watch more than a few minutes of college baseball or hockey, I wish I had time to watch a lot more.
That said, i think there’s some poorly articulated, knee-jerky stuff coming out of sports yack radio (hello Foxies and their listeners) that is deluded at best, vaguely racist at worst. Prefering college basketball to the NBA for stylistic reasons is totally legit. But when I hear someone argue that college ball is “better” because “the players aren’t paid,” I can’t help but wonder why no one is offended by the coaches’ salaries.