Well, the season has been over for a month now…probably a good time to take a quick little review at what happened, eh?

Apologies are owed for the lateness of this, but it seems before everyone started looking ahead to all the coaches who would be jumping around, all the players who would leave, and everything else that happens in the summer, there needed to be a look at everything that happened this year. Again, this is much later than it should be, but consider it this writer’s summary of the season.

There’s plenty more that can be added to these lists: plenty of great players, great teams, and great moments from this season. Heck, we could go through all 327 teams (of which, would you believe, this writer saw 270 of on TV this year), but, alas, there wouldn’t be enough space on this website. Besides, unfortunately, the memory is already starting to fog over…

-Seniors. A ritual of almost every college basketball season is some of us voicing disappointment over non-seniors coming out of school early to turn professional. While it’s fair to focus on that negative, some of that attention should be channeled to the positive, too. Not enough credit is given to those seniors who do stay in school, and so, to guys like Nick Collison, David West, Kirk Hinrich, Kyle Korver, Reece Gaines, Josh Howard and Hollis Price, just to name a few: thank you. Not only did you make college basketball more fun for us fans to watch this year, but you probably did yourself a favor in the long run, too. Your college years only happen once in a lifetime, and 99% of the time the experience from college will remain with you longer than even a professional basketball career.

-Clutch performances. David West’s performance against Dayton, when he scored 47 points and had 18 rebounds, that may have been the best individual performance in years. Dwyane Wade’s triple double against Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament may have surpassed that. And how do you forget Nick Collison’s 20-20 on Big Monday? College ball is still a decidedly team-first game, but these guys literally carried their teams on their backs at these times and others throughout the year. And these are the most prominent ones-guys from Grant Anderson at Vermont (triple-double), to Ryan Iversen at Delaware (triple-double), to Ron Williamson at Howard (50 points in one game)-all had performances that had to leave some jaws on the floor at the places they were playing on given nights.

-3-point line. Whether or not the college three-point line should be moved back is always a hot debate and something many of us fight over. In the big picture, though, we’ll vote that the line is fine where it is. Percentages continue to show that while the three is becoming an easier shot for more players (meaning more and more players can and will take and make it), that doesn’t mean they’re shooting it more accurately. Until percentages show teams are actually making a higher percentage of threes-not just taking a lot more and making a few more-there’s no point in moving it back. It has to be remembered, too, that any changes to college basketball rules such as three-point lines, paint areas, or maybe even size of court, any change to such a rule has to be carefully and intelligently thought out. A new rule in those areas has to fit not only Division I basketball but also Divisions II and III. Even if maybe the line should be moved back for Division I, the general sentiment seems to be that it isn’t a problem in D-II or D-III.

-Carmelo Anthony. This column will never, ever endorse players jumping from college to the pros after one year. However, it was great to watch a player who, in his one year, was not only a superb individual talent, but didn’t disrupt the team and try to play showtime all the time just to show that talent. Usually if Anthony took over a game, it was because his team needed it, not because he was trying to see how many of his highlights ESPN would show. He still had traces of immaturity in his game, but he made up for it with his ability to pass and blend in with his team, unlike so many high school hot shots nowadays.

-Butler. A biased pick, but if you were one who felt bad for the Bulldogs last year when they were jobbed by the NCAA Tournament committee, you had to be feeling so vindicated when the team made its run in the NCAAs. Butler’s story was a fantastic one, a prime example of a team taking advantage of the opportunity given. That included the entire season, too, not just the NCAAs. This team played with an incredible burden all year, feeling (knowing?) they had to win nearly EVERY time out, because if they didn’t there would be national know-it-alls verbally ripping them apart. Think about it: team was snubbed last year with a better schedule, can’t get anyone with half a national name to play them this year, plays more than half of its games on the road, AND in conference play has a target on it the size of Dennis Miller’s vocabulary. Then, if said team so much as goes into overtime with Cleveland State, outsiders assume the sky is falling and pronounce that there’s no way Butler can beat a BCS team. Yet Butler won 27 games in these conditions and lost six. Next to the Final Four teams and the Arizona-Gonzaga classic, this team was the story of the tournament.

-Big Monday. Was there much better TV anywhere than the ESPN tripleheaders featuring the Big East, Big 12 and Mountain West conferences on Monday nights? Sure, the network has the arrogance of Microsoft and baseball labor negotiator Donald Fehr put together, but it still knows how to get it right some of the time.

-A cleaner game. The issue has been beaten to death in these spaces in recent months, so we’ll keep it short and sweet. In the second part of the regular season, referees did a better job of taking some of the football aspects out of the game, and it was much appreciated here. Hopefully, it will continue, because basketball should be about skill, not which team spends the most time in the weight room. Work still needs to be done on not allowing teams to bodycheck cutters (when comments are made on TV like “they’re doing a good job of arm-barring the cutters” there is something wrong). The NCAA Tournament also still featured some of the worst stripe work in any sport not called the NBA, but overall, things are getting better.

-Being wrong. Very early in the year, this writer wrote an article complaining about the lack of offense in the game. It wasn’t the best journalistic prose ever, and besides that, it was wrong. While there is room for improvement, offense isn’t quite the weakness it was thought during the early year. Despite all the complaints (many here) about diminishing fundamentals and the emphasis on defense, teams still can get up and down the court. Not in Oklahoma or Loyola Marymount ways, but when they want to, teams can still run. Kansas had a lethal fast break this year, somewhat due to some incredible finishers but mostly because the Jayhawks just wanted to run so much. And if you didn’t watch teams like Appalachian State, Tennessee-Chattanooga and East Tennessee State in the Southern Conference this year, you missed some of the most entertaining ball anywhere.

Furthermore, scoring isn’t always everything. That’s because maybe the best part about college basketball as a whole is the wide range of styles. You have teams like Kansas pushing the ball; you have teams that can kill with precision (see Princeton’s December game against Texas). You have teams like Marquette and Syracuse that rode one player a long way, and you have teams like Butler and Pennsylvania that painted a picture with their passing. Some teams, like East Tennessee and Oregon, featured super offenses; others, like Kentucky and Oklahoma, could dominate on defense. Heck, even the defenses vary, from the halfcourt man-to-man (Kentucky) to the fullcourt traps (Louisville) and back to the halfcourt zones (Syracuse and Temple).

Before sounding like a total creampuff, though, scoring could still be improved. There are still too many 55-52 games and not enough 104-97 games. Your average December guarantee game, now, falls more into the 86-39 category than to the 105-66 or so it used to be. Watching teams score barely over a point a minute is as bloody and painful about the equivalent (I would think) of running over your foot with a lawnmower-bloody and painful. Overall, though, the sky isn’t falling on this issue as much as thought.

-Motion on offense. Again, the feature that sets the college game far apart from the pro game. One-on-one moves are cool, but no cooler than watching a team pass the ball terrifically. If you want to see team play, not the one-on-one stuff you can see at any playground in a semi-large city, watch college basketball.

-The 35 second shot clock. It’ll probably never happen, but it would be nice to see the 45 second shot clock brought back.

Before pronouncing this as the idea of a nut job, please hear this out. Admittedly, some of the reason for this opinion is selfish. From this view, the game was a lot better when the clock was 10 seconds longer. There was more variety, and it gave more of an advantage to less athletic teams like Princeton. How many times did Pete Carril’s Tigers pass and work the ball for about 35-40 seconds, and then break a defense down for a backdoor play as the shot clock was winding down? With the clock shorter, you don’t see that as much, because teams don’t have to play defense as long, and that makes it a lot easier to hold defensive intensity for the entire shot clock time.

Also, I can’t offer statistics, but I do know I saw more shot clock violations this year than any other year of ever watching basketball. Some of that is due to weaker offensive skills, some of it is better defenses. With that plus lower-scoring games in general over the past several years, what those things tell me is that, in relation to the shot clock, the game is too far weighted to defense. Again, it’s a lot easier getting guys to play defense for 35 seconds than for 45. In it’s own way, it has somewhat diluted the game by making it easier for almost anyone to play defense. Whereas it used to be only a few teams built their identity around defense, now it seems most of the country does. So why not add some more time on the shot clock, make guys work an extra ten seconds, and then see how many teams play great D. That will make it tougher for everyone to concentrate on that end of the floor, and promote offensive creativity by coaches, who have become increasingly bland and uninvolved on that end of the floor, usually just calling set play after set play.

The bottom line to me is this was a rule that never should’ve been changed in the first place. Nobody ever complained the college game was too slow-paced when the shot clock was 45 seconds. It was long enough to make college ball very distinct from the pros, but short enough to keep us from boredom or five minutes of the four corners. In its purest form, basketball shouldn’t need a shot clock at any level, and the shorter the shot clock, the more artificial the game becomes. But if college is going to have one, it was a lot better having one much different than the pro clock, instead of the one now that is only 11 seconds different. The shorter the clock, the more the lines between NBA and college ball become blurred. Bring back the 45 second clock.

-Timeouts. Some of us can grumble forever about whether the style of the game should change. One thing that everyone ought to agree on, though, is that there are just way too many timeouts. Four TV timeouts per half, all at a minimum of 1 ½ minutes (why are they called TV timeouts when they’re now mandatory even at games with no TV?). That alone ought to be more than enough rest and commercial time, but besides those, each team is allowed five 30 second timeouts EACH for the game. Then, whoever takes a timeout first in the second half, that TO automatically becomes a full timeout. That makes nine full timeouts in a game, plus as many as nine 30 second timeouts. And that’s not even counting those ridiculous 30 second “substitution” times allowed when a guy fouls out.

What this has meant is the final two minutes of a college basketball game take about as long as the same amount of time in a football gameWatching the end of many games this year was almost agonizing at times. And it wasn’t just at the end of games, either. Pretty much any time one team ran off three baskets in a row, you’d see coaches “sensing” their team getting unraveled and calling time. As if basketball teams shouldn’t be able to play through a mini-run by the opponent.

What to do? You can’t ask coaches to not use TO’s if they’re available, especially the way so many micromanage games (as opposed to the old way of leaving them alone and trusting the players have been trained well enough to make the play). The only solution, then, is to limit them. With all the TV breaks, there’s no reason any team should need more than three timeouts in a game. Other than CBS’s quickie commercials in the NCAA Tournament, TV isn’t using these breaks anyway, so it’s not like it would be financially unfeasible to dump some.

-Toughness. Not that it’s a bad thing, just that it was overrated this year. If someone had a nickel for every time Oklahoma was described as “tough” this year, that person would be a millionaire. Most of the context for the term regarding the Sooners was their ability to play defense, rebound, and generally pull their opponents into an ugly game that they excelled in. Hollis Price might as well have changed his name to “Warrior” the way Eldrick Woods changed his name to Tiger, and many bragged about OU’s practice drills that might as well have been borrowed from Bob Stoops’s football workouts. The assumption by many was that this toughness was going to make Oklahoma better than others this year. Yet this trait the media always talked about couldn’t cover up an inconsistent offense or an inability to bust a zone, and when the Sooners needed some toughness to beat the Syracuse in what was essentially a road game in the NCAA Tournament, Oklahoma came up flat.

Not trying to rip the Sooners here, just trying to lend some perspective on the relativity of the term. Most of the points regarding toughness last year suggested the trait is more physical now than mental. Even in football that would probably be wrong, but in basketball it definitely is. No matter how physical a sport becomes, most of the toughness needed in any sport is still mental, not physical.

If, say, Arizona or Florida has as good a season as Oklahoma, are we to assume they weren’t as tough? Of course not. Therefore, talking about toughness too much trivializes the attribute, because no matter how “tough” a team is, no matter how many rebounding drills it conducts with guys wearing football shoulder pads, it still all comes down to putting the ball in the basket. To say Oklahoma won because of toughness is like saying Duke wins every year because it’s a good school-it’s the ultimate generic statement that’s overrated and doesn’t even begin to examine real factors behind the teams’ success.

-Experimental rules. The longer three-point line is debatable, but the wider lane is a change that should be shelved for infinity.

The three-point line was discussed on top. The justification for the wider lane is that it will help officials clean up play underneath the basket. Bull roar. Watching the NBA for five minutes ought to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a wider lane doesn’t make a hair’s bit of difference in whether guys fight for position underneath the basket.

What’s more worrisome is that, with a wider lane, the college game is going to continue to migrate into a carbon copy of the NBA, and that is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Watching an endless number of isolation plays in the pros is bad enough. Is college basketball really missing out by not having its share of them?

College basketball NEEDS to be distinct and unique from pro ball. It needs rules that make the game as different from the pro game as possible without boring fans to death or getting away from the basics of basketball. Also, if the rules committees really want to change rules, maybe change the amount of timeouts that are stretching games 2 ½ hours plus, or maybe make a rule stating any player flying out of bounds that tries to call timeout must have at least one foot on the ground to be able to do so.

-TV presentation of games. This is almost a preoccupation for me, but judging by comments I read in other places it’s something others think about, too, they’re just not as vociferous about it. To summarize my position on it, I guess I just don’t understand why the networks have kept messing with a good thing, to where they’ve made it very, very mediocre.

Networks need to lose all the goofy camera angles, show more meaningful graphics (identifying players coming into the game would be nice), and actually tell us the starting lineups BEFORE the game starts. This isn’t football, where there’s plenty of time between plays. Basketball is a quick-moving game, and we shouldn’t be in the dark about who’s on the floor until three minutes of the game have gone by.

It would also be nice to actually see, on major networks, halftime shows that update us on college basketball scores from the WHOLE country, instead of filling the time with the three top 25 scores, gossip news, one-sided analysis or updates on every sport but college hoops. That’s why we have all-sports news channels.

Also, a personal preference would be for networks to not keep the score on the screen every second during the game. It blocks some of the action, and it really doesn’t need to be up unless the score has changed…which is usually at least twice a minute anyway. That change probably won’t happen, but a number of the others should. Broadcasts really were better several years ago, because they were simpler. Basketball is a simple game to watch, and the broadcasts should be the same. Show and tell us who’s playing, their stats, what the team is doing, and make us feel like we’re learning about the teams. That’s it. Insightful X’s and O’s talk or even commentary on important issues, those things are fine, but the game doesn’t need over-the-court shots or all the Around the Horn or 54321 promos.

Oh, and a final thing: given the choice 100 times between watching the same game with or without the “Bottom Line” or one of these other score tickers, I would choose the game without at least 99 times. These potpourri updates were cute for a while, but now they’re just an annoyance. There are enough sports news channels, internet sites, and other sources available now that if someone really wants to know if Maryland is beating Florida State they can either look somewhere else or watch that game.

-Offseason. You know, as the year moves through April and now May, you question whether this sport is worth following year-round, because most of the offseason news is bleak enough to make one almost want to cry.

Coaches jump from job to job like Frogger crossing the river. We have analysts and writers who feel the sport ought to have free agency for recruits, complaining players should be able to follow coaches wherever they go without any penalty whatsoever. Others say coaches should be loyal to their players, yet don’t complain one bit when a player dumps a school to go somewhere else. We have players going into the NBA Draft, when they could obviously be helped by another year in college.

It’s a mess, and the biggest problem is too many just accept all the problems and don’t care enough to so much as talk about the RIGHT things. Everything is always explained by “this is a big business”, and whenever changes to make things more like they should be are suggested (such as actually wanting schools to graduate players) those making the suggestions are considered radicals who don’t know anything about the game.

Some of the problems can’t be changed. Coaches are always going to move around. Some players are always going to leave early for the pros. Neither party needs to do so as much as it does, though. The incentive to move around can be lessened, other problems can be changed, and thus there’s no excuse not to work hard to improve things.

How? Well, there are loads of suggestions, but ultimately whether they’re put in place is up to athletic directors, coaches, and the NCAA to decide. One thing that would help, though, is if we didn’t have prominent people in the sport always defending every dirty deed that takes place.

We have analysts defending every wrong committed. We have journalists practically lobbying for coaches to take different jobs. Again, the defense for everything is “this is a business.”

Whether it is or isn’t, are these people really helping things? The bottom line is, while athletes are going to a school for a coach, they shouldn’t be, and maybe instead of using these recruits’ predicament as a point to cry about the unfairness of this to the athlete, maybe it’s time to re-examine how out of whack this system is. Think about it: more likely than not, an engineering student isn’t going to go to Purdue for one teacher, they’re going for the whole program. Why is it just “whoop-de-do” to people, though, that this happens in college sports?

Sure, the idealists are the ones who are always told to “get real,” but there’s still a place for them, and they most certainly have a point. Instead of just dismissing everything that happens as the cost of doing business, it’s time to listen to what they say and take some action. If not now, than when? When the game blows up? When certain colleges lose all credibility by trying to move intercollegiate athletics completely away from the university?

I don’t care how much money a college basketball program is making. In the real scheme of things, if college basketball is being run the way it should be, there shouldn’t be that huge of a difference between a basketball player and an engineering student. Maybe, if players are really going to a school ONLY for the coach, maybe it’s time to identify this as a problem, instead of just accepting this so matter-of-factly as many do. It doesn’t HAVE to be this way, and saying that isn’t just some pie in the sky proclamation. If more recognized it, instead of just ignoring it, the emphasis on choosing just a coach could at least be lessened.

Personally, I get sick of always being told this sport is a business. It is, but it shouldn’t be nearly to the level that it is. Why so many just blindly accept the problems of the sport, just saying either “that’s just the way it is” or “everyone else does it”, why fans and the media take attitudes like that is beyond me. Obviously the major power colleges hold a lot of weight in everything in college sports, but one would still like to think there are a few more people that would stand up to the jokes of college athletics and the mockery they make of education. Apparently, though, “business” is always a convenient excuse for every wrong out there.

Thus endeth the final rant of 2003.

-We’ll hopefully get more into offseason news in the near future, but one of the most exciting hires of this offseason has to be at Drake, where the Bulldogs reeled in Dr. Tom Davis as their coach. For a program that hasn’t had much to smile about in years, this is a pick that already has been greeted with much enthusiasm. You can mark down this year’s upcoming Drake-Iowa game as a game you can’t or won’t watch but should, and one can only imagine how sweet it would be for Davis to knock off the school that ushered him out rather rudely. And for those worrying about Davis becoming the next Rollie Massimino, relax. Davis’s system was ahead of its time at Iowa and still works very well today. Just ask anyone who watched Wisconsin-Milwaukee this year, coached by Davis disciple Bruce Pearl. Plus, the chance to get back at Iowa should provide all the motivation he needs to keep his competitive level up.

Final note: hope everyone enjoyed the column this year. I may not know everything, and I may never get the chance to do it again, but it was fun, and hopefully everyone learned something throughout the year. At any level-not just the top, not just the bottom, everywhere-basketball is fun to watch and dissect. It’s not rocket science, but it is fun to talk about, and I’ve enjoyed talking about the country with everyone else all year.